Travel & Trails

Mom and I went on a trip together. We didn't do the things we planned, but we had a great time.

We picked Ha Ha Tonka State Park because we wanted to see the "castle" ruins. The story of the ruins is pretty cool, though a little bit sad. There is a .4 mile mostly paved trail that goes out to it. You can't go into it or climb on it, but it's neat to walk around and peak through the windows. I wonder if the area would've became a park if the house hadn't burned.

Apparently, Ha Ha Tonka is also home to the 12th largest spring in Missouri. They sprang that on us (haha..see what I did there&  there?) when we stopped in the visitor center. I'm a sucker for visitor centers and I really wanted a Ha Ha Tonka State Park shirt. They only had one shirt that said Ha Ha Tonka, and it didn't come in my size. Apparently Missouri is doing "The Year of the Trail," including a neat challenge issued by the governor to travel 100 miles of trail. That's awesome, cause that's my goal for the year, too! So I bought a hiking medallion for it. I also bought a Ha Ha Tonka medallion.


We planned a backpacking trip on Turkey Penn Hollow trail. We loaded up our packs and headed off on the supposedly 6.5 mile trail. We hadn't been hiking long when it started storming. Around mile 5.5, when we discovered the backpacking camp was after that marker, we decided to go on and hike out. We thought it was only 6.5 miles. Turns out, the mileage doesn't start at the parking lot. The Turkey Penn Hollow trail starts & ends partially down another trail, making the mileage for it a little over 7.5 miles.

Mom says it still counts as backpacking because we did the whole thing with our packs on. :)

Not staying on the trail for the night gave us an extra day on our trip. We went to the George Washington Carver Monument National Park.

Hiking Challenge

Random odd thing

I enjoy hiking, and I love seeing new places. I like the little random odd things as much as the big cool things. Lately, I've done most of my hiking all in one spot, and while at work.

I decided to challenge myself, to help myself branch out a little.

Before the end of the year, I'm going to cover 100 non-work miles of trail, by running or hiking, with at least half them not in Mount Magazine State Park.

I already went to Pedestal Rocks & King's Bluff. They were 2 loop trails that totaled around  4.3 miles.

Big cool thing

All the trails I've done since then have been while I was on the clock. The last few days, I've planned on on going on one of our trails after work. It's been raining and Boudreaux didn't want to get wet.

Mom and I are going to do some hiking soon. Amily has quite a few big hikes planned for us this summer. Sharing the trails will make the challenge even more fun!

My Mail Obssession & It's "Fix"

I love getting mail. Don't you?

When we were younger, my little sister wanted mail so badly that I would hide notes in the mailbox addressed to her from a "Secret Friend." She was too little to know that they weren't "real" letters, and she always seemed so happy to get them. I probably loved giving her those fake notes as much as she liked getting them. Mostly because I like to make my little sister happy, but also because I love mail.
 I liked mail so much that as a kid, I collected both stamps and postcards. Family would give me unsent postcards from places they had been or with pictures they knew I would like, and  I received stamps as Christmas gifts. Often, I would have pieces of my grandma's mail soaking to retrieve the stamps before she knew the mail had been delivered.

My love of mail didn't stop with stamps and postcards. I loved stationery, post-its, note cards, unique papers, weird envelopes, and oddly shaped pieces of mail. I have things like a giant foam kissing lip mailer and  plant-able notecards.

Now that I'm older, I still love sending and receiving mail. When I saw +Postcrossing, I knew I had to sign up and at least give it a shot. Not only have I had quite a bit of fun seeing sights from around the world and across the country, but Postcrossing.com has reminded me of how much I enjoyed collecting stamps and postcards.

Postcrossing is a free website that connects postcard and mail lovers from around the world. From their "About" page:
"The goal of this project is to allow people to receive postcards from all over the world, for free. Well, almost free! The main idea is that: if you send a postcard, you will receive one back from a random Postcrosser from somewhere in the world."

One of my favorite cards, from Taiwan.

I enjoy travel and would love see the world. Realistically speaking, I know that will never happen. Receiving postcards with amazing and unique sights from around the world helps soothe my wanderlust without putting my bank account in intensive care.

Postcards are easy to find, often for $.30 or so. International postage is $1.10. Because I get a card for every card I send, for $1.40 I get to see something new!

The postcards are fun and seeing all the different stamps is a treat. I also hearing from random people all over the world, even just tiny snippets of their life.

Being a numbers and lists kind of person, I really enjoy the section of Postcrossing where it tells you how far the cards have traveled. The postcard above traveled 12,593 km over the course of 10 days in order to reach me. Another card, from India, traveled 13,843 km and took 30 days to reach me.

My current goal is receive at least one postcard from each state in the United States. I have Delaware, Nebraska, California, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Florida. Some are from Fitocracy friends and some are from Postcrossing direct swaps. A direct swap is where if a person has it enabled, you can contact them to request a swap, without having to wait for the Postcrossing roulette to achieve your goal. I was recently contacted by a lady in Australia whose goal is to collect a card from every county in the U.S.!

Check out some of the postcards I have received in my postcard album on Picasa. Even if you think I'm crazy, you're likely to appreciate at least a few of the cards. If you think it sounds fun, head over to Postcrossing and sign up. Maybe our cards will cross.

Viva la Post Office!

World Travelin'

One day, I'm going to travel all over the globe: Australia, Germany, India, Thailand, Egypt, everywhere! Even though that is a long time off for me, it doesn't stop me from pretending! :)

I recently went to Tulsa, OK for work. A coworker and I decided to "eat around the world while we were there. We had a really good time doing it and probably ate just a little too much. (Good thing we also decided to work out together!)

Not pictured: the sinful German dessert!

Japanese is always one of my favorites.

Vietnamese got "Holy COW, that's a lot of food!

"

 We also had Greek, Italian, Mexican, Indian, and others. They were nearly all delicious. There was actually only one I didn't really like. It was the night we were stuck eating at the convention center. I had a hot dog. Not just a normal hot dog, but a GINORMOUS salty, tough thing in a slightly harder than ideal bun. I drowned it in relish and washed it away with a $5 Dr. Pepper. *shudder* We called it our "Chicago meal."



Anyway, our little culinary expedition was an inspiration. Okay, to be honest, the naan at the Indian restaurant probably did most of the inspiring. (It was THAT good.) When I got home, I decided I wanted to make my own naan. When I started looking up naan recipes, I found several other neat and yummy sounding breads from various countries and cultures.

I decided quite a while back to make all my own bread. I've done really well with that. In the past year, I can count on one hand all the bread I've actually bought. To up my baking skills and have a little more fun in the kitchen, I started a new project.

I've decided I'm going to "bake around the world." I want to make the traditional and ethnic breads of as many countries(territories, colonies, & dependencies) as I can. I'd like to make them as authentically as possible. Given that I'm from a very small town with limited fund, there will  be some corner cutting.

I also plan on learning more about the countries I bake from from Albania to Zimbabwe, but in no particular order.

If you have any suggestions or recipes, please share!