Traveling with Ariel Bravy

Snowstorm in Seattle!

Ariel — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:11:19 +0000

The past few days here in Seattle, after an unseasonably warm winter, we finally got slammed with an awesome snowstorm!!! Schools were cancelled for the rest of the week, very few people actually went to work, and Seattle practically shut down.

and it was the most fun I’ve had in ages!

Me having a blast hiking in the snow

So it doesn’t snow much here in Seattle. This part of the country is weird. We get a lot of rain, but rarely do we get storms. There’s water in almost every direction, but it’s not humid here. We’re 3 hours away from Canada where everyone lives in igloos, but it rarely dips below freezing, even in the wintertime. If you go east over the mountains, then you get the traditional bitterly cold winters and all that jazz. But here? Nope. Moderate.

So you can imagine my excitement when we actually started to get some snow falling Saturday night/Sunday morning!

My car Sunday morning

Being at work was great and it looked really beautiful there.

Our dealership starts getting snow Sunday

While I was there, I had some time to experiment with how different cars perform in the snow. AWD, FWD, RWD, with traction control on and with traction control off, AWD lock, etc… and it’s amazing how much of an effect the different setups have!

Remnants of my testing different cars' snow traction

Traction control is definitely awesome. Turn traction control off on a 3.8L RWD Genesis Coupe, crank the wheel, and floor it… Yeah… that’s an experience! It was fun, and it left my heart pounding afterwards.

It’s really great having the opportunity to learn what it’s like, and how to maintain control in different situations. Starting slow, and gradually speeding up, never actually getting dangerously out of control.

I wasn’t the only one having fun in the snow.

Birdy footprints in the snow

My new iPhone 4S has a front-facing camera too, so I had a chance to play with that.

Ariel at the dealership

Monday we continued to get some snow. Not a lot, but some soft falling. The flakes were really big, some as big as a golf ball! Fluffy and soft. They didn’t have much taste… :p

Tuesday was pretty similar, but it started to pick up a bit.

Snow falling more heavily at the dealership on Tuesday

One thing that was supernice in the afternoon was that at one point, the clouds broke and the sun shined down. I was in the back of the lot then and with the sun behind me, this beautiful glow was cast down over the cars on the lot. I loved it!!

The clouds break to let the sun shine on the snow-covered cars

While we were at work Tuesday, we spent almost all day watching radar maps. They were talking about this huge storm that was coming in from the coast. Though weather is really hard to predict here in Seattle for some reason, they were predicting 5-8″ of snow. For us that’s HUGE!

Fortunately Wed and Thurs are my days off work, so I didn’t have to go to work. The past few days, my manager, who lives in the mountains in North Bend, had been leaving his Veloster with its low profile tires at work and had been driving a used Santa Fe AWD we had. Definitely a good decision on his part! Some of the other people also did the same thing going home Tuesday…

Now WEDNESDAY was the day we got SLAMMED!

I woke up repeatedly that night, excitedly peeking out the window at the constantly increasing snow, then going right back to sleep.

It was… yeah…

My car covered in snow

I normally leave to work around 8:10am or so and there’s usually a bunch of cars that are already gone.

Today I went out to the parking lot around 10:30am, and this is what I saw:

My car Wednesday morning after the big snowfall, along with most every other car

SNOW!!

Have you noticed how full the parking area is? In my area of the neighborhood, with the exception of literally just one car, EVERYONE WAS STILL HERE!!

No one was going to work today…

Curious how the roads were looking, I pulled up the traffic cameras to take a look.

Downtown? Yep. Snow.

Traffic Camera - Denny, Stewart, and Yale

Down on Montlake in the U District where I used to live, yep. Snow. With a snowplow caught on camera.

Traffic Camera - Montlake

Down on I-5, one of the major highways here, the roads were pretty snowy, but the plows were doing a good job:

Traffic Camera - I-5 and 145th

About 2 miles south, down on 1st Ave and Northgate way near I-5, here was the view:

Traffic Camera - 1st Ave and Northgate

Last year when it snowed and I had my Subaru, you better believe I took it out to go drive in the snow! This year, in my FWD Sonata Turbo, I kept my car in place and decided to got hut hut it on foot.

Having taken my snow gear out of storage earlier that week, I busted out my winter arsenal and got dressed in snow pants, gaiters, traction devices, snow googles… the works!

It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve been hiking, much less got an opportunity to use my snow gear, so you better believe I made the most of it!

On the way out of my apartment complex, I ran into another guy walking out. He was carrying a sled behind him (like a husky dog in Alaska) and mentioned that he was going to the store to get more supplies.

Taking a sled to the store for more supplies

From here I took a left towards Aurora, one of the big streets that runs parallel to I-5. (It’s a big street, similar to Alpharetta Highway, for those of you from Roswell, with lots of stores, car dealerships, and more. Our dealership is a few miles down this road.)

It’s so beautiful walking down this street! The crunch of snow beneath your feet. The blanket of snow carefully resting on top of tree branches. The sound of quiet and the buzz of cars as the drive past. The white white white everywhere. The variety of soft snow, slush, ice, etc. How it was mostly AWD vehicles on the road, and some FWD cars, several with chains. The white grayness of the sky. The calm. The simplicity. I really enjoyed the walk solo.

Car tracks, foot tracks, and sled tracks towards Aurora

One thing I noticed is that often times it’s hard to tell where the curb is. In this picture above it’s pretty easy, but often times with snow accumulation on the sides of the roads, you have to keep an eye out for what’s the road and what’s sidewalk. Both when walking down the street as well as when crossing a street.

Driving through the slush on Aurora

We don’t have many true snow plows here in Seattle, especially compared to cities like Chicago. Often times 4×4 trucks will mount a blade to the front of the truck, like the one in the picture above, and turn into a snow plow when necessary.

After mozying around a shopping area for a minute or two, just to see how busy things were and if anything was opened (and surprisingly, quite a few places were!), I headed back towards my apartment.

Having taken my time slowly walking away from my apartment, I felt like running up the hill in my snow cleats. and that felt so good that I just kept jogging! I don’t know if it was the endorphins from the run, how good it feels when I exercise my body, the beauty of the snow, how much appreciation I had for all of it, but I don’t remember the last time I felt that good!!

Me having a blast hiking in the snow

Once I finally got back to my apartment, I cooked up a warm meal, and felt grateful for having power, heat, electricity, food, supplies, water, warm clothing, a roof over my head, a full tank of gas in my car, my backpacking stoves and food I can prepare without power just in case, and everything I needed.

The view out the back of my apartment

The next day, Thursday, we continued to get not only snow, but now also freezing rain. With the temperatures down to a whopping 27 degrees that night (heh… and this was considered a record low!), the snow had start icing up. The snow had become more crusty.

My car Thursday, once freezing rain had fallen too

One thing I really enjoy is being able to have an adventure close to home! It saves a lot of driving when the snow comes to you!

Donning my snow gear once again, I headed out for another hike.

Heading out my apartment complex

God this place is so amazing in the snow…

Beautiful snow-covered trees

People had kept talking about the snow. 2 inches. 4 inches. 5 inches. 8 inches. 12 inches. How deep was it?

Wednesday, the first day of the big dump of snow, I tried my official patent pending technique: Find an area of untouched snow and spear your hand into it, fingers first, and reach for the ground. Pulling my hand out, I estimated 4 inches.

I know most of you who live in snowier climates will go “4 inches? That’s nothing! Around here we get X!”

and you’re right, but for us that’s a lot! It’s all relative.

Floating on top of about 1 inch of snow

Thursday, with the continued snowing, we got even more. Enough to sink in past my ankle, and even above the top of my boot! (Thank goodness for gaiters!)

Eye-balling it now, it’s about 8 inches or so.

Sinking down past my ankles in snow

So out for a hike today, the plan was just to go have fun, enjoy the experience, and see what I would discover.

Before I even left the apartment complex, I already started finding snowmen!

Snowman and snowcat

This one even had a pet cat!

Snowcat

Some of the snowmen were even more decorative.

Snowman with a scarf

Sometimes, it’s all about the details.

Icicles hanging under the truck

Does it look like he’s making faces at you?

You smile with that snow

I know I post a lot of pictures of my car, but I can’t get enough of this!

My snowy car loving the snow

Out and about, taking a right out of the neighborhood, there were plenty of things to find!

A modded STI

Here’s a vehicle wearing the set of Z-chains I’ve used and really like. They’re easy to mount, work well, and you don’t have to stop to retighten them once they’re mounted.

I love this style of tire chains

Here’s a big full-size snow plow.

Snow plow

There was a mail truck at this little shopping area and the lady was getting her chains repaired. The previous day at a nearby speedbump, she’d damaged her chains. Today she broke them, so she had a truck driver come by to repair them for her.

Mail truck after getting her chains fixed

She was really nice and friendly. When she saw me taking a picture after we finished talking, she rolled down her window to say that the mail was going to arrive, even if it would be a little late!

I talked to the truck driver as well and though he was a little less happy, I thanked him for coming out and doing his part to help.

Drive slow!

Hiking down the street, I marveled at the fact that you can drive on snow, without your tires ever touching pavement. This is amazing to me.

Cruisin' on the snow

and I loved the way some of the homes were nestled into the snowy environment.

A cozy snowy home

There was a neighborhood down the street so I felt like ducking in along the way.

Snowman with a tie and with hair

When I saw these two snowmen, I LOL’d.

Walking down the street, I said hello to another guy walking by who said he was going a bit stir crazy and needed to get out. He also mentioned he was getting a headache from lack of caffeine (Oh Seattle, lol…) , so I can only assume he was walking to one of the nearby coffee shops.

This snowman even has buttons and arms

Buttons!

One of the big highlights of this neighborhood was the goggle of kids playing. There were digging in the snow, sledding down hills, and just generally having a great time together while their parents watched.

Little kids playing in the snow

The kids sledding down the hill together were having fun, so I got a shot of them.

Sledding down the hill

After shooting this, I started to turn around to continue on, but I felt this inner tugging to stay. Perhaps sensing my hesitation, one of the moms introduced herself to me and I met some of the other parents there. Cool people.

This probably sounds totally silly, but she noticed me watching the kids sledding down the hill and asked if I wanted to go as well, mentioning one of the extra sleds sitting idly at the bottom of the hill.

“I’m 27 years old. I’m not supposed to do kid things like that,” I thought.

“Sure, that sounds like fun!” I wound up responding. lol…

So I grabbed a sled and hiked up the snowy hill. Waiting for the kids to clear the way after their previous run, noticing how most of them wiped out on the curbs, I wanted patiently for a good time while eyeing the slopes and turns of the hill to try and figure out the best route, then kicked off and down I went.

The right curb! Leaning hard left, I tried to steer back into the street.

The left curb! I was successful at going left, but this only shot me sideways into the other side of the street. Unable to avoid the left curb, I wiped out when I hit the curb, and flew flat onto my back, almost as if I was making a snow angel. Relaxed and yet sliding down the hill on my back with a big grin on my face, I slid towards a fence as snow started to pour down into my neck.

Laughing at how ridiculous I felt (in a good way) for letting myself play like a little kid, I got up, brushed myself off, returned the sled, said thank you, and happily kept walking.

Continuing down the street, I saw some other kids in the distance playing on an adjacent hill. They also had sleds. One even had a bike he was attempting to ride down the hill.

Bigger kids playing on another hill

Speaking of hills, continuing walking down the street, on the other side of the street, there was another big hill. Much to my surprise, I saw people skiing down the hill!!

Skiing down the hill, and a driver waiting for the skiers to make it

I love seeing people do silly stuff like ski in town.

The guy at the bottom was waiting for his girl to come down.

There was a vehicle at the top of the hill. They waited patiently at the top for the people at the bottom to make it down before they started ever so slowly and carefully inching down the hill. (admittedly morbidly curious, I stayed to watch the truck come down, wondering if it would slide into a ditch or make it down successfully. Fortunately, it did.)

Smiling at the skiers and watching them ski down this hill, they saw me, smiled, and posed for the camera.

The skiers posing for the camera

When they got to the bottom, they started to ski down the sidewalk. This made me laugh.

The skiers cross country skiing down the sidewalk

Hiking on, cars continued to go by as I neared the grocery stores on the corner up ahead.

Snowy roads

As I approached the grocery stores, I noticed a mom and her daughter playing with one of the bushes. The daughter was laughing as she knocked the snow off the bush, branch by branch.

Sled with supplies coming back from the grocery store

Having sleds. I guess this is something that the locals do. That and having reusable shopping bags because, again, this is Seattle.

Across the street you’ll see PCC, a local organic sustainable market. On the left side of the street is a QFC, one of the main supermarket chains here on the area. It looked busier so I went there first.

The QFC was hoppin'

Now I didn’t need anything from the grocery store since I had gone a few days earlier, but I was eager to see how busy this place was and if people would be buying up a storm… no pun intended.

There were definitely people there and as I clacked along in my snow cleats, I watched as people shopped naturally. There was no empty shelves. Just a nice full fully stocked store. Very nice.

Next I headed over next door to the PCC.

PCC

When I got here, I felt like checking into foursquare on my phone for some reason. When I did, I unlocked a deal that gave me a free cup of soup.

Thank you! A free hot meal after hiking in the snow for a while! How wonderful! So picked up a cup of this delicious looking Hungarian mushroom soup. Then I headed over to the kombucha section to get a drink to go with it.

Kombucha

Enjoying the drink and knowing it was really healthy, I asked what was so special about kombucha, since I still don’t really know. The guy I asked wasn’t totally certain either so he picked up a bottle of it and it said that it was good for digestion and a whole list of stuff, right on the label. Oh, right, that was easy.

I picked up a bottle myself and laughed at what I saw:

Found Abraham-Hicks on a Kombucha bottle

PCC has a little lunch area with picnic tables where you can have a seat. I talked to the people nearby, including this one dude who was also wearing a ski mask. He said that he was going up the street to go snowboard down a hill. Way cool.

Once I finished my nice tasty meal, I smiled and waved to a little shy kid who smiled back and then headed back out.

It felt cold to be back outdoors again!

Zipping my pitzips back up, I started hiking back.

On the way, I spotted an odd four wheeler going by, which made me feel like I was in redneck town. :p

The driver gave me a fist pump as he drove by and saw me taking a picture.

Two kids cheering as the drive down on a 4 wheeler

Since I was feeling cold at this point, I decided to jog back, picking up the pace, and warming my body back up quickly.

It was a wonderful jog back.

A Subaru cruisin' back

When I finally got home, I started checking the weather again. Would I be able to drive to work tomorrow? Hopefully not. It looked like it was supposed to both warm up and rain tomorrow, so driving conditions looked good. or at least getting gooder.

When I got up the next morning, I made sure to give myself plenty of time to both clean off my car, if I was going to go, as well as make the drive safely and slowly.

When I got to my car, the snow was pretty crusty, having frozen and much of it getting iced up. Brushing it away didn’t seem to work all that well, but gently pounding the snow with my arm/fist was enough to break it up so I could knock the snow off the car.

I gotta admit I was pretty sad to watch the snow go, to clear it all off the car. But when it was all said and done, I was able to get it all clear.

Car after I knocked all the snow off

Even though some of the snow was piled up in front of the car, I was able to get out and leave the neighborhood. The apartment complex was definitely snowed in, but once you get out, the plows had been through so it was pretty straightforward to get it.

The dealership itself was still snowed in, and it took me 3 tries to make it up a hill to park but I eventually got in.

Later that day it started raining, and the snow was starting to warm and disintegrate, turning into dirty slush.

Slush forming at the dealership

The forecast actually called for flooding in some areas. The rain had actually started to carve little rivers in the snow as it melted. Stomping and splashing through the rivers, I walked towards the road, finding myself standing in about 4″ of water intermixed with the browning slush. I was way fun to walk around in, and I was amused how the water would actually cool down my feet as I stood in it with my waterproof boots.

The rest of the day, other than selling a car and working my internet leads, consisted of a lot of playing and stomping around in the snow and slush.

This is definitely fun stuff.

I love this.

Last Day in Sedona

Ariel — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 19:11:12 +0000

Rental car in front of Bell Rock at sunrise

For our last day in Sedona, I wanted to get up early and shoot a sunrise. Since our hotel, Bell Rock Inn, was literally a minute or two drive away from Bell Rock, this was the natural choice. Shooting the sunrise here was a great start for the last day in this beautiful location…

I got to Bell Rock well in advance of sunrise so that I could do a bit of scouting and find the best location to shoot from.

When I got there, I noticed that Bell Rock wasn’t the only big rock sticking up in the area. There was also another big rock structure to the east of it. Since the sun also comes up from the east, I whipped out my phone to see exactly where the sun would be coming up from, and if the rocks to the east would block the light of the sun.

"The Photographer's Epemeris" app screenshot of sunrise at Bell Rock

Bell Rock is at the center of the X.

To the right is the lighter colored blob, the big rock to the east that I was wondering whether or not would block the sunrise light.

The yellow line leading up to Bell Rock is the path of the sun’s light at sunrise. (The other lines represent sunset, moonrise, and moonset.)

Looking at this screenshot, I was able to see that the sunrise light would be unobstructed this morning. Woohoo!!

So after parking my car and hiking towards Bell Rock from the south (the blue dot in the above screen shot is me), I started scoping out the area and taking some sample shots.

Trail leading straight to Bell Rock pre-sunrise

I experimented with a different compositions. Some with the trail leading right into Bell Rock. Others with the trail swooping off to the side.

The trail continuing on towards Bell Rock

As the sun would be rising from my right, the moon was quickly setting to my left, behind another array of red rocks.

Moonset just before sunrise near Bell Rock

I was hoping that I could get a wide, sweeping panorama with the sun rising on one side, the moon setting on the other, and the rocks aglow all around me.

The way the lighting and timing and weather worked out this morning, the clouds would thicken and cover up the moon as it set, but it would dip down behind the rocks in the west a few minutes before the sun peeked up from the east. Oh well.

After doing some scouting and getting the best vantagepoint I could find for nice trails in the foreground, desert plantlife scenery in the middle, and as much of the rocks as I could get fitting through the trees and all, I got my camera gear in place to shoot some panos.

While shooting panos with my main camera, I also pulled out my phone camera for some quick snappy snappies to post on facebook.

Bell Rock at sunrise

As the light progressed and the sun continued to rise, I got to shoot a number of different panos.

I think this is one of the places where you really have to be there to really get a feel for it, to turn your head from side to side and see everything standing up before you, to watch the light as it changes as the sun rise… but hopefully a panoramic photo will work.

Bell Rock sunrise pano

After successfully shooting several panoramas (in between people hiking through and walking their dogs down the trail), I packed up and headed back to my car.

Rental car in front of Bell Rock at sunrise

From the parking lot I was overjoyed to find a picture perfect photo op of my rental car in front of Bell Rock. (I love my car in scenic location pics!)

After heading back, packing up, and checking out, Anna and I hopped in the car and headed out to go meet Matt and Julie at a stupa they knew about. What’s a stupa? I’m not quite sure but it’s time to go find out!

Amitabha Stupa

So in Sedona you’ve got this stupa, which seems to be a place where Buddhists go to pay their respects to Buddha and perform their rituals. It’s this big tower with a worn trail that runs around it where people have walked laps around the stupa.

Walking around the stupa

Curious to learn more about what this was, I found this stand with some information about the stupa, as well as a nice photo of it from behind. Great idea! I like it and am gonna copy it!

Buddha statue behind the stupa

(Sometimes it definitely helps to see other people’s shots for ideas, especially when they’ve spent quite a bit of time there…)

Anyways, after doing the photo thing, I set down my gear and spent some time quietly meditating. I also decided to go try out walking around the stupa and found it to be really enjoyable. It’s like your mind would go quiet as you would focus on the repetitive task. Out of your head and into the moment. Cool.

This guy walked countless laps around the stupa

There was this one guy who, well, you can read the caption above. He had these rosary-like beads in his hand, which I guess would help him keep track of how many laps he’d done this far. He just kept walking and walking, doing countless laps around the stupa.

Wrapping Up and Heading Out

After finishing up here, we all headed out together to go visit some stores together before heading out.

Anna wanted to find some bird feathers which she wound up finding.

Julie wanted to get an agave didgeridoo from literally a guy who makes them, and she wound up doing exactly that, which was an interesting story unto itself!

While we were at a shop looking for didgeridoos, at one point I approached some Native American knives on display. I picked one up and somehow instantly knew endless details about these knives: how to use them in combat, how to hold them, how durable they are, different materials used over time to craft the knives including wood, stone, bone, metal, etc… and yet I’ve had no training with Native American weaponry or any serious training with knives in the first place. (Just a few basic ways to defend yourself against a knife from karate years ago when I was young, sure, but nothing like this…)

Just after all this information flooded into my awareness, Julie walked up behind me and casually said, and I paraphrase, “In this lifetime you’re not meant fight and kill with your knife. This time you’re here to use your sword of love to penetrate into the depths of other’s hearts.”

“Whoa,” I thought.

“That reading was free,” she jokingly added.

(Since then I’ve purchased a military grade knife off of Amazon. It’s a huge step up from the smaller and lighter backpacking knives I carry. I don’t know why but I feel like I have experience with this knife, a familiarity with it. At the same time, I have this unexplainable disinterest when holding the blade and using it, similar to a child who’s just tired of playing with his old toy.)

Past life stuff and me evolving, perhaps?

(I accidentally wrote that as evoloving… and I like that.)

Gassing up our car to hit the road, I was taken aback by finding these sitting by the cash register…

Scorpion suckers

Yes! Those are real scorpions inside those suckers!! Crazy…

From here on out, it was pretty chill. Took Anna to a Cracker Barrel in Phoenix since she’d never been (southern comfort food!!), gassed up the car, and off we headed back to Seattle.

What a great trip! Full of plenty of unexpected events, but that’s how these things always seem to go.

Until next time!

11/11/11 in Sedona, AZ

Ariel — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 19:11:18 +0000

Aliens in Sedona on 11-11-11 (Photo shot by and blue sky added in by Julie, aliens photoshopped in by Ariel.)

Yesterday when we went to Shaman’s Cave, the original plan was to visit all of the vortexes in Sedona and choose which one to be at on 11:11 on 11/11/11, but that hike turned out to be WAY more than we had initially anticipated. Since there’s really only a few vortexes in Sedona, we figured it would be easy enough to just go check them out in the morning, feel our way around, and then decide which one we wanted to be at at 11:11am. Time to go check out some vortexes!

First off, where are these vortexes? Well conveniently enough, there’s an app for that!

The main vortexes in Sedona include the Airport Mesa, Bell Rock, Cathedral Rock, and the Chapel of the Holy Cross.

The Airport we had already been to and so we decided to go check out Bell Rock next since it was really close to our hotel.

Bell Rock Vortex

Julie checking out Bell Rock

It looked like today would be a bit overcast. Feels like being back in Seattle, almost.

Now what was going to happen today, if anything, I honestly had no idea. I’d heard lots of things but honestly I have no idea what to believe… so for me it was simply about going on the journey and then finding out, as life unfolds, what would happen.

One random cool thing we spotted there was that there was a guy up on top of Bell Rock!! I have no idea how he climbed up there, maybe from the back, but it was pretty wild to see this speck of a person up on top doing yoga poses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1t4NQcGiE4

Evidently Lake Titicaca, in South America, was the first spot that would go through the 11:11 transition and the energy from there would go straight into Sedona at that time. We did the time zone math and found that that would be at 8:11am, Sedona time.

So when we got to Bell Rock, we naturally did a little exploring to look around and find a place to sit and meditate a bit, in time for 8:11.

(Matt had mentioned that he went through some process the night before, around 3am or so, and that his process was already complete. Cool.)

Once we started getting settled in at Bell Rock, Julie found herself a nice spot. Anna hiked off and found herself a spot too. Matt and I sat down in the same area and started meditating.

Now while meditating, I was just open to whatever would happen, if anything, with no real expectations. Shortly after I began, I started to feel more of ME turn on. I’m not sure how to describe it, it’s not so much a physical body or emotional body… if anything it was more of an energetic/etheric body. It felt like I was becoming aware of more of what I was, more of my body than my physical body, and as if things were turning on.

It was different than the sensation of an out of body experience. It’s not what I used to call “my real body” vs. “my physical body” when starting to have an OBE. This was decidedly different. It’s what I’ve felt before when intentionally meditating and asking for DNA activations.

In any event, whatever was happening was happening. Once it felt like that stage of the process completed, I opened my eyes and turned to Matt and said, “Lightbody activation.”

(I don’t know why or how I knew that. It just seemed incredibly obvious that that’s what had happened.)

He was excitedly telling me about shifting between parallel dimensions and alternate realities and I was enjoying this new shift that I was experiencing.

It didn’t feel in any way like it happened because we were in Sedona. We just happened to be in Sedona when this particular experience happened.

After this, Julie wanted to go hike up a bit and check things out closer to the rock. Anna and Matt stayed back to talk and I went up to go join Julie.

Red rocks from Bell Rock (iPhone HDR)

From the rocks, you could see the orange landscape, the big red rocks, these awesome leafless trees, dry grasses, cacti, desert bushes, and just a great view.

Even when you get up to Bell Rock, the texture and striations of the rock itself is really interesting to look at up close… seeing the dots and patterns and lines in the stone… lots to explore.

Chapel of the Holy Cross Vortex

The next vortex we went to go check out was at this cool church which was embedded into the rocks in Sedona, a small church called the Chapel of the Holy Cross.

(I realized afterwards that I didn’t get any good shots of the chapel, so here’s an image from Wikipedia.)

Chapel of the Holy Cross (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

Since Matt had tweaked his ankle the day before on the hike at Shaman’s Cave, we decided to drive right up to it and keep the hiking as minimal as possible. Here’s a quick shot of Matt checking out the view from the Chapel:

Matt beside the Chapel of the Holy Cross

Now something interesting on the way up to the chapel that you’ll find is this huge fricken mansion, complete with green grass (yes, in the desert) and even an observatory in the back!!

Mansion with actual green grass

It comes with several waterfalls, some stone walking paths, fresh blooming flowers, a gazebo, a pond, and way more… It was beautiful, yet oddly out of place. You can see it here, as seen from the chapel, and how out of place it is, relative to all the other buildings in Sedona.

The huge and oddly out of place mansion

One thing I really liked about the architecture here is that everything is designed to blend with the landscape. This I found to be true all throughout the southwest, including NM, AZ, and TX. Basically the houses match the color of the surrounding areas (muted green/brown for trees, red/orange for stone, etc.). Everything is designed to blend. Even at night the lights from the house are designed to be non-intrusive so they don’t overpower the landscape when the sun sets. It’s all tucked in and nestled in, and I really enjoyed this.

Anyways, hopping back to the subject at hand, let’s go back to the chapel. So on the way up, you’ll find these cool desert plants, but this is true everywhere, really.

Desert flowers and red rocks

Stepping inside the chapel, the energy really does feel great. (The again, if you go to a synagogue in Israel where people have been praying for thousands of years, you can feel strong energy there too.)

Inside the chapel is a really wonderful experience.

Inside the Chapel of the Holy Cross

Music was playing when we walked in. There was no church service or anything. Inside there were these huge windows looking out over the landscape. There’s plenty of seating areas in the rows in the back, as well as more seating along the sides of the walls which is where most people sat. The main rows were nearly empty and the benches along the wall were nearly packed. You’d see people meditating, smiling, hugging, and just enjoying themselves. It really was a wonderful feeling place. Back towards the front (which sounds kinda weird to say it like that), you’ll find candles on both walls. I went and lit one and it was fun.

After spending a bit of time appreciating the inside of the tall tall chapel, we went back outside to head out to the next area, but not before appreciating more of the architecture and landscaping all around us.

An awesome sign we found

Cathedral Rock

The clock was starting to tick closer to 11:11am and we decided to head on down to the next vortex, Cathedral Rock. Apparently this is a highly photographed area of Sedona, so the photographer in me was happy to be going here.

Getting to the vortex, we followed the exact GPS coordinates that I had to the vortex. Unfortunately, they took us to a road that had been closed down. The clock is ticking! Now what?

Going back down some dirt roads we’d come up and amusing passing a road named Disney Lane, we headed into Red Rock Park, got directions to where we needed to go, turned back around yet again, and continued heading back towards Cathedral Rock literally just minutes before 11:11.

At this point, I start getting really amused. All this work to get to Sedona for 11/11/11, trying pick the best spot for 11:11, and angels parting the heavens or anything, this all seemed comical to me. Is this how it was going to go down? Trying to figure out how to get to a parking lot and not actually being somewhere for when the clock ticks past?

We roll into the parking lot with maybe 1-2 minutes to spare… With Matt’s ankle, Julie drops us off near the front as she goes back to park the car. We start walking down the sidewalk as the clock ticks over to 11:11.

11-11 screenshot

I grab my camera and snap a shot of us walking down the sidewalk towards Cathedral Rock:

Strolling down the sidewalk at 11:11am

To me, this is the funniest thing ever… Nothing big, nothing special, just totally ordinary everyday life. I was loving it and grinning goofily (if that’s even a word).

Anna meditating at the base of a tree like a Buddha

Anna figured this was a good time to meditate and so she found a nice little spot and sat down to do just that.

…so this is it?

As we wait for Julie to come back from parking the car, I head off to go to the bathroom. Yeah, this is about as unceremonious as it can get.

Once Julie arrived, we continued walking on over towards Cathedral Rock, making sure Matt was still okay with walking on his ankle.

After passing a wedding group (turns out there were a number of them here in Sedona we’d spot for 11-11), there was this beautiful field that would open up, compete with yellowing grass, fall colors in the trees, and a long since abandoned mill.

Sweet mill on the way towards Cathedral Rock

If you remember the picture from the opening of the blog post, it was from this location.

Since we didn’t have any aliens come down and join us as the clock ticked over to 11:11, here’s some fun little photoshoppy action to pretend that they did.

Aliens in Sedona on 11-11-11 (Photo shot by and blue sky added in by Julie, aliens photoshopped in by me.)

Continuing on down the walking path, you head under a canopy of trees and eventually wind up arriving at this area with red-orange stone (surprise! heh) and a nice view of Cathedral Rock with a river flowing past in the foreground:

People enjoying Cathedral Rock

Walking closer to the water, I continued snapping away.

On the edge of the red stone, looking at Cathedral Rock

Matt and Julie had sat down to enjoy the view and click some more photos.

Going for the ‘postcard’ shot of the rocks, I walked up to the water, composed, and fired away.

Cathedral Rock behind the trees

With the overcast lighting and barren foreground trees, it wasn’t exactly knock-your-socks-off picturesque, but it was still nice.

Now just off to the left from here, there was this trail that continued on. I wouldn’t have known about this, but Julie told me about it so we continued hiking on while Anna and Matt stayed back.

Just a little ways in, we stumbled across this rock with tons of little stacks of rocks. Snap snap snap!

The first set of stacked rocks

As we shot pictures of this, someone was hiking back out. We asked him if there were more of these rocks and he was like, “This is nothing compared to what’s up ahead. This is just the beginning…”

Turns out he was right.

As you continued to hike on, there were literally fields and fields full of rocks!

Rocks stacked amongst the trees

When you’re hiking, stacks of rocks like these are called “cairns” and are typically used to designate where the trail is. When you’re hiking through the woods, you’ll get a wipe of paint down a tree, called a blaze, which let you know that you’re on the trail. Different color streaks designate different trails. Ever heard the term “trailblazer”? Well that’s meant for people who go into the outdoors and create a trail, marking the trail with blazes as the go along. Hence the term trailblazer.

In locations where there’s not an easy way to create a blaze, which is common in rocky mountains or desert environments, you stack rocks to create cairns. In this area, the stacked rocks were more artistic than anything else.

Gettin' down low with the rocks

This place, as cool as it was, was actually really hard to shoot…

The more you’d walk, the more fields of rocks you’d find.

Stacks and stacks and stacks of rocks

This is a place where you can really appreciate all the time and energy people had put into building the cairns. Whether you build one yourself, build upon someone else’s, or just quietly stroll through and appreciate the work of others, it feels like everyone has a role here and everyone contributes. It’s mass cooperation, and I love it.

Stacked rocks in the water

Anna and Matt were getting super hungry so we didn’t want to spend too much time here, even though you could get lost here for hours, but eventually we started making our way back. Julie was looking everywhere for an Ohm sign in the rocks and didn’t see one, so she created one herself.

Julie making an Ohm out of rocks

Once we left here, we were all really hungry, so we wound up heading on off to a delicious pizza place in the area.

Getting a little woo-woo

In the parking lot there, I stumbled across a nice Sedona find… An Ashtar Command truck!

Ashtar Command car sighting on the way to lunch

I’m not particularly familiar with them, but I know they’ve probably got some youtube videos out. They’re probably some channeled entities or something.

(Last time I was in Sedona with Glenn in the beginning of 2010, we found a UFO store. It must have closed down since because we didn’t see it this time around.)

In any event, after getting a nice delicious meal of Italian food, we headed out to go check out some of the more woowoo sides of Sedona.

One of the most visible spiritual arenas is this building near one of the main roundabouts in Sedona called the Center for New Age.

The Center for New Age and their big mural

Inside you could find all sorts of books, crystals, and so on, as well as different intuitive readers and psychics.

Around back they had a person who offered UFO tours. You’d basically go out at night with nightvision goggles and you could go spot UFO’s.

Anna and Matt both opted to have their auras photographed and analyzed here at the center. Julie wasn’t interested in it so she left to go explore elsewhere while I sat in and listened to Matt’s reading and Anna’s reading.

The Center for New Age

Basically what happens when you go for an aura reading is you sit in a room in front of a box/camera and they take a picture of you while you have your fingers on this metallic sensor box thingy. Scientific names, I know.

I was actually surprised how spot on both Matt’s and Anna’s readings were! The lady who did the readings would look at the polaroid-like photograph that would come out, and she was also really intuitive, so she could put the pieces together and give you a nice reading.

I wound up coming back the next day to get mine read. Here’s my aura photo:

Ariel's aura photo

(Interestingly enough, the photo looked very similar to the aura photo I had done several years back. I think they used the same technology which would make sense.)

Anna’s photo looked similar to mine, but a bit different. Matt’s was way different with a bunch of violet energy.

Looking at my photo, for example, the red had to do with a lot of intense creative energy in me. I believe the yellow off to the side has to do with organization and future abundance. The gap in the aura above my head has to do with the connection up to spirit. The lady went into intense detail about my creative energies, specifically targeting photography, was able to know that my intuitive gifts were not regarding clairvoyance (seeing things) or clairaudience (hearing things), but clairsentience (just knowing things), knew that energy healing would be a good match for me (I’ve done the reconnection and am a reiki master), knew that running my own business is good for me, and so on.

Even though the reading was so spot on, I was a bit let down by it. I felt like it just wasn’t useful. I mean great, you can really read me and tell me all about myself, but I already know all that. I live it every day. Tell me how I can do something useful with it. Then it’ll be helpful. Nevertheless, it is pretty surprising how spot on a person can get doing this…

Alien watching for 11:11 pm:

After bopping around town and checking out lots of different restaurants for dinner, we wound up stopping at a restaurant up atop the airport mesa near the Vortex. They were actively advertising themselves as the most expensive place in Sedona, yet their prices weren’t actually all that outrageous. Amusingly enough, I think this place was the least amount of money we’d spent… ordering just tapas and waters since we weren’t all that hungry. :p

After dinner it was definitely dark. Since we were already up at this vortex, we decided to wait out until 11:11pm and check out more aliens if we could spot any.

At this point it was cold. It was definitely cold. We were all bundled up. Some of us just wanted to go back. Some of us really wanted to spot something. Some wanted to stay. Some wanted to go. In the end, we decided to wait until 11:11 and see if we’d see anything.

After chilling up there for a while (no pun intended) and as 11:11pm approached, I asked Matt if he could sense anything or communicate with anyone up there. He said that he didn’t feel anything and that it’s not something he necessarily initiates. They simply come to him and begin the dialogue and he’s here open to whatever happens. Made sense to me. But he didn’t have any senses of anything going on or about to happen.

11:11pm came and went and as soon as 11:12 hit, we all loaded up the cars and went back to our hotels to finally get some sleep…

Definitely a unique day!

Shaman’s Cave and Intuition

Ariel — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 19:11:07 +0000

Shaman's Cave

So now day 2 in Sedona, or perhaps day 1 if you wanna call it that. It’s Thursday the 10th of November. We decide to go check out various different vortexes in the area, feel them out, and decide which one we’d want to be at for 11:11 on 11-11-11.

For our first stop, we decide to take a little hike out to a place Julie had heard about called Shaman’s Cave.

Julie had this vision even before we left to Arizona that we would meet some guide on a mountaintop who would guide us to exactly where we needed to go. One of those cliche stories you hear about, and yet that’s what what she envisioned.

So coming back to the topic of Shaman’s Cave, it’s not exactly a tourist hotspot… It’s one of those places where you have to know someone who’s been there and can tell you about it and give you directions. It’s just outside of town down some dirt roads. The directions we got were good, though a little unclear, and we wound up going down some rougher roads than anticipated.

Driving towards(ish) Shaman's Cave

Driving down gravely roads, we missed out first turn and went further than we needed to. Stopping near a hiking area with some ancient artifacts and whatever the word is for those cave drawings on the wall, we checked out a map of the area to get a better feel for the roads. While here we took a few minutes to explore and snap some pics.

Snapping some pics of the red rocks when we stopped to get oriented

The photographer in me got to have a little fun here…

Water! Reflections! Turns out muddy reflections don't work as well as clear water =)

Once we got oriented and figured out exactly where we needed to go, we backtracked a bit to find the next road we needed to take. Matt was intuitively having conversations with the Spirits of the Land in the backseat. (For those of you who don’t know, he grew up having conversations with angels, spirit guides, and ascended masters, and he’s incredibly intuitive, perhaps one of the most intuitive people I’ve ever met. His and Julie’s website is here.) While driving towards Shaman’s Cave, Matt shared with us that the Spirits of the Land told us that to find the cave, we’d have to be vigilant and persistent. Vigilant and persistent. (Oh how right they’d turn out to be…)

Finding this place required knowing exactly what to look for and spotting tiny signs that mark roads. We really had to keep an eye out to find the next road and the next and the next.

There was about a mile of rocky off-roading action that we could either drive or hike to get closer to the trailhead. We started driving up this road when it struck me… “Wait, is this that road you mentioned we needed a high clearance vehicle for?” Bottoming my rental car out a bit on a boulder confirmed to me that yes, this is it.

Backing up back down the rocky hill/road, I was able to find a place to turn around and drive forwards down to a parking area where we could grab our packs and hike up the road instead. With snacks and water and cameras and GPS gear in my pack, we started hiking up towards Shaman’s Cave!

A little over 1.1 miles in, there’s a parking area and an unmarked trail on your right that leads towards the cave.

Anna hiking down the unmarked trail towards Shaman's cave

As you may expect in a desert, there’s cacti everywhere!

Cactuses cactuses everywhere-se-ses

They’re not the tall saguaro cacti that were down in Phoenix, the ones you see in roadrunner cartoons, but shorter, almost pancake-like, cacti.

Matt and Julie enjoying the hike

This was Matt’s first hike ever and he was doing such a great job! It definitely wasn’t an easy hike, but he was rockin’ it.

Anna was thoroughly lovin’ it too.

Anna!

I really loved the feeling of this area. The view pictured below somehow felt familiar, like I’d been there in a past life or something…

I love the variety of green plants that live on this slope up towards the ridge... cacti, trees, brush, grass, bushes...

As we continued towards the back side of the big red rock where the cave should be, we knew from the directions we got beforehand that there would be some walking on walls we’d have to do to get to the cave. Every path we tried to take was WAYYY too dangerous and on a slope to make across safely. So we tried hiking away from the rock a bit to see if we could see where the cave was, exactly.

We hiked downhill into the cacti, which turned out to offer us a really nice view!

Hiking off to the side of the rocks, we found this nice cactus-filled area with a view

From this area, a bit away from the red rock, we tried to find the cave. If you’re facing the direction of the above picture and turn to your right, here’s the view you’d see towards the red rocks that somewhere housed a cave:

Checking out the backside of the rock, looking for the cave

Do you see a cave? We didn’t…

See that fallen rock down at the bottom? Those are huge massive boulders. Look uphill and see that white-ish area? Those look like shear lines where the rock had fallen from. That was the closest thing we could find to a cave.
Since we couldn’t eye the cave, we decided to take a quick break and enjoy the view. It was a perfect location for a group picture!

Group photo somewhere near Shaman's cave

I spent some time being the happy photographer while my friends also enjoyed the landscape.

Anna and Matt loving the area

Julie sat down and meditated and chanted.

Julie chanting

At one point she stopped chanting and listened more carefully. “Do you guys hear the music?” She asked? I couldn’t really hear anything but she was convinced she could hear something…

Whoa, Intuition

After departing from this area, I would have one of my strongest intuitive experiences ever thus far…

After we all took pictures of the moon rising above the red rocks (pictured above), we all headed out to dinner for a nice, satisfying, and well-earned meal.

After parking our car in town, we grabbed our stuff and started walking down the street, looking for a good restaurant. Once we spotted a possible restaurant, we crossed the street to head into it. While crossing the street, I heard something fall behind me. It was a water bottle so I turned around and picked it up.

We kept going and suddenly everything else spilled out of Julie’s backpack, all over the sidewalk.

“My camera!”

We all helped her get everything we could find that had fallen out of her pack. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find her camera that she’d just bought and had taken pictures with throughout the whole trip, including the whole hike we’d just done. She’d put it in a soft pouch that would protect it from falls, but unfortunately it also muffled any impact sounds so we didn’t hear when it fell out. It must have been at the very top of her pack since she had set it there after taking pictures of the moon so it must have fallen out before the water bottle when crossing the street.

We backtracked our whole path to see if we could find it, looking on the sidewalk, between cars we’d passed through, underneath cars, inside our rental car… everywhere we could think of, but we couldn’t find it…

While Julie continued to search back and forth, up and down the street, in and out of our car, the rest of us went to go check out the restaurant, grab a table, and check out the menu.

After feeling things out, Matt didn’t particularly like the menu and suggested we walk back and go help Julie and find another restaurant along the way. While walking back, we spotted a better restaurant, checked out their menu and decided to go there instead.

We got Julie, who was unable to find her camera anywhere, and she came in to join us. Sad about losing her awesome new camera and all the valuable pictures she’d just taken, she started surrendering and letting it go. It stunk, but she’s definitely good at letting things go…

She said a little prayer while sitting at the dinner table hoping the universe would help us find the camera when suddenly it hit me out of nowhere…

I KNOW EXACTLY WHERE YOUR CAMERA IS.

This massive feeling poured into my body and overwhelmingly surged throughout my whole body.

I NEED TO GET UP AND WALK TO THE RIGHT, RIGHT NOW.

The feeling I could only identify as ME. More me than who I thought I was. A pure knowing, intensely powerful, infinitely large and yet sizeless ME.

“What? I have no idea where your camera is,” thought the ‘me’ in my head.

“I don’t want to go walk to the right,” my mind continued to protest. “That’s towards the front door and out of the restaurant. It’d cold out there. I don’t want to go out in the cold.”

GET UP AND GO WALK TO THE RIGHT.

Knowing that I could use my mind to will myself into resisting this energy and feel “powerful” and “in control” that way, I decided instead to go with it and see what happens. Why not? This is Sedona afterall…

Standing right up, and practically knocking the chair out from behind me in the process, I started walking to the right.

Walking towards the front of the restaurant, on the podium where the hostess waits to greet people when they enter the restaurant was Julie’s camera. In its pouch, it was quietly sitting right there on top of the podium.

Somehow I wasn’t surprised in the least. (If anything, I was surprised that I wasn’t surprised…)

Grabbing the camera and returning to our table, I casually set the camera down on the table, said “Here ya go,” and sat back down.

Everyone’s jaw dropped…

I had no idea what happened either…

It was one of those moments of both celebration and cheering that the camera was back, and at the same time a “WTF was that!?”

Still pretty blown away about what had happened, I asked Matt, “What is it on the other side that knows? What is that gives us the answers through our intuition?”

He looked at me and responded, “The totality.”

“Oh,” I replied, “That makes total sense…”

After we finished our meal, we went up to the front of the restaurant and asked why the camera was sitting on that podium.

Evidently someone had found it on the ground in front of the restaurant and turned it in. They must have turned it in as practically as soon as it had fallen out because we didn’t find it when backtracking past the restaurant.

Then in struck us… if Matt hadn’t suggested that we skip out on the first restaurant and check out another one, we never would have found her camera.

If we didn’t decide on this particular restaurant, we never would have found her camera.

So many things had to go just right in order for us to have this experience…

So many pieces of the puzzle had to work out in that exact way…

It was a beautiful orchestration that included events that could have been labeled as “unfortunate” and yet things played out beautifully…

Wow…

Going down to Sedona, AZ for 11/11/11

Ariel — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:11:39 +0000

Matt, Julie, Anna, and Ariel in Sedona, AZ

So for 11-11-11, Matt, Julie, Anna, and I decided to go out to Sedona, Arizona. You know the whole 2012 thing? Well apparently it’s not just about that one day. From what I understand, Dec 21, 2012 is just a crossing of a threshold after a bunch of events and shifts leading up to that day. A sort of tipping of the scales. 11-11-11 is the first stage of the ascension. Cool.

In any event, Matt and Julie felt called to be in Sedona then. I had no idea what would happen, if anything, but felt like an amazingly fun idea, and Anna was excited and eager to go too! So we made our arrangements, packed our bags, hopped a plane, and off we went to Sedona for 11-11! What would happen? Who knows?

I’m not exactly sure how to summarize this trip, so I guess I’ll just do the usual thing, which includes sharing lots of pictures and telling you guys some of the more memorable stories. Seems to be a winning strategy.

I started creating this as a singular post, but it turned out to be HUUUUUGE (like 60-something photos long huge), so this’ll be done day by day.

Arriving in Arizona

Anna and I flew into Skyharbor in Phoenix on Wed, Nov 9th, with Matt and Julie flying in a few hours afterwards. When I was on the plane, I realized that even though I had made a point to take my backpacking knife out of my pack while packing my bags back home, I had accidentally left my leatherman (a multi-tool/pocket knife) attached to my keys and made it through airport security with it. Whoops… Oh well, at least the TSA protected us with their naked body scanners they’re now using and their no full water bottle rules… :p

TSA silliness aside, we made it to the airport in Arizona without a hitch and went straight towards the rental car place. Julie had suggested getting a high clearance vehicle for Sedona for a hike she wanted to do, but they were sold out of them. It turns out that there was a Nascar event going on that weekend.

Nascar? In Phoenix!? To me that immediately brings two words to mind: Mark Rebilas!

He’s a pro sports photographer whose work I really enjoy and who’s based out of Phoenix. As a fun sidenote, the design of his photoblog was a key inspiration in the design for my current photoblog you’re reading now.

In any event, there was a Nascar event in Phoenix and so a lot of vehicles were sold out. Alrighty. So I opted to stay with the affordable economy vehicle I’d selected initially, adding on insurance against any accidents, bumps, scrapes, scratches, or any other body damage that might occur in Sedona… (Fortunately we didn’t wind up needing it…)

After grabbing our rental car, a Chevy Aveo, Anna and I headed out into Phoenix to grab a bite to eat and grab a few things we needed. It turns out that in Arizona, the Targets are bilingual. All the signs are in both english and spanish there…

On another note, if you drive around Phoenix, you’ll find this hippy taco stand that serves all sorts of funky tacos. I ordered a cactus taco there. Apparently cactus has a texture sort of like meat, but is pretty tasteless.

Once Matt and Julie arrived, we met up at a restaurant that Matt had selected. The two of them are total foodies and always have suggestions for amazing places to eat. The place we wound up going for dinner featured all sorts of fun food like a bison burger and organic acai berry beer… so it must be healthy!

Writing all this up, it just struck me that I don’t have many photos from this part of the trip, since it’s still just taking care of business and getting to Sedona, so we’ll get to that shortly.

Anyways, when we all met up for dinner, we discovered that we had both rented the exact same car! A Chevy Aveo sedan, and the same color even! The only difference was that our had power windows and locks and mirrors and a remote clicker, but seemed to be otherwise the same. What are the odds!?

After dinner, it was already dark, and we started heading north towards Sedona. I prefer driving during the day since you can see the scenery and it’s just easier since you don’t fall asleep as easily, but night driving is good too.

Arriving in Sedona

So Sedona is supposed to have all these energy vortexes, these places where there’s strong electromagnetic energy flowing. Now it’s not that I’m skeptical, but I prefer to have my own experiences to draw my conclusions from, rather that simply accepting what people say.

When we arrived in Sedona and entered the city, both Anna and myself started grinning and laughing for no reason. Even trying to hold it back, it still erupted from within me. That’s a good sign… Maybe there is something to this whole energy thing in Sedona afterall!

It was dark so after checking into our hotels, the four of us all drove up to the airport which features both a nice overlook of the city, as well as one of the vortexes.

Sedona at night from the airport vortex

Conveniently enough, the vortex here is literally right beside the parking area, right here at this overlook. I set my camera up to run some long exposures to get some night shots of town.

While the camera was running, Matt started feeling for the vortex. We both tried closing our eyes and feeling what there was to be felt when standing in the vortex. Now curiously enough, we both felt the same thing… While standing at the overlook and facing this scene pictured above, we felt a sort of magnetic pull, and we both felt the magnetic pull in the same direction. Backwards. As if we were being pulled backwards. Interesting…

Scratching my head, I started to seriously consider that there really are visceral, senseable, discernible energy movements that you could pick up on. Call them vortexes or call them what you will, there really does seem to be something here.

After this vortex, we opted to go head over to another one of the vortexes and iconic sights in Sedona: Bell Rock.

The parking area here afforded a nice view of Bell Rock.

Bell Rock under the moonlight from the parking lot

While we were here, Julie was asking me about how to shoot night photos with the ass kicking Canon S95 she’d just bought. I had my camera set on up on a tripod to shoot shots like the one you see above and she’d set hers down on a wooden post to shoot her shots. During our conversation, coming out of the darkness behind us, there’s this gnarly dog-like snarl. It’s the kind of snarl you’d expect when a dog rears its head down, right before it charges to attack. “Get in the car!”

I grab my tripod and the 4 of us dart back into the car. We all hop inside and, since my tripod legs were fully extended, my side door wouldn’t close. While quickly shortening the legs on the tripod, I look out the front of the car and see Julie’s camera sitting on the post. Knowing that my door was still cracked open, for some reason I felt myself get into “I’m gonna kick the ever living shit out of you” mode if you attack me, I open the door, march out to go grab her camera, continue collapsing my tripod, and finally hop back inside the car, second camera in hand, and collapsed tripod on my lap.

Turning the car around, we shine the headlights into the brush of the parking area, scanning the field looking for a wolf, a dog, a pair of eyes shining back, bigfoot… anything… After a few moments of carefully eyeing the field, none of us spot anything and figure it’s wisest to head on back to the hotel and get some sleep in for tomorrow…

(Click here to continue on to day 2.)

Happy Halloween!!

Ariel — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:11:09 +0000

Happy Halloween!!

Rocky Horror Picture Show, Live

Ariel — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:11:14 +0000

You know, sometimes I’m just out doing my thing when it strikes me… Oh yeah! I’ve got a photoblog!

Rocky Horror Picture Show

Once a month the run a live showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show in West Seattle, where they play the movie up on a screen like a traditional theater, but they have actors in costume acting out the movie at the same time.

This Halloween’s show was especially packed, with the audience all coming in dressed up as transvestites (thank you spell check), in skimpy shorts (Rocky), and in most anything imaginable. Just the audience members alone was worth it.

Then throughout the whole movie you have audience members shouting at the screen (funny comments relative to the movie), throwing rice in the air in the wedding scene, spraying water into the crowd when it’s raining, and even when they give a “toast,” throwing slices of bread into the crowd.

I love random fun stuff like this…

Trading in my ’96 Subaru for an all new 2012 Hyundai Sonata… A tribute to my cars

Ariel — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:11:50 +0000

At the beginning of this month, I finally traded in my much loved ’96 Subaru Outback for a brand new fully loaded 2012 Hyundai Sonata Limited Turbo with nav!

The main reason for the trade was wanting a newer car with more power, better fuel economy, newer technology, GPS built-in, more safety features, and just something nicer.

In many ways, this new car helped me accomplish all this and more, and yet I so love my old Subaru… so I want to do a nice tribute post to my beloved cars.

So first things first, let’s talk about my new baby.

2012 Hyundai Sonata Limited 2.0T with Nav

I get to drive a TON of different cars at work and after a lot of going back and forth, I started narrowing it down to the 2012 Elantra Limited (smaller car, not as much technology, 29/40 mpg, 138hp), the 2012 Sonata Limited (larger 2.4L engine at 198hp, 24/35mpg, BlueLink), or the 2012 Sonata Limited Turbo (has power when needed at 274hp, 22/34mpg, BlueLink). Driving them all back to back, for me personally the Elantra felt a bit weak compared to what I was wanting, the 2.4L felt sufficient, but the 2.0T really had the extra get-up-and-go. The main thing I was looking for was not 0-60, but 60-90 for passing on the highway. Not that I ever drive 90mph, but the Subaru always felt like I really had to floor it (155hp) to speed up on the highway if necessary. In emergency situations, it didn’t feel like it really had the power I needed.

So without going too much more into the details, I settled on the indigo night Sonata Limited Turbo, giving me full leather, heated seats front and back, panoramic sunroof (whole top of the car is glass with two sunroofs), BlueLink (to control the car from my phone), backup camera, and navigation built into the car. (I’ve had my Subaru broken into again recently and they stole my GPS I had tucked under the passenger’s seat. That car must be really easy to break into without damaging as it’s happened twice now…)

So now I’ve got a newer, safer, much more tech’ed out car.

BlueLink iPhone App

This is a screenshot from my iPhone app, allowing me to lock the doors from my phone (ever left your car and then realized you forgot to lock the door?), unlock the doors (ever get locked out?), flash the headlights and sound the alarm (ever lose your car in a parking lot and you’re not close enough for the keychain remote to find the car?), start the engine remotely with the doors still locked (so your car is nice and toasty when you hop in on a chilly morning), get notified if the alarm goes off (nice to know it’s secure), etc.

BlueLink does a TON more, like help you find the cheapest gas prices, contact emergency personnel in case of an accident, recover a stolen vehicle, voice text messaging, and more, but these are some of my favorite features.

In any event, we actually had the exact vehicle I wanted in stock on the lot for at least two months or so. Periodically I’d show a customer the car and in the back of my mind, with me wanting this exact car even way before I seriously considered buying it, it felt odd showing customers ‘my’ car.

Hugging my brand new Sonata

Driving this car the past few weeks has definitely taken some getting used to.

For example, my old Subaru and the 198hp Sonata with the standard engine can be driven like normal cars in that you can accelerate gradually. They’re both what I’m used to. The Sonata Turbo is an entirely different beast altogether. The slightest touch of the gas pedal and it jumps into action. It takes a little more finesse to accelerate the car gradually. Similarly, it rains a lot here in Seattle which makes it that much more likely for the wheels to spin out and lose traction, so you gotta be more careful off the line.

At 274hp, you’ve got a lot of power hitting the wheels and on a front wheel drive car, you get torque steer when you stomp on the pedal. So you gotta be careful when really putting power down because it can cause the car to swerve a bit, which doesn’t give me the same confident feeling I had when driving a Subaru with AWD.

Everything in life has trade-offs and the car is taking some getting used to.

Speaking of my Subaru, I really loved that car. Don’t get me wrong. I like my new Sonata. But I LOVE my old Subaru…

My Subaru and my Sonata side-by-side

1996 Subaru Outback Legacy

My old Subie is like one of my best friends. Most of my 2010 nomadic road trip traveling was done in that car. For months I lived out of that car. Literally. We traveled through the western half of the continent together and had SO many wonderful experiences. I can’t help but admit that I got pretty attached to that car…

After trading it in, the plan was to turn it around and resell it back on the lot as Subarus are really popular up here in the northwest. However, after running it through our shop, we found out that it needed a new head gasket… Meaning that the cost to repair the car was almost as much as the value of the car itself.

I had no idea and while it kinda sucked for my managers who were generous and gave me a great trade-in value for the car, it was admittedly nice for me to trade-out of that car and get into a beautiful new one.

We don’t sell any bum cars on our lot and since the car had issues, we had to send it off to auction. It sat in the back where cars wait before they get wholesaled for a little while and was always a sad sight to see whenever I walked past it. On one of my days off work, I drove down Aurora, one of the main streets here with a bunch of car dealerships down a stretch, and went inside a bunch of car dealerships just to learn more about other cars and experience what it’s like for salesmen to turn around and try to sell me a car. It’s amazing what you learn by being on the receiving end of that!

Anyways, I was driving past my dealership when I noticed that there was a truck parked in front full of cars. “Woohoo!!” I immediately thought, “We got more new cars!” The closer I got, the more I realized they weren’t new Hyundais. Wait… my Subaru was sitting up on top!!

I immediately pulled over and went to go look at my car.

The last time I'll ever see my Subaru

Even seeing this picture now almost makes me want to cry.

I really loved this car… and so just to honor it, I want to share some pictures of the good times we had together in memory of my beloved green Subaru.

Driving in the clouds in the Los Padres National Forest, CA

In the mountains of the Los Padres National Forest, CA

Driving off road

Shooting a beautiful sunset off a highway in Oregon

Pulled over to see some cows

Visiting Mt. Shasta, CA

Mountain climbing

Drivelapse (driving timelapse) setup

Drivelapse setup with tripod

Loading up my Subaru at Rey's when leaving CA for AK

Setting up camp with my French friends near Lake Tahoe, CA

Driving under Tunnel Log in Sequoia NP, CA

Waiting for sunrise atop Crater Lake, OR

Can you believe I was at 4,441 feet when this photo was taken?

Me finding myself in Washington

As you can probably tell, I really loved this car… and I feel like shedding a tear now that it’s gone…

While I’m going back to remember my old cars, I have to give a shotout to the predecessor to my Subaru, the car that I started my road trip in, my ’97 Toyota Camry.

1997 Toyota Camry

This is the car I drove in college and started my trip in. This is the car that I had been wanting to somehow trade-in for a green Subaru Outback but didn’t know how. When I got rear ended in California and my car was totaled, the insurance money helped me get the car I wanted.

So without further ado, let’s go back in time a bit more and pay my respects to my beloved ’97 Camry.

Leaf covered Camry in the Smokies

Getting snowed in in the Big Frog Wilderness right before leaving for my road trip

Packed trunk ready to leave home in Georgia to 'move' to Colorado

97 Camry in Colorado

Camping outside Buena Vista, CO

Snowed in for privacy one morning

Snow covered car looking goofy

Snow mohawk after a snowstorm in Boulder, CO

Ah boy… That turned out to be WAY more pictures than I thought it’d be. Oh well.

At least now I can feel like I can move on and welcome in the new car, now that I’ve had a chance to say my goodbyes.

I love you cars…

Selling Cars at Hyundai of Seattle

Ariel — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 06:04:27 +0000

Hyundai of Seattle

So one of the main reasons I haven’t been posting much recently is that I’ve been working quite a bit recently. After settling down a bit here in Seattle, I found myself a job selling cars. Have I never sold cars before? Nope. Did I ever think I would be selling cars? Nope. If you told me a few months ago that I’d be doing this, would I think that you’re completely crazy? Yep.

and yet this is proving to be one of the most rewarding, enjoyable, fulfilling, and satisfying thing I’ve ever done! Who knew?

Imagine a car dealership where people are actually cool. None of the stereotypical sleezy salesman nonsense. There actually exist car dealerships where people are straight and upfront about everything, don’t play games on price, and really are here to help you out.

I’m really enjoying it here.

My managers are phenomenal. My coworkers are awesome and everyone has a cool background and personality. I get to help tons of people get a car that will satisfy them for years to come. I get to jump right into the middle of a well-oiled machine and learn how to run a business by being in the inside of one and seeing how it works. I get to watch sunset every day as the sky spans over the wide open lot.

another sunset over the lot

The sun sets a few minutes later each day leading up to summer and then a few minutes earlier each day after the solstice. I get to play with gorgeous new cars all day long. I get to sell cars that are in such high demand that the hardest thing is just keeping the vehicles in stock. Makes my job easy… I get to hang out with cool people day after day. I get to experiment with new technologies that let me control cars with my cell phone. I get to drive luxurious cars to Starbucks if I want. There’s just endless fun things to do and experience.

I guess that’s life!

First Trek out to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness

Ariel — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:11:04 +0000

Camping at Pete Lake

It’s been a while now since I’ve been camping. A while as in I haven’t been since sometime back in 2010…?

Well I decided to go hop back into it and spend some time outdoors. One of the awesome rangers at REI suggested Pete Lake in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness east of Seattle in the Cascades as a beautiful place to go hike with only a few miles in. Since it’d been a while since I hiked, I didn’t want to push myself too hard the first time out. Looking at the map and seeing some gorgeous pictures online of lakes beyond Pete Lake, including Spectacle Lake and Glacier Lake, I decide to go for a longer haul and go scout further in.

After spending some time looking over routes, trail conditions, the weather, any tips about things I’d need for this area this time of year (bug spray!), and so on, I woke up nice and early, stopped back into REI last minute gear, and started heading east into the mountains.

People in Seattle complain about the rain. I absolutely love it. Everything feels so nourished and refreshed and alive. Also, it almost never rains hard here. I mean just the other day was the first time I’d heard thunder here, and I’ve been here some 8 months or so! It rains, but it doesn’t storm. Rarely does it even pour.

In any event, once you start getting into the mountains, you find this beautiful fog that dances through the treetops and mountain peaks. It’s like a foggy heaven to witness and experience.

Driving into the Cascades

Easily one of my favorite things about the Pacific Northwest.

When you turn off the highway and start heading up towards the trailhead (and away from cell phone reception), you pass this big beautiful lake named Cle Elum Lake.

Driving past Cle Elum Lake

I’m a sucker for getting scenic shots with my Subie.

When I finally get to the trailhead, I switch into my hiking boots, cover any exposed skin in 100% DEET, sign in at the self-register trailhead, notice a sign mentioning something about a downed bridge and a detour on the way to Spectacle Lake, figure I’ll figure it out as I go, and start hiking on in.

The hike in was primarily flat with some small elevation changes, but a very easy trail. Something I’ve noticed is that I rarely take pictures of what I see the majority of the time. When the trail is just plain dirt, it’s not particularly photogenic. Yet when I come home, I have pictures of just a few particularly interesting things I saw, rather than what I saw the majority of the time. So here’s what I saw most of the time. Dirt. And trees. And plants.

Some typical trail

I actually love these types of trails. National Forests are easily some of my favorite types of places. National Parks are typically epic, spectacular, and full of tourists. National Forests are more untouched, natural, and intimate. I love it.

There were also a number of creek crossings. Typically there were some downed logs you could walk over that acted as natural bridges.

Hiking through some water

Bridges are nice. So is romping through shallow enough water.

Hiking past big leaves

Every now and then you’d hike through a patch of really leafy plants. It literally felt like the oxygen was thicker here and you could feel the sunlight happily bouncing off the leaves and warming your skin.

About 5 miles in was Pete Lake, and on the northeast side where the trail meets it you find a large shaded camping area with a view over the lake that looks like this.

The Glaciers across Pete Lake

Dropping my pack here, I did a quick tour of the lake, snapped some pics, nom nom nom’ed a bit, then donned my pack again and kept hiking. Passing a few more campsites along the side of the lake, I eventually hit a fairly fast moving river crossing that looked like it’d be about knee-deep to thigh-deep in frigid waters. Now as much as I love river crossings, I didn’t want to go into super cold water, especially being solo. So I instead opted for a detour that was about 2 miles longer.

Hiking around to take another direction, I found out that the bridge upstream that crossed this same river was completely and totally annihilated.

Downed bridge to Spectacle Lake

Bridge? What bridge?

I looked for other possible routes, including hiking down towards the water or following the make-shift goat trail up and to the right a bit towards a waterfall, but there weren’t any other routes.

Well now what? My feet are both starting to ache like a mofo at this point, to the point where if I keep pressing on hardcore, I’ll probably wind up with a foot injury due to overexertion.

Doing something I almost never do, I decided to turn around and head back to Pete Lake to camp for the night. It would mean a 5 mile hike back to the car tomorrow rather than a ~11-13 mile hike.

Long story short, I turned around and headed back to Pete Lake for the night. I hiked some 15 miles or so the first day, which is a bit more than I’d initially wanted to hike…

As I returned to Pete Lake, I passed one really nice looking campsite and felt an inner pointing to camp there. “Screw that, intuition,” I thought to myself, “I wanna camp at the other campsite with a nice view of the glaciers to the west for a good sunrise shot.”

Well when I got there, the campsite was already taken and I’d rather spend time by myself, so I turned around and went to the other campsite.

Tent at camp

This was a nice area as well. More open to the sun, more green, a slightly less epic backdrop, and just more open in general.

Plus the view is pretty good here too.

View to the east of Pete Lake

I was pretty tired by this point so after enjoying a nice hot dinner of rehydrated lasagna, I crashed around 5:30 pm, about 3 hours before sunset. The photographer in me figured I’d take a nap… or something… and maybe shoot sunset. There were mountains all around in every direction so I wouldn’t see the sun as it approached the horizon, but maybe I’d see the peaks light up. Either way, I decided to just go to sleep and figure it out later.

With the window of my tent pointing out towards the water so I could see the landscape, water, and sky, I woke up every few hours to check on the lighting conditions, but wound up sleeping for the next 14 hours!!

Yeah, someone needed sleep…

Like the sunset hours the night before, sunrise was filled with lots and lots of birds here! Like not an annoying amount or anything, but like a musical treat for the ears. They’d fly within feet, sometimes what felt like inches away from my tent.

Next to my campsite was this downed tree. They really like to perch on the uprooted roots at the base of this tree:

Downed tree at my campsite along Pete Lake

When I was in my tent or simply laying down in the grass, they would come really close-by. (When I sat up, they’d fly away.) Although they were backlit in the morning with the sun coming up from the east, I tried laying down on my back and sneakily snapping a few shots of them.

Birds flying off the top of the downed tree roots

How many birds do you count in this image?

They also liked to get within a matter of feet of me, on the rocks of the firepit.

A bird watching me

After maybe 10-15 seconds of this one bird eyeing me, another one came to join him:

Another bird comes to watch me

From this angle, it almost looks like a nest, doesn’t it?

I took a quick hike over back to the other campsite to get a shot of the glaciers over the lake in morning light.

The glaciers in the morning

The sun hadn’t risen high enough yet to clear the mountaintops behind me so the foreground is still silhouetted out. However, just above the blackness you can see the little yellow dot of a tent a half-mile hike away.

Back at this campsite, the friendly folks here and I traded some stories of the hike in and they mentioned that a bear had actually come through their camp the night before. Maybe it was for the best that I wound up at the campsite I did afterall.

These folks had ridden in on horses. The three horses were a bit skittish and a “walk up to a horse and click a picture” pictures were all a bit boring, so I snapped one through some tree branches as I looked back when starting to hike back to my camp.

Some horses at the lake

Back at camp, I had some oatmeal (a classic) and tea for breakfast. It was interesting to note the differences in clarity of water depending on what part of the lake you got water from, even if it was just 20 feet away or so.

Filling up water in a dirtier part of shore

It’s not that the water was particularly dirty or anything. (You can see it’s cleaner in the distance.) For some reason at this time of day, the waves were kicking up the dirt a few inches below in the lakebed.

Walking over to the right just a bit, the water was much cleaner.

Filling up with some cleaner water

Notice how you can actually see through the water here.

(It’s surprisingly tricky blindly shooting a heavy right-handed SLR with your left hand just an inch above the water.)

With what little battery life I had left in my phone, I spent a few minutes shooting a few minutes of video at camp:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEb8nMt-DjI

It was nice to only have a 5 mile hike out. My feet were definitely appreciating it, even though I did wind up with blisters after the first day, which grew by the end of the second.

On the hike back, I heard what sounded like an emergency whistle blast from a downed hiker. (The international distress signal is 3 blasts of anything: 3 gunshots, 3 whistle blasts, etc.) At first when I heard that sound and didn’t hear two more follow-up blasts, I figured I might have missed the first two so I fired a blast back. (It’s how you confirm that you hear them and that you’re on your way. Typically they’ll continue going so you can follow the sound to them.)

With my ears up and adrenaline pumping through my body, I felt on high alert as I started tearing down the trail, until I realized it was actually pretty noisy and I’d have to be quieter to make sure I heard the follow-up whistle blasts. About 20-30 seconds later I heard it again. Slowly it dawned on me that it wasn’t a person in distress, but actually a bird whose call sounds just like an emergency whistle…

huh, well whatda ya know…