Category Archives: vacation

Utah-New Mexico Vacation – Part 3

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No trip to see canyons would be complete without a stop at the Grand Canyon.  This picture of my husband and I was taken at Desert View–one of the many viewpoints on the edge of the Grand Canyon in Grand Canyon National Park.

This is another view of the canyon taken from a viewpoint at Grand Canyon Village, just behind Bright Angel Lodge.

The next photo is taken of the Painted Desert within the Petrified National Park.  We had a very brief photo stop in this park. 

We really enjoyed our tour of the Acoma Pueblo and Mission, located 1 hour east of Gallup, New Mexico.  Acoma Pueblo’s Sky City is situated on a 370 foot high mesa. This is the homeland for the Acoma people. There are 300 homes and structures on the mesa which are owned by Acoma women. They are passed down in their families. This is said to be the oldest continually inhabited community in the country, dating from around 1150 AD.

If you click on the next photo, you will be able to see the pueblo on top of the mesa.  There were no roads to the top of the mesa until John Wayne came to the Acoma people in the late 50’s and wanted to make a movie.  The road was the result of a barter for the right to film a John Wayne movie.  The “John Wayne Highway”is the primary access point to the top of the mesa today.  Most of the 4,000 tribal members live in the nearby villages of McCartys and Acomita–only a handful occupy the mesa on a full-time basis.  However, most families maintain homes on the mesa which they use on feast days and as summer getaways.  There is no running water or electricity on the mesa and plumbing is accommodated via out-houses located on the mesa rim.

We were provided opportunities to purchase pottery and other art directly from the artists as we walked through the pueblo on our tour.

Utah-New Mexico Vacation – Part 2

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Bryce Canyon National Park was our favorite park that we visited on this trip.  The scenery at Bryce takes your breath away!
These pictures were taken from various view points in Bryce Canyon.


This is my husband–standing on the edge of Bryce Canyon.

In the gift shop at the entrance to Bryce there were some quilt kits to make your own souvenir of Bryce Canyon.  The kits contained the photo blocks and the pattern.  You have to add your own batik fabrics to make the block sashing and quilt borders.  I picked up one of these kits.

Who knew that you could find something quilt related in a National Park?

Utah-New Mexico Vacation – Part 1

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We recently returned home from a holiday to the U.S. – a 20 day tour (Sept 21 to Oct 10) that took us south of Saskatchewan through Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico and then back north through Colorado, and the Dakotas to Saskatchewan. 
With two cameras between my husband and I, we managed to bring home over 3,000 pictures.  It has taken me hours to sort through those pictures to choose just a few to share here on my blog.  Even though I thought I was just picking a few pictures, I have ended up with 11 posts! 
This was my third tour and my husband’s first tour with Ryjo Tours out of Tessier, Saskatchewan.  http://www.ryjotours.ca/index.html

The scenery on this trip was constantly changing.  We often looked out of the window as we were travelling to see the most interesting landscapes. 
This picture was taken near Grand Junction, Colorado. 

When we were in Moab, Utah, we visited Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, and Dead Horse Point State Park.

This is a picture of Balanced Rock in Arches.

This is a picture of the famous Delicate Arch, also located in Arches.  This is the rock formation that is on the Utah state licence plate.

This is the view from Dead Horse Point State Park.  You can see the windy roads that the Jeeps and ATV’s travel on to explore the canyons.

These pictures were taken in Canyonlands.

This was a picture I quickly snapped as I was getting back on the bus after a lunch break in Richfield, Utah.

The next two pictures were taken at Red Canyon, just outside of Bryce Canyon National Park.

Paddlewheeler Cruise

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On the last day of our holiday, we took a paddlewheeler cruise on Harrison Lake. Harrison Lake is the largest lake in the Coast Mountains of BC at 250 square km in area–60 km long and 9 km wide at its widest point.

Harrison Lake has two large islands in the center of it; the largest being Long Island, 9.5 km long and 2.6 km wide, and Echo Island which is south of Long Island and 4 km long and 2.2 km wide.

We spent the entire day aboard this vessel: the MV Native. This is the view of Harrison Village as we looked back after leaving the dock as we headed to the Harrison River.

This is the point where the Harrison Lake meets the Harrison River. It is possible to travel from Harrison Lake, down the Harrison River to the Fraser River, and eventually the Pacific Ocean.

We watched a barge move its log boom.

We were in search of pictographs. We found them on this rock.

You really need to know where to look for the pictographs as they are faint and not easy to spot.
After locating the pictographs, we turned around and headed back to Harrison Lake. If you look through the opening in these trees towards Harrison Lake, you can see two islands that are faint in the center of this photo. These islands are Camile Island (smallest island on the right) and Marguerite Island (larger island to the left of Camile). These islands were named for Miss Margaret de Gusseme who managed the Harrison Hot Springs Resort from when it first opened in 1926 until her death in 1946 and her sister Camile who was the hotel’s assistant manager. Margaret did a lot to promote the Resort worldwide. The Island to the left of Camile and Marguerite is Echo Island. Only the tip of Echo Island is visible in this picture.

These purple buildings are part of Elfinlau (aka Purple Palace). Elfinlau is a bed and breakfast on Echo Island in the middle of Harrison Lake that is only accessible by water. http://www.elfinlau.com/

The rock on the left side of this next picture is Echo Rock. As we sat in the bay here, the Captain let off his boat whistle and we heard an immediate and clear echo return to us. In the upper right hand corner of this picture you can see Owl rock.

This is a close up of Owl rock.

It was surprising how many homes and cottages are located on the shores of Harrison Lake–especially given that many of these homes are only accessible by water. These residences are located in Cascade Bay which is on the east side of Harrison Lake.

The air was smoky the day we cruised the lake. You can really see the smoke in this picture. The mountains are almost totally obliterated from view. The smoke is from the many forest fires that continue to burn in our province.

We had a great time cruising the lake. Our only regret was the amount of smoke that made it hard to see the distant mountains.

Alberta Holiday – Part II

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We left the reunion location in Alberta on August 2nd–the Monday of the August long weekend. We headed home via Kelowna.

While in Kelowna, we had opportunity to check out the local quilt shops. First up was Findlay’s. http://www.findlaysvacsew.com/ This shop is primarily a sewing machine dealer. They have a few nice shop samples and some yard goods, but the selection is limited.
Our second stop was Linda’s. http://www.lindasquiltshoppe.com/

As soon as we parked, my husband noticed the sign…..

…….and made some comment like, “It looks like you only get 15 minutes here!” As he laughed, I had him turn around and look at the parking stall that we had parked in….

…………….”Correction! I get 1 hour here!” Now who had the last laugh? LOL


Seriously, an hour would never have been enough time to do this shop justice. The staff here were fantastic. I was treated to a tour of the shop, including the classroom.

As it turns out, one of the ladies I had travelled on the bus trip to the Sisters’ quilt show with 5 years ago is a regular teacher here. I was thrilled to see Laurie’s quilts. We’ll have to see if I can get back to Kelowna sometime in the future for one of Laurie’s weekend classes.

I loved this picnic display by the front door. They used food fabrics as the food on the table–too cute.

This African panel was one of the purchases I made at Linda’s. I have been collecting African themed fabrics for a while to make a quilt for my daughter.

This ruler was also a purchase made at Linda’s. They had a sample in the shop made using this ruler. You fuse two fabrics together and then fold and use the ruler to make the cuts. Once the fabric is cut, you fold the pieces and you end up with a Seminole pieced look.

By this time we were hungry for some lunch. I asked my husband what he felt like having for lunch. He replied that he could really go for Wendy’s. Well, wouldn’t you know it, in the same parking lot as the Wendy’s was another quilt shop. http://www.cottagequiltingonline.com/
This was a nice shop, but it didn’t have near the selection and samples as Linda’s.
Then we headed out of Kelowna down the Okanagan Lake. We stopped at Agriculture Canada’s Research Station in Summerland. http://www4.agr.gc.ca/AAFC-AAC/display-afficher.do?id=1180620561099 They have a gorgeous display garden there. The view of the lake would have been incredible had it not been for the thick smoke from the forest fires in BC that blanketed the lake and obscured the view. None the less, we enjoyed walking around the gardens before getting back in the truck and heading home.
This was a great holiday!