random reflections

Pairs: Soaking Up the Summer Heat

As leaves begin to turn (yes, there are red leaves on two of our trees already!), it becomes ever more important to soak up the last of the summer sun and heat. We've been spending a lot more time on our patio:reading, eating summer, sharing a drink at the end of the day. And Monday, we took some time to go to the pool one last time. 

This week the photos weren't taken intentionally for Helena's Pairs meme, but when I looked at the week's photos, these popped out at me. You'll find more takes on the meme right here.

Birthday Leaves and Less is More Challege

Shortly before we left on our summer travels, I purchased a wonderful stamp with a graphic leaf design from Simon Says ("One With Nature"). I'm in need of several birthday cards for September birthdays, so it seemed to be a good stamp to put to use. I'm really pleased with the results. Both are for good friends (one female and one male.) The stamp worked well for both.

The first one meets the challenge at Less is More this week. It's a color challenge of green and gold.

After gold embossing the leaf on watercolor paper, I used my Kuretake Gansai watercolors to color the leaf. The card is from Memory Box. I would love to find more of these in a variety of colors, but a search on the internet doesn't produce much. I'm guessing they've been discontinued. They're a wonderful cardstock, colored on the outside with a bright white interior. The gold paper framing the watercolor is from Paper Source, and the sentiment is from Papertrey's "Petite Pots." (Also a new stamp set ordered before vacation.)

This shows the lovely gold much better. 

This seemed a bit feminine, so for our other friend, I stamped the leaf in black, and colored it with some watercolor markers Sarah and Adam gave me for Christmas---Akashiya SAI. This time I mounted it on a scrap piece of black card stock and then to a Hero Arts kraft card.

We're off to an annual Labor's Day barbecue at friends--always held on Sunday rather than the actual holiday. It's hot and humid, much more like July than early September.

Summer Trip (Part 3): Plain of Six Glaciers

Number One on our wish list of hikes was The Plain of Six Glaciers. This was the longest single hike we did during our vacation, over 9 1/2 miles. Although we expected to do this hike while staying at Lake Louise, we ended up driving to Lake Louise from Banff when we saw a wonderfully clear day in the forecast. We didn't want to take any chances on the fickle weather!

Here we are at the shore of Lake Louise, early in the morning. The young couple who took our photo were also on the trail and we crossed paths several times during the day. 

One of the smartest things I did before leaving for the trip was to purchase some good hiking sticks. My knees really appreciated them on the trip down! You can tell it was pretty chilly early in the morning. By mid-morning our fleece jackets were in our backpacks. You can see the main glacier in the background, and you'll see it get closer and closer as we hike up the trail.

 

The beginning of the trail is paved, flat, and loops around the side of Lake Louise. Once the trail starts up it looks like this most of the way.

This photo is looking back at Lake Louise from the trail.

About 85% of the way up the trail, you arrive at the Tea House of the Plain of Six Glaciers. The staff who work here hike in for five day stints, and then carry the garbage out with them when they leave. All the baking and cooking is done on wood-burning stoves. The pastries, sandwiches, and soup are wonderful! Originally, we thought this would be the end point of our hike, but once we'd been refreshed by our tea and pastries, we decided to continue up the trail.

Now you can see the tea house in the distance looking back from the trail.

Here I am, getting closer to the end of the trail. Amazingly, neither Tracy nor I have a photo from the end of the trail. You can see the folks ahead of me. I still do have a ways to go. 

 

Here's Tracy (second down in the red shirt) as we headed back to Lake Louise. You can see the Chateau Lake Louise at the end of the lake.

And here we are back on the lakeshore trail, looking at The Chateau Lake Louise. The Chateau is an amazing place. Like The Prince of Wales in Waterton, it's very pricey, but we had a lovely dinner there later in our stay when we had moved from Banff to Lake Louise. 

We hiked some 23 trails on the trip, but the Plain of Six Glaciers stayed at #1 when we rated them at the end of the trip. It was just an awesome day!

 

 

 

 

Pairs: At the Market & On the Table

Goodness! How did it get to be Wednesday already? I popped open my Feedly this morning and saw all kinds of pairs posted already at Helena's blog, and thought I'd better get with it. Fortunately, I have my pair for this week. On Saturday, Tracy and I made our annual "fall" trip to Ithaca. We went a little early this year since the Commons has just been renovated, and they were celebrating the reopening over the weekend. 

Our first stop, as always, was the Ithaca Farmer's Market. It's really one of the best ones I know, and we have a list of favorite stops there. It's been awhile since I bought flowers there since I have to buy the container as well in order to keep them alive for the rest of the day and the 1 1/2 hour ride home. But I couldn't resist.

The flowers I purchased are right there in the middle of the display.

And here they are on my kitchen table. The woman advised me to change the water every day. I have, and I'm happy to report they are still beautiful as I write this. Matt, Betsy, and the girls are coming for dinner tomorrow night, and I'll move them to the dining room table. 

One other photo, just for fun. It's not often I manage to get a fun selfie, but I caught both of us in these celebratory balloons on the Commons.

I'm off now to link up to Helena's blog and check out all the other Pairs for the week.