Dogs are to me as horses are to my old roommate Debbie. For as long as I’ve known her I’ve known her love of horses as well as her dream to once again own one someday. Since parting ways & moving to Florida, Debbie has made that dream come true for herself. I had the chance this past week to stop in and meet not only her wonderful fiancé, Phil, but her beautiful horse, Bowman. 
Life has been all over the place lately and it’s going to stay that way for some time now. I’m okay with that. What I’m also okay with is all the time spent with family. 🙂
My Seester & I were given a pair of tickets to see Kenny Chesney live in concert at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. While country music isn’t really my thing, I’ve been soaking in the music scene since I’ve been back in the lower 48. This marks my 3rd (of 4) concerts I’ve attended since arriving on the east coast in early March. It was also easily the largest concert I’ve attended (and it ultimately lead to the early departure from this venue as well), but was still a pretty good time, you know, for a country show.
Where do I even start this story? I guess at the beginning…
I met Steve the fall of 2005 at Delaware Valley College in Pennsylvania. Despite the fact that we were in the same (very specialized) degree program and have lots (and lots) in common, we were more mutual acquaintances than friends at the time. We had many mutual friends and of course, like most people our age, were Facebook friends by association.
Fast forward to several years later when, through the lovely channel of social media, we reconnected through our love of photography.
You see, Steve is not only a keeper at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, MD, but he is an astounding wildlife photographer who has been taking leaps and bounds in his practice. When he invited me to a behind the scenes tour of his home zoo, I not only jumped at the chance to get up close and personal with some amazing animals, I jumped at the chance to see such a gifted photographer in action.
Below are some of my photos from the trip, but if you’d like to see more of Steve’s work (and I highly recommend you see his work) you can give him a follow on Instagram @Steve_Dombroskie or here @ www.flickr.com/sdombroskiephotography
We found out back in the first week of April that our newest place to officially call home was going to be New Mexico.
Neither of us had ever stepped foot in the state before let alone knew much about the city of Albuquerque, but you couldn’t find a pair more excited for the change life is about the bring our way.
I have spent much of my free time on the computer and phone searching for and screening potential housing while Brian is away. There is only so much one can do though as a keyboard warrior and for the long, Memorial Day weekend we hopped a few flights to the Duke City to check things out for ourselves.
We were smitten with a place online and just as in love with it in person so it made short work of checking out the other potential places pretty easy. With our spare time we took the rental car out for a spin to circle the Sandia Mountains.
Discovering Sandia Cave along the way. (Which we clearly weren’t prepared for, so all the further we went in is shown)
And even a lost soul from Alaska who just so happened to be in town at the same time we were!
While it’s true, you couldn’t find a place more opposite than Alaska, we are both really excited for the change of life. Especially ALL THAT SUNSHINE!
Not to brag or anything, but I won HQ Trivia the other night. I’ve got a whopping 16 cents coming my way. Just gonna spend the rest of the week waiting for all those long lost relatives to start sliding into my DMs…
I’ve not even moved to my final destination in the southwest yet & I’ve got friends from Alaska already making a point to visit. Having the full luxury of retirement at his disposal, and needing to spend some time in PA anyways, I convinced Ray to meet me at my parents house in southwestern Pennsylvania.
We immediately hit the road for photo opps at some of my favorite local places.
It also just happened to be Ray’s birthday, so my mom whipped up a birthday cake for the occasion & a special dinner (that may or may not have coincidentally been my favorite meal).
After dinner, and with daylight quickly fading, we hurriedly picked up my brother and headed off to Mt. Davis – the tallest point in Pennsylvania. We arrived in the parking lot to find a man with the hood of his car popped scratching his head. My brother, knowing a bit about cars himself, stopped to help the guy out while Ray & I wandered off to snag a few quick photos and pick up a couple nearby geocaches. When we returned to the parking lot my brother was loading stuff from the stranded car into his. Turns out, it was going to need a tow back to New Jersey so my brother was kind enough to open his home up to a total stranger and his traveling companion: a full grown mastiff. (We grew up in a very small town in a more remote part of the state – getting a hotel for the guy wasn’t an option and getting him to one would mean driving a few hours round trip for us). This brought back strong memories to a time when I was stranded in the middle of nowhere Canada and a strangers kindness saved me from disaster. Or at least further disaster. So I wanted to take a paragraph and humble brag about my brother & him proving that there are still good people out there in the world. Also, what are the odds that there would be two serial killers in one car?
Before Ray left on Sunday afternoon we biked a 15+ mile section of the Allegheny Passage in order to eat some ice cream cones and not feel quite as bad about it. Worth it. Thanks for stopping by Raymonzelle! I look forward to adventuring with you again in the south west!
I had the chance to head back to DC for a weekend with Brian, which also coincided with another trip to the National Zoo to spend some time with the pandas and other creatures there, which didn’t disappoint this time either. Hopefully I’ll be able to carve out some time for one or two more trips down here while I’m on the east coast.
Even the drive down doesn’t disappoint. I don’t know that I’ll ever tire of a good road trip.
Brian is a huge fan of scary movies (while I have cried during a sitting of the Blair Witch Project: 2) so we made a point to seek out the stairs from the classic scary picture The Exorcist.
Ferncliff Trail presides in Ohiopyle State Park near where I grew up in southwestern PA. My dad shocked me one morning by letting me in on the secret that he had never hiked the short two-mile loop so we set off for a quick morning hike along it’s dirt path. Kratos and I got to stretch our legs before another long car ride and Dad got to put another check mark on his bucket list.
Spending so much time in DC has its advantages:
I get to hang out with my super awesome husband whom I wasn’t expecting to see much of during this time.
I get to photograph lots of historic and beautiful places that I otherwise wouldn’t have had the chance to. AND I talked said super awesome husband into a quick walkthrough of the National Zoo just so I could a Panda Bear in real life for the first time. Thanks for that super awesome husband.
