had to go digging for this photo for a project i’m doing at work. road trip stuff. wall drug is the most road trippiest place one could go, and here i am, riding a jackalope with my brother. totally awesome.

since i was doing a little bit of frantic photo-digging this morning, i decided to scan in a few others, as well. this is all making me want to finally put together my diary of travel and adventures. i imagine i need to create a sort of index first, with dates and locations, then dig up all of the extraneous, fun details from there.

i love a good adventure, people.

my grandma p.i. and me in the badlands of south dakota. so pretty there and i have been craving a trip back there recently.

i remember my grandpa telling me about how, when he was a boy, they went spelunking in the area and very nearly fell down a cavern. was that for real or was he pulling a fast one? who knows.

me with grandma “d” in oklahoma somewhere. she bought me fiona apple’s “tidal” cd on this road trip, which is really when i fell in love with her music. based on suggestion from kelsey. i wore my hair in braided pigtails pretty much constantly. i was so damn cool.

also seems i was a bit emo. (still am) i hadn’t quite gotten over nine inch nails yet. do you like my jacket? i wore that everywhere, too.

i went to southern oklahoma with my parents and grandparents when my brother was graduating from basic training. we went to texas for a day trip and ate bbq and stopped at a mall. i bought two left sandals at a dig-through-the-bin-of-shoes sale. i did not realize this ’til we were back in our oklahoma hotel that evening. true story. sad story.

also, i remember grandma p.i. kept picking wildflowers and i had just learned that this was Not Allowed. i think.

also happened across this photo, which is part road trip/part hiking trip. jen took this photo. we took this class through umn for may term to go hiking in the black hills of south dakota. in this photo, the dudes who were actually in shape had gone off to eat or something and i really, really wanted to lay down. i would do this sort of trip again, but i might take less junk in my pack and i might allow for more time. why was everyone in such a hurry? i just wanted to have fun, really.

it was neat to climb to the top of harney peak, though — the long way up. i will be forever grateful to the one awesome wrestler dude who carried my pack part of the way and cheered me on up to the tower.

what a terrible idea. i was so out of shape. okay, i still am.

I decided last January 1st, on a whim, to take at least one photo every day in 2010 — also known as Project 365. My only rules for myself were that (1) I wasn’t allowed to use my phone camera to take the daily photo, and (2) I had to compose and shoot the photo on my own.

There were some days that I almost forgot to take photos and some days where I knew what I’d be taking a photo of beforehand. There are also a lot of photos of my cats.

Some facts about my photo collection (assuming I just accurately kept count as I scrolled through):

• Photos of me: 24
• Photos of my friends and family: 51

• Photos of beverages (mostly of the adult variety): 18
• Photos of food: 45

• Photos of cats (mostly my own): 24
• Photos of my sweetheart, Jason: 10
• Photos of flowers: 9

I did a lot of new things in 2010: I joined a gym. I bought a “new” car (used, but only two years old and one previous owner). I had LASIK eye surgery.

I traveled to Orlando, Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; got lost in Arizona for a couple hours; and had a road trip through new England (Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine).

My friends and family got married: Ryan and Jane (technically married in October 2009, but we celebrated in America this year… and it now occurs to me they’ll be celebrating in Taiwan this year! Way to stretch the party, guys!), Jenny and Jeremy, and Kristi and Jared.

My friends had some adorable babies: Lucas (Jen & Tom), Aurora (Kelsey & Royce), Jaxon (Logan & Missy), and Lillian (who was born on New Year’s Eve to Erin & Jason!).

I attended two hockey games (who would’ve ever thought that would happen?) at the Xcel Energy Center and two outdoor, major league baseball games — one at the new Target Field and one at Fenway Park.

All in all: 2010 was a great year to document! I’m eager to see what kind of excitement 2011 brings my way.

View the whole set on Flickr.

Now that’s a gray squirrel of a different color?
This one actually doesn’t remind me of anything, but rather I have a follow up question: why doesn’t Minnesota seem to have red squirrels (like South Dakota)?

What’s tunneling under my lawn?
I was in high school (the later years). My parents have an egress window in their basement (so the outside ground covers about two-thirds of the window), where I have found many critters, mostly snakes, trapped on top of the layer of rocks there. I’ve always assumed they fell down, but maybe they just burrowed up. I don’t know. Anyway, once I found a baby mole. There didn’t seem to be a parent around, so I decided to adopt the baby—because Karyn was coming home in a day or two so I wanted to show her. I had never seen a mole before, and I don’t know if she had either, but this baby mole? It was really pretty darn cute with its over-sized hands and long, pointy nose. I found an old aquarium and filled it with dirt from somewhere (possibly my dad’s garden, possibly from under their deck). Then I put the mole in and he burrowed around for a while. I did research to figure out what to feed him, and found that moles like worms. So for the next few hours/days I would go into my dad’s stash of worms (for fishing!) and steal one or two to feed my new pet. Everything was going just splendidly and I enjoyed watching the mole. (I guess I should also mention it was spring or summer and the weather was being fantastic.) Unfortunately, tragedy struck when one evening there was a very heavy rain. I don’t want to finish this story, because now I’m depressed and I feel guilty all over again.

Why are there garter snakes in my yard?
I used to think they were called garden snakes because there were so damn many of them in my parents’ garden.

Eek! What should I do about bats in my house?
The only bat I remember seeing indoors was when I was very young. Karyn and I shared a bedroom and, in fact, had bunk beds. She slept on the top bunk. For this memory, the bed was situated against the north wall, just next to our bathroom. Which is fortunate, I guess, in a way. Karyn had gone to bed, and I think she was still sleeping, but a bat was flying in circles over her. Which was sort of eerie. Dad got a broom and shooed the bat into the bathroom. I’m sure a vicious struggle ensued (he closed the door) and Dad came out, holding the garbage can and looking victorious. Or exhausted, whichever. Note: Nowadays I am very much a fan of bats and I would never, ever approve of this sort of behavior. And you shouldn’t either. </public service announcement>

How do I help an orphaned animal?
This is what I should have looked for information about when I found my mole. One of my coworkers told me that moles have very, very short lifespans anyway, but that doesn’t decrease the guilt I feel.