+ DIY passport photos

getting passport photos and prints can be 15$ or more, but you can also take them yourself and get 4 2"x2" for 1$. Jasper and I followed directions online for how to do it, and now we have pictures ready for visas in Southeast Asia. Laos, Cambodia, and Mayanmar can all do Visas as you enter the country, if you have your own pixtures ready, the process is much easier (or so we have heard). I am so excited, this will be perhaps the biggest adventure yet. 

+ Chicago Town!

+ Millenium Park

Cities that offer gigantic parks with expansive fields, sculpture parks, museums, playgrounds, really communitcate that providing space for their citizens is important. Chicago definently does this at millenium park.  I can only imagine how awesome it is on a sunny summer day, a picnicers heaven. 

+ the grandest of canyons

Jis a cold but great time to visit the canyon because there are perhaps hundreds less visitors per day. You can talk the rim trail without a crowd and even find your own cliff to have a picnic on without being overrun by tourists. 

a brave/stupid soul who had to take a selfie on every rock edge. I'm not sure if he made it out of the park alive

the view from out picnic along the south rim. the cloud engulfed us by the end of our meal

many ravens requested the site. this one had a whole list of calls and moves he was making but were lost in translation on me

the sunniest view we got was towards the end of our stay on the eastern most point of the south rim trail 

+ desert botanic gardens of arizona

Saguaros, organ pipes, barrel, cholas, totem pole, compass barrel, Senitas  are just some of the cacti i discovered at the desert botanical gardens north of phoenix. It is an amazing place. 

saguaros

organ pipe cacti

cactus skeleton

totem pole cactus

in the succulent gardens

queen anne agave

a saguaro "saWAHrow" cactus in the setting sun. these cacti live to be 200-300 years, and don't even start growing arms until the age of 50. 

the mesquite tree has tiny leaves so they can conserve water and reduce evaporation

a Senita catcus, i think.