This post came into being mostly because I took all of these pretty pictures and I didn't know where to put them. So this will be kind of like a mini-photo blog series—mostly pictures, not a lot of words (quite a contrast from most of my blog posts).

Last week, Chianna and her sister took me to Three Sisters Falls, and recently my friend Johnny took me to a hidden waterfall on the Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve trail. Sometimes I forget how pretty my hometown is, and how many places I haven't seen yet.

The pictures don't do it justice, but this hike was pretty tough. There were parts of it that you had to use a rope to get down (and up). Going down was more difficult, physically, but going back up was also really hard because it was hot as hell and we didn't bring nearly enough water. I probably would have collapsed, but luckily, some very nice woman kindly offered me half of her water bottle.

It was gorgeous at the top; I've never been around so much free-flow water. I felt like Pocahontas, frolicking around in the stream. People were relaxing at the top, having picnics, swimming (I have no idea how this last part was possible, because it was freezing and our toes were numb after being in it for just a few seconds).

This was from a couple days ago, when Johnny and I went hiking in the canyon behind our houses. This all used to be dirt overlooking the canyon; this neighborhood kind of just sprang up in the past few years.

When we got out into the canyon, it was almost unrecognizable as San Diego. It looked like we could be in Ireland or New Zealand with a lush, green field under a big, open blue sky.

It all looked like a Windows desktop screensaver—impossibly vibrant.

I'm hoping to make these mini-photo journals a regular thing, since I'm going to be working soon and probably won't have time to take a lot of international trips. But there's a great big world out there (and such a big state!), and I'm excited to explore even the little corners of it.

See you in the next one!

HAPPENING MEOW