Home, Home Again

Yes, that long gap between posts means I've been off having fun elsewhere. This time, it was taking a road trip with Mr. Karen out to our condo in Idaho, where we stayed for about two and a half weeks before heading back. All told, we were gone nearly a month, the longest I've been away from home since I went off to collect lo those many years ago. I did post some while we were out there, but since we don't have internet in the condo right now, it was a bit of a challenge. Now I'm back in Michigan, with reliable internet I don't have to walk ten minutes to access. I hope this will mean more regular posts again.

My nails for the first part of the trip were Sally Hansen Salon Effects strips in A Little Bubbly, a blue and green dotted design that was limited edition for spring/summer 2014. Sure, I could have done something similar with creme polishes and a dotting tool, but putting these on before we hit the road was much easier, and I needed that when I was busy packing for a month long trip.



On the seat of the truck that we drove on our journey:



Since we weren't limited in vacation days like we were all the other times we've made this drive, we took the time to make some stops along the way, like the Corn Palace and the Badlands in South Dakota.





Once we got to our mountain, we faced a whole variety of weather conditions, including on different days smoke from nearby wild fires, rain, sun, and hail. We did still get out and do a lot of hiking, and saw various wildlife, including a bear that walked by our condo on several different days.













Near the end of our visit, we hosted some family and friends for the fall festival, including this sweet dog:



The drive home was less leisurely since we had some appointments scheduled in Michigan this week, but we did enjoy some spectacular sunsets from the the truck and made a quick stop to see the world's largest sandhill crane just off the freeway.





Then, about two hours before we pulled into our driveway, I broke two nails fishing around in the cooler to get Mr. Karen a snack. So once I work through the backlog of swatches, you may see lots of fakes and/or shorties around here for a while. Nothing wrong with that, just frustrating. Why couldn't they break at the beginning of the trip when I wasn't going to be swatching or meeting up with nail friends anyway?



So that's what I've been up to. Any of you celebrate the end of summer with a trip or festival?