Sometimes scenes from nature give me goose bumps. Here are some pictures I took last weekend on a hike at Quicksilver where the whole park was alight with these vibrant yellow blooms. It’s a park we’ve hiked a bunch of times, but it is truly humong-o and we’ve only really hiked in one small corner of it. We decided to explore this time around and saw traces of the mining community that lived here in years past.

A decommissioned furnace

No idea what this was, but it looked sweet and lonely and reminded me of dusty gas stations where travelers buy ice cold Coca Cola in glass bottles on their way to happier places.

It was over 90 degrees this day which probably explained why there was only one other car besides ours in the parking lot. Later, we saw these strange animal prints on the trail and spooked ourselves out conjuring up images of warped mountain lions coming to eat us. But then we saw the family who belonged to the grey mini van in the parking lot and their 3 children. We are huge pansies, I know.

A rad barn building which was undoubtedly used for making corn husk dolls, cooking hot cakes and twirling around in fancy, pressed aprons. Okay, so maybe that’s just what I would do if I had my own old red barn in the middle of the woods. Don’t worry, you would definitely be invited. 🙂

Also, here’s a song I’ve been listening to on repeat and will probably listen to a bunch more throughout the weekend. Today is Nat’s birthday (Happy Birthday!!) and I plan on bringing my dancing shoes. Saturday, I am taking an all-day photography class (a gift from my thoughtful boss) and Sunday I am planning my day around going to the Japanese Obon festival and getting my mochi-eating on. Have a great weekend!