Trip to the Temple

The areas that we most love to go are often closed. There are various reasons. And I can't go into all of it on here. But suffice it to say, we feel like it's a treat to get to travel to the mountains when they are open.

And I got the chance to travel out in August. It was a really great trip--I got to travel out with a friend, so I got to meet lots and lots of family and friends while I was there. We've found that traveling out with friends is so much more fun (and tiring) than just going on our own...

Anyway, our first day in town we drove out to a temple. And I watched my friends do all the rituals that are done in the temple. It was nothing I hadn't seen before. But it had been long enough that it was fresh, and watching my friends walk through the rituals actually drives the reality home a bit more. So, here are some pictures from the temple. They are a bit smoky just because of the incense burning (the oven that is shown is an incense burning oven)...

The last picture is a friend throwing up her prayer cards into the wind to carry them off to the gods, and she's surrounded by prayer flags. Such is the reality here...