Sunday, April 06, 2008

Arizona Days 4 & 5

Two more beautiful blue sky filled days. How do the people who live here stand so much sun? I love the sun but back home, we do have rain for days at a time....days where you just want to curl up with a book, turn the heat up to dry the air out in the house and make a corn chowder. Then when the sun comes out... it almost seems to make us more grateful. I guess if I lived here I would take the sun for granted. It does eliminate a whole topic of our daily conversation that we have back in Maine.

"Did you watch the weather? Did you see what Saturday is gonna do?" Gary could ask me. I might reply, "No, I missed it this morning but yesterday, they were saying partly sunny with light winds out of the west." In Arizona, I'm guessing you don't even have to ask what the weather is going to be because more times than not... the sun is out.

Also, we left a bag of Tostitos OPEN on the counter for TWO days and they still crunched when we bit one. Gary and I were staring open mouthed in amazement at this little ditty. Back home, two days on the counter would've brought on a gagging fit as a soggy, stale chip was spit back out. This is what lack of moisture in the air can do. I am also having straw growing on my head this week, thank you very much. And poor Hannah, let's not even talk about trying to comb her hair... it's so dry that when I put conditioner on, it friggin' disappeared into her hair. There was nothing to rinse out... I shit you not!

Friday, we rode up to Sedona and rented a Tomcar and took some trail rides. It was a blast! We didn't want to go on a guided tour because, well, if you know Gary, you already know why. This is the man who won't go on a cruise because he can't drive the boat. Anyhoo..... we piled into the Tomcar, were handed a trail map and given 5 hours to explore.


The scenery was amazing. The red rock of Sedona was spectacular... and like the Grand Canyon, hard to describe so I'll share some pictures. It's hard for me to imagine the people that live in this area looking out their windows everyday and seeing stuff like this and not losing track of time just enjoying the view. I can not get over the blue of the sky. I've never seen such blue sky EVER.


The trail riding was fun. We could go up, up, up the trails while we (meaning Hannah and I, Gary just laughed) screamed in glee and laughed going over the rocks. We were buckled in pretty tightly and a few times I had to remind Gary that we were sightseeing... not Mickey Thompson Off Road Racing. He LOVED driving the Tomcar and announced he wants two of them. Some parts were a little frightening, but exhilarating at the same times. After touring around for a few hours, I had to go pee. This was something I worried about having to do out in the middle of no where, but Gary assured me there was a bathroom near every cactus. He lied. What he meant was... you can go to the bathroom near a cactus... just try not to sit on one. Here is my allotted pee break spot.

We thoroughly enjoy our tour of the desert and after we returned the Tomcar, we headed to a spot that we saw on the way to Sedona to have lunch. After we saw this sign, we knew we had found the right place to eat. It was bad ass too! Yum!!

Today (Saturday), we met up with Wayne, Amy, Nathan and Maddy. Wayne and Gary visited at the MacDonald Ranch while Amy and I went with the kids on a trail ride. My horse's name was Micky and here is his head. I felt bad for Mickey carrying my fat butt around for an hour but I really wanted to go and I promised him some extra oats when he returned to the stable.
He kept stopping to eat on the side of the trail and trying to get my camera out of the bag, I dropped my sunglasses into a prickly cactus. I hemmed and hawed and wondered if I should humble myself and hollar out to the guide to stop so I could get them and the Yankee in me won out. Since I had just spent $50 on them, I couldn't leave them laying in the dirt for some horse to step on. The guide had to come back and get them for me because we couldn't get off the horses. Oh yes, I felt like a moron.

Here is Hannah on her horse named Skittles. Hannah really enjoyed the ride and so did her cousins. After we went riding, the kids played in the pool at the hotel while the rest of us visited. They wore themselves out because as I type this, Hannah is zonked out cold in her bedroom. Tomorrow, we might go to a 3 acre flea market we found to look around. We are meeting Wayne & family around 2pm for some bowling and then dinner.

Hannah really is loving it here.


Things to remember about this trip:
  • Cheap sunglasses give me a headache.
  • My allergies are non existent in Arizona.
  • My skin is so dry it is cracking.
  • We are snapping and cranky after 5 days of vacation.
  • I love the hotel bed.
  • I hate my bed at home.
  • Hannah can go three days without pooping and I just can't wrap my mind around that.

5 comments:

Sharpie said...

LOL!! Your things to remember sound like me every time. Except - I usually hate the hotel bed and can't wait to get to mine back home. And seriously - what IS that with the lack of pooping on vacation?? I can look pregnant by the time we leave!

Anonymous said...

Love the new pictures. I actually told mom that I wanted to go when I saw them. I bet that's the ONLY vacation my dad would go on!! Tell Uncle Gary to buy three Tomcar's ... one for me too! :)

ccw said...

The pictures are beautiful!

I love your things to remember.

Mike Todd said...

Awesome pictures, dude! Thanks for sharing. I think the Tostitos thing is reason enough to move out there. Just think how much one could save on chip clips.

lime said...

your comments on sun and lack of humidity resonate with me. in trinidad the weather was always the same.

LOVE your list of memorable things.