Day #4

This AM we checked out and hubster is playing golf. He wanted to check out a course that was recommended to him - Seven Canyons - supposedly beautiful altho the whole community has undergone bankruptcy a couple of times. We checked it out yesterday - well, tried to. They wouldnt let us in the gate "This is a gated community" without having a tee time. Told us to call the golf course to get permission - but had no server out there. So he decided to go ahead and play at Oak Creek where he had a tee time already - he said it was a beautiful course and friendly people and was very glad he played there.

So I got to go shopping and playing. Got some souveniers; visited the yarn shop after all - lovely place with some beautiful local yarns. Back up plan was to visit the library but didnt really have time. Visited a thrift shop and was very very sad we did not have the truck! They had some great things there. Got a glass pitcher for daughter who collects pitchers - loved the shape of it - tempted to keep it myself! Also a new hankie for my collection - lady there was funny, said $2.50 was too much to charge for a hankie (she apparently hasnt seen them in antique stores lately!) so she only charged me $1!!!! also got a book and a plant stand - and yes I did get the grumbles from hubby that I expected when he saw the plant stand (it was small!)

 Altho there are apparently specially bred prickly pears that come in different colors - our guide yesterday told us that this beautiful color means it was frost bit!

 This is the highway in and out of Sedona (coming from the north). Beautiful - reminds me of Big Sur a bit (no ocean obviously!) as well as up in the foothills! Lots of parks that would have been interesting to visit - maybe another time???

And then we made it to Williams. We will be going into the Grand Canyon tomorrow via the train (hubby said he did not remember that I said there is no steam train right now). We tried to get reservations earlier this year, but the places we wanted to stay were all booked - one time at the Miswak Lodge was enough for us - little did we know that they were all booked because of the Solar eclipse!

Stayed at a place called Canyon Country Inn. I was worried about it - you know you never can trust websites! But it was nice. Close to downtown - well, almost everything is in Williams, and to the train - in fact I was a little worreid cause you could hear trains very well from the room, but none woke us up in the night. Very clean and bright and roomy (well, the bathroom was a little small). But the most disappointing thing??? The so-called continental breakfast. Bread to toast - Safeway muffins - fruit - yogurt, and that was it. And the place was full because of a French group doing a Harley tour of the Southwest....so of course, most was gone by the time we got there at 0715 (breakfast was 0700 - 0900)....and the only replenish on the hour! Needless to say, the next morning we found a restuarant to eat at!

 Never hiked to any of the vortexes while in Sedona - but while hubby was playing golf, I did some shopping - stopped at this very eclectic store - and finally got close to a vortex in Sedona!

Speaking of the restuarant - we ate at the same one for dinner tonight - Pine Country restaurant. Pretty good food.....but oh you should have seen the pies! According to the waiter the pecan pie was perfect - no chocolate and they do NOT heat it unless you ask for it to be heated - but he came back to tell me they were all out. Darn it! So I ordered lemon merangue - oh my gosh!!!!!!!!! I really wish I had taken a photo of it! I swear the merangue was at least 4" tall!!!!! and light as a feather! The lemon part was thin, solid, tartly sweet - just perfect!!!!!

Day #3

 We booked a 4 hour tour with this company - off road which was AWESOME!!!!! as well as a tour of some ruins.

 Here we go - hold on - it is a bumpy but EXHILERATING ride! The guide kiddingly asked me, at one point, if I wanted to drive - little did he know I was serious when I said yes!

 This is one of the best pictures I have ever had taken - I love this one - it was taken by our guide out in the wilderness...I usually duck having my photo taken cause I never like my own picture - and I think this was the only time on the trip that we had photos taken of ourselves that they didnt then try to sell back to us!

 This was part of the more civilized part of the road we were on - the fun part, I was holding one so wasnt able to take many photos of it!

 Keyhole Rock - hubby can actually take pretty good photos when I ask him to!

 From here on down there are a lot of photos of the cliff dwellings and pictographs at Honokai

 This shows three 'generations' of wall built at the cliff dwelling - from left to right - 1200 years ago, 1300 years ago, and 1400 years ago.

 Lots of defacement - from years before this became protected property - to just a few weeks ago. They have someone in attendance from sun up to sun down and have installed cameras but people are still defacing the property. Why??? I jsut dont get it. The worst of it all is that some of the defacement has been done right on top of centuries old pictographs.....if caught, the punishment is prison time which I think is very appropriate.

 After we had lunch, we drove up to Jerome, a mining town that became a ghost town....and then squatters moved in....artists and hippies and have pretty much saved the town! The only reason I can think that Jerome has thrived more than Virginia City is that it is closer to larger cities, which means more people come there more of the time....otherwise Jerome reminded me of Virginia City.

I am so happy that not once on our trip did we come across one of these 'guard dogs'. Another two reasons I do not like the desert - rattlers, and even worse, scorpions....and the only ones I saw this time were all in souvenier shops!

Got back to the Lodge in time to watch the Solar Eclipse. I guess I was dumb - but I really thought that a place who advertises that they have the best place in town to view sunsets, would also be prepared for people to want to watch the solar eclipse. The lookout areas on the way up to Sky Ranch Lodge were PACKED with people waiting for the eclipse and all the paraphanalia they needed to watch it. So we went into the gift shop/lobby....and they all acted like they had no clue what we were talking about when we asked about viewing devices for the solar eclipse. They didnt even act like they knew what the eclipse was!

One guest said they had gotten their things at the Grand Canyon - and laughed when Tom said he thought it was too far to drive. Shortly after that while we were sitting outside, one of the people in his party came up to us and loaned us a viewing device. So we got to enjoy the eclipse after all - and shared it with a trio of 'well-lubricated' young men, and an older woman from Tucson.

Going out to dinner that night was interesting - we thought everyone would be watching the eclipse, and wanted to get going before all those people were leaving the Mesa - and we found out that apparently Sunday night was a very popular night for everyone to go out to dinner. So we ended up eating at the Red Planet Diner. It was okay - even tho they initially forgot hubby's salad, and my tacos came out in flour tortillas rather than corn.

Day #2

So the next day we drove to Sedona. Beautiful drive going in - winding and hilly and trees. Then you get into a town that is surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenary....and all it has turned into is a tourist trap with limited parking. We did eventually find a place to park and took a local trolley tour to see some of the area...

 Look at this outrageous house! Doesnt really fit into the area at all. According to several people it is "occassionally" used by the owners ... either a plastic surgeon or a surgical equipment designer/manufacturer (depending on whom you want to believe - and maybe it is one and the same) from Phoenix.

 It is neighbors to this - a beautiful chapel built into the rock which was #1 thing I wanted to see in Sedona. It is small and lovely inside. But you know, so filled with tourists, I didnt feel the peace and spirituality I expected - but I felt both outside the chapel looking at all the beauty around it.

 These are two of  the statues along the walk up to the Chapel.

 We stayed at Sky Ranch Lodge which was out on Airport Mesa - right next to the "most beautiful airport in the world" according to the sign at the airport. It was nice. Older, not really shabby or rundown, but not really modern either, and the grounds are beautiful - the room was clean, the bed was comfortable, and we were able to watch the new Jesse Stone movie on the TV after we remembered that TV shows are on at different times in AZ!

One of the things they tout on their website is the beautiful patio from which to watch the sunset. This was one of the views from there.  but what I loved where the birds who came to visit while we waited for the sunset - and talking to some of the people there,

 Several hummers came to visit - but this ruby throated one was outstanding as the sun was going down!

 Several of these pretty little things came to visit also. Plus one humongous, and brightly colored bug who would not sit still long enough for me to get a photo. According to the people at the Lodge it was called a "tarantula hawk". Never seen one before and that is quite alright with me!

After the sunset - which was beautiful but still doesnt hold a candle to sunsets over the Pacific Ocean - whether on the west coast or Hawaii - we indulged in a few glasses of local wine (Arizona Stronghold Chardonney) and then headed to bed....

I forgot to talk about lunch. We tried a bakery - the Desert Flour bakery in Oak Creek Village. Oh my ..... altho the cookies were not the best, the cranberry walnut bread my turkey sandwich was on - was to die for! And no, there was no way to bring any home....but I bet I can find a recipe!

V-A-C-A-TION....gonna have some fun!

So we left early Friday morning....very early. It was still pretty chilly out, like 55 degrees at 0600.  We spent the past week double bagging all food items we were leaving in the house, and moving all the indoor plants outside, cause while we were gone we were having the house fumigated for termites. What a PITA that is. Now I know why most people wait until they are moving to do that.

So we headed out with our first stop being Kingman AZ. We got there about 4:30 or 5:00 PM and it was in the 90's!!!

It is their Centennial year and there were signs every where reminding you of it - Happy Birthday Arizona! After several days there I still cannot understand why anyone stopped there and said - "hey! this looks like a great place to live!" I totally agree that the desert is beautiful - but I am not a desert person and really do not like the idea of living anywhere that you end up spending months in the house because it is too hot to go outside! And I dont care WHAT state that desert is in!

For all you out there - there are wildflowers and color out there - but mostly in the high country.

Had some very good BBQ for dinner that first night - Redneck's Southern Pit BBQ in Kingman AZ. Very good - I had a pulled pork sandwich, the regular size, and it was almost too big to finish! Hubby had ribs and chicken, both of which literally fell right off the bones.

Stayed at a Holiday Inn Express (good - free - continental breakfasts in the mornings people!) and the oddest thing to me was there was no clock in the room at all! No alarm clock, nothing. Very strange. But like most hotel rooms, you know when it is morning cause those curains dont completely keep the sun out!

Oh yeah, for you Californios out there - gas in AZ is much cheaper! I think the highest we paid in AZ was $3.76. Altho isnt that sad to be saying that that amount is cheap!??!

The Walk

Well, the walk is over and I survived. Wasn't sure I would complete it this year because of a bunch of different factors but I did!

First of all, this allergy season has been bad. Friday I caught myself wheezing in ways/tones I have never heard. Had to go to 3 different shops to finally find eye drops because the other stores were all sold out. But it wasnt bad - it was the one day in recent memory that was not windy, so that helped a lot.

And it was hot. I had bought a special shirt for the walk and could not wear it. So I wore a short sleeved t shirt and carried a light sweater with me. And sweated the entire walk so never needed the sweater! Last year was windy and cold. This year hot. Go figure.

I was also tired. We had recieved a call about a situation at our rental so we had to drive down to deal with it yesterday. The renters have a brand new baby and they have seen, and caught, some rats and noticed a bad smell coming from under the house. So my husband - who is always my hero but especially so yesterday - went under the house not once, but 4 times! Something you could not pay me enough money to do! Cleaned up the "bathroom" under there - set out a bunch of traps - and put some odor neutralizer things there. I just hope it all works.

Yesterday was also the retirement party for one of the best - and most irascible - OB's I have ever worked with. I planned to stop by on my way to the walk, but with the trip down to Seaside, I had no time. So I was very disappointed about that.

Plus I was disappointed that my whole team had flaked on me. There were supposed to be 5 of us - and there was only me. Of course I am very proud and very thankful to all my supporters - I had well over $700 in contributions! And I wasn't walking totally alone - I walked with my daughter and her friend.

So I was just not in the best frame of mind to do a 10 K walk. I was also sad to see that there were less walkers than usual. And altho there were some interestingly decorated bras there was just not the usual array of originality (I even saw one group who had copied our idea from last year - guess imitation is a form of flattery?). Later today I will post the few photos I have.

We managed to be near the front of the pack which is great. The beginning of the walk is thru the main downtown street and it usually gets bunched up and slow there. It is fun because a lot of the restuarants have outdoor seating and they get a free floor show and we get a lot of cheering on - but it does slow us down.

But the first 2 - 3K was miserable for me. My knee was killing me as well as the bottom of one foot. I wanted to quit right then and there. So I started making deals with myself - if I could make it 1/2 way, I could get a ride in and still feel ok about myself. Then I started thinking about calling husband to come pick me up....there is a small hill up to and through a park (found out form a lady behind us that there is a family of foxes living in that park - that would have been neat to see!) and I did not think I could make it through that.  Got past that obstacle and kept going and all of a sudden I had no pain anywhere!!!!! YAY!!!

I think the fact that we were keeping up a pretty fast pace is what initially did me in. We usually are in complete darkness when we get to a certain part of the walk that is almost 1/2 way through and it was not completely dark when we hit that place.

If we hadnt stopped for a bathroom break (the part after the break has some really long stop lights to wait for) we would have made it back in 2 hours. That is like a 20 minute mile which is pretty darn good. But we had to stop and they didn't have many bathrooms open - but we didnt realize they had another bathroom stop shortly after that. After that point it felt like we were at the back of the whole walk - but turns out we weren't.

I think we made it in at about 2-1/4 hours which was pretty darn good!

Sat there sweating and drinking more water - and eating some goodies (would love to know where the awesome cupcakes came from). Sat through the raffle drawing - none of us won anything - and the costume prizes  - again, we didnt win anything. And came home.

Tossed and turned all night even with my tylenol on board but today am feeling pretty good. Tired and my knees are a little stiff - but not so bad after all.

Happy Mother's Day to all - we will shortly be going to daughter's house for the annual brunch. I will post photos after we get home (if I have any energy left!)

That's It - I Quit....

                                          RIP Jack 12/2011

Rip Althea, 5/2012

Hubby is laughing at me, but I just cant do it any more. No more dogs. See, he doesnt believe me when I say that - knows it is just because my heart is broken.....maybe so, but right now I am totally serious.

So sad - it hurt us both to have to call our daughter to tell her. Damn cancer - took 2 of our dogs. Not fair at all - people or dogs!