Wind Cave Trail

Our Mogollon Rim trip last Memorial Day weekend was cancelled because of the unusual amount of rain we had over the weekend. So instead, we hiked pretty close to home (almost an hour's drive away).

Here are pics from Wind Cave Trail at Usery State Park.



The hike was almost 3 miles round trip, I think. It sure seemed a lot further than that, but we hung in there. It was a pretty easy grade trail with moderate switchbacks. There were a few spots where Joe had to jump up or down a rock to get to the next part of the trail, but all in all, pretty manageable.

The "cave" at the top is really more of a big notch with lots of tiny crevasses and thousands of bees who have made a hive out of it all. I might not have hiked to the top had I known this, but at least the bees weren't aggressive, and they didn't seem to mind us sitting down for five minutes to catch our breath. :)

Fun hike!

Identified Flying Object!

Good old Arizona and its mysterious objects floating in the sky! Took Joe for a walk on Monday evening around 7pm. The sun was setting, and it was still about 100 degrees but much more tolerable than it was at 5:30pm when I got home. I saw something in the sky that looked like a planet -- only much, much larger. It didn't twinkle like a star, it was a constant glow like a planet.

I hurried our walk a bit and we rushed home so I could grab some binoculars. Chuck and I went outside and focused in on the object, which was not moving at all, and was still glowing. We looked closer and saw something like a clear bubble that wasn't perfectly round, but was reflecting the sun around its edges. WHAT on Earth *is* that thing? The picture below is much closer than what the general public saw. What we saw looked like a clear plastic bubble, almost like transportation for "Glinda the Good Witch of Oz". :)



We went back inside the house and started our Google-Fu and found that we weren't the only ones seeing the strange object in the sky... here are a few links:

Mysterious Object in Sky Identified
UFO Chronicles - Mysterious Object No Mystery

It was a weather balloon belonging to NASA! It was the first time either of us had seen a high atmosphere weather balloon, which was estimated to be around 400 feet in diameter and can go as high as 120,000 feet into the atmosphere. Exciting!

Here's where you can track where the balloons land even! This one landed somewhere in Kingman, Arizona.

Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility

Yet another fine Arizona adventure!

Crossword Crazy

Been on a bit of a crossword kick lately. Discovered how difficult the New York Times crosswords can be (towards the end of the week) and decided that it'd be a worthy brain challenge. So far I've been doing the Monday thru Wednesday puzzles -- I've been too chicken to attempt late-week puzzles. I look at the speeds of the crossword tournament players and they have these ridiculously fast times like three minutes for a Monday. My best Monday so far clocks in at thirteen minutes. YIKES!

Anyway, it's been a nice relaxing (occasionally frustrating) thing to do after dinner or before bed, so I'm having fun with it. I've been doing crosswords since I was probably seven or eight from Dell Puzzles or Games Magazine. Clues in the New York Times puzzles are just savory in their difficulty. I go back to my old Dell crossword magazines that I hadn't filled in and just slam through those puzzles now. :)

Lately I've gotten into finishing the NYT crossword for the day and then reading either Rex or Amy's blogs to see what they thought of it. It's fun to commiserate on clues that I thought were ridiculous or unfair.

Here are links to their great Crossword blogs:

Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle
Diary of a Crossword Fiend

Updates and Stuff

We both got iPhones recently. Absolutely addicted to the thing. Wasn't interested in one until the App Store started exploding with brilliant apps (uh, and games too) ;-)

My favorite apps: iMafia, New York Times Crossword puzzle app, Flight Control (oh shoot...those are all games). And Pandora. There -- one fave app that isn't a game.

We also adopted a wonderful German Shepherd named JoJo (we call him Joe). He's four and a half years old, and was a Eye Dog Foundation candidate. At a year old, he was adopted out of the program because he didn't track straight due to a shoulder issue. We adopted him from my boss and just love him to bits. Great dog -- goes for his morning and evening walks, but when we're home at night, he just snoozes on his dog bed or on the cool tile. Calmest dog I've ever had the pleasure of owning, that's for sure.

Here's a blurry pic of him (took it on my cellphone):


He's wonderful company and since having him, I've been walking about a mile and a half a day minimum, so he's keeping me super fit!

In other news, it's going to be a killer Broadway season here in Phoenix. ASU Gammage Theatre is showing Wicked, Phantom of the Opera, In the Heights, Avenue Q, and *drum roll*... Legally Blonde! I'm so excited -- we got our tickets for Wicked last night, so we're set for a Saturday night date in July. For the rest of the Broadway shows, I think we're going to buy season passes this year since there were so many of them we wanted to check out.

Starting to heat up here in the 623. Had a few 100 degree days this week but it's going back to normal which is mid-eighties for the highs during April. *Almost* time to open up the pool for the summer!

Cavalia Review

Cavalia was magical. It was held under a massive "big top" white tent in Scottsdale. I had no idea what kind of seats we had until we got to the front and went to a separate line. We were handed a program and then a "backstage pass" with a lanyard. Then we were led to our seats. Literally front row and center -- I had to remember to close my hanging jaw. Not only that, but the lanyard and pass gave us access after the show to meet the horses and riders in Cavalia. My fantastic husband must have had to pull some strings to get those incredible seats :)

We sat there waiting for the show to start -- the dirt stage stretched out in front of us, no more than six feet away. There were a bunch of toy horses littering the stage, some with spotlights on them, others looked like antique beloved rocking horses. The lights finally dimmed and the show began with two young horses trotting out and weaving their way around the toy horses. They stood around for a minute or so, and then trotted across the stage to the opposite exit. Then the human performers came out, each grabbing their favorite toy horse, and the music and show began.

Trying to describe the show is difficult. Imagine a Cirque du Soleil performance, with the whimsy, playfulness, grace, and acrobatics -- then add in horses mere feet in front of you galloping full-bore across the stage from one end to the other. The music was incredible -- there were live performers essentially built into the back part of the stage, invisible to the audience except when the sheer cloth covering that area was lit to reveal them as they played. The acts consisted of humans doing acrobatics, either balancing on a huge "swiss ball" or flying through the air as trapezists with silk cloths wrapped around their limbs.

Then the horse acts... they were wonderful. There were dressage numbers where gorgeous, thick-necked PRE's (Pura Raza Espanola) horses and riders performed dressage to music. The flowing costumes draped over the back of the horses and made the horses and riders look like a single unit. Then the Roman and trick riding where they galloped full speed while standing on the backs of two horses, one foot on each. Then acrobatic riding where a man on a stallion did dressage while his partner flew on silk clothes above him and straight out into the audience. The performances were spectacular and we watched with rapt attention. Tissue paper leaves fell from the sky and scattered through the stage and the audience. We were showered with snow bubbles that clung to our eyelashes before they melted away without leaving a trace. It was an absolutely brilliant show.

Wow, Long Time No Update!

Haven't blogged in ages, so here's a quickie update...

Things are pretty great, despite the economy swirling in the bottom of the bowl. We're both thankful and blessed to still have jobs. Visited the Grand Canyon over Thanksgiving -- it was amazing as always. Caught The Train in Williams and rode it all the way up to the Canyon. Hiked Bright Angel trail for a bit, had some delicious chili and hot dogs while sitting on the rock wall there at the edge of the Grand Canyon. Nothing is more beautiful than that canyon. Rode back on the train and walked over to the Williams Christmas tree lighting ceremony right there on Route 66. With the sprinkle of snow and the sounds of Christmas music together with the smell of German roasted almonds in the air, it was definitely a trip to remember.

Finished the first draft of my novel that last weekend in November -- NaNoWriMo worked for me! Now I've been struggling with the edits and rewrites that I need to do to polish it. Planning on doing NaNoWriMo again this November -- it was a great exercise. Tough, but great. The Acer Aspire One was the reason I actually got a chance to finish the novel in November... sooo portable! Chuck bought one a few weeks ago as well. They're great second laptops, especially for the price.

Christmas was pretty quiet, although we did take a Hummer limo to see the Christmas lights with Chuck's family. Dad and Josh came to visit in January and brought me all kinds of ono Hawaiian food :)

February's been busy but we're hanging in there. I cannot *WAIT* to see Cavalia at the end of the month! I remember when I saw the ad on TV back in December, I shrieked with excitement. My wonderful husband bought tickets (and I think spent way too much) and surprised me with them -- we're going on the 28th of February. I've been waiting a few years to see Cavalia and finally it's coming back through Scottsdale.

We got to see The Lion King here at ASU Gammage a few weeks ago -- it's still as magical as the first time we saw it in Tucson. "Wicked" comes to town I think later this year or early next year, so we're going to try for tickets to see it as well.

Anyway, I owe some pics to be posted. I'll get to that, I promise. But tonight I'm off-tanking Obsidian Sanctum and Vault of Archavon -- our weekly farm night so... well... I'll be in WoW. :)

Happy Turkey Weekend

Headed up to Williams, AZ and the Grand Canyon again. We couldn't get enough of it the last time we went so we decided to take advantage of the long weekend and head back up there. This time by train!
Leaving tomorrow afternoon and spending the night in the cozy mountain town called Williams. In the morning we board a train that goes to the Grand Canyon. I have my fingers crossed for snow -- it's actually shaping up to be a wet week in Arizona. When it's raining in the valley, it's snowing in the mountains!

I will also have the first draft of my very first novel completed by this Sunday. National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) so far has been a success and I'm on target to hit my 50,000 word count goal by Sunday afternoon if not Saturday on the drive back to Phoenix. Excited! If I can ever get it publish-worthy it'll be fantastic. If not, I've had a huge learning experience and I've now proven to myself that I can write 1800 words a day even if it's sacrificing a little bit of sleep to do it. :)