Warmer Thoughts

Holy Buckets of Rice! Are we EVER going to get warmer weather? I am so sick of the spring snow. I know I shouldn't complain, but I just want to get outside and start hiking, walking & jogging. I wanna be warm. The whole of JAKL is feeling mighty cooped up and cabin-fevered out.

Our backyard at 6:00 p.m. ~sigh~

I don't like to sound all complainy and stuff so I'll just write about a nice warm road trip we took at the end of February that I've been meaning to blog about anyway. Maybe the telling of this trip will conjure warm thoughts and remind me that spring and summer are just around the corner for us here and I'll be complaining about how it's so hot that I can't sleep at night.

On Feb 26th, JAKL loaded up our Saturn Vue (named Leon, btw) and took a 12.5 hour drive down to the blue skies, dry climate and warm sun-filled days of Phoenix, AZ. We were surprising J's parents who snowbird down in them parts during the rough Wyoming winter and had no idea we were coming to visit them. This was really cool for me too because I had never been to Arizona before. w00t! Exciting. I love going to new places and we love adding new states to our geocaching repetoire.

See Phoenix. Right there! Says so on the mountain!

Phoenix provided us some much loved (and needed after that long drive) hiking. We were able to enjoy two long hikes, one for each day we were there. The scenery was spectacular. I had never laid eyes on a saguaro cactus and was amazed at how gigantic they were. I thought they were around 7 to 10 feet tall tops. . .wow! I think some of them were at least 30 to 40 feet tall. I also thought they only sported two arms. The status quo seemed to be 4 or more. It takes them 90 years to sprout an arm apparently. What word to use? Wonderful....Warm! I spent my youth watching those old western movies with my dad and now I felt as though I had a walk-on part on the set of one of those hot, dusty films.

Saguaro with the Superstition Mtns in background.


More scenery.


J takes way better shots than K does.


Saguaro Silouettes (my personal fav by J)


J's mom, me & one of the pups each tangoed with one of these
ouchy succulents. Can't remember the name of 'em, but they'd reach out and grab ya!
They were alive. . .ALIVE!!!

So the first day we were there, everyone kept talking about Tortilla Flat out beyond the Superstition Mtns. They weren't real specific in their rantings about it other than "we went out to Tortilla Flats. .." "Tortilla Flat is out that-a-way. .." and pointed in the direction out past the desolation beyond the mountains. *I* thought Tortilla Flat was this wonderful, oasis destination out in the wilderness where one could immerse oneself in the isolation of the hot, desert plains and become centered at last shaking away the hubbub and hustle of the city. I begged to go to Tortilla Flat with this naive expectation in mind. So, after 12.5 hours of driving, we got back IN Leon for a 40 minute drive up to Tortilla Flat. Was it the oasis I had hoped for? Well, it was an oasis, but much to my dismay, TF was just a restaurant with tons of tourists. Ugh. I braced myself for the worst!

The place was actually kind of cool. Barring the fact that there were scads of people milling around, traffic jams in the parking lot and rudeness abound, it wasn't 1/2 bad. The history is interesting. . .used to be the mining town for that area. But now, it's not. It's a gift shop/restauranty thingamahootie.

The first thing I noticed is that the walls & ceilings were covered in $1 bills signed by the person put it there. Now I had seen this before at other venues, but not to this extent. The coverage was phenomenal! Our friend Salamander is a Where's Georger (isn't that what you'd be called)? Anyway, he's obsessed with tracking his Federal Reserve Notes, so I immediately thought of him and took some shots. A couple extreme close-ups too with my still fairly new camera! So, these are for you, Sal!

This was the ceiling. We liked this colorful patch made up of foreign moola.


How bout a Hot George?


or a Goth George!? Jessicaca really rocked the Red Sharpie.

Oh and there were many more cool, defaced dollar bills and I could go on and on, but these two were my favorites really.

J's mom had a good time showing me all the kitchy stuff around the area. She made me pose for tons of goofy pictures, but I settled on this obligitory touristy photo op to share with you all. Go ahead . . .laugh.

Sort of sums it all up, huh?

The long weekend of 75 - 90 degree weather was fantastic and spoiling. Getting warm to the bone felt dreamy & all the hiking got our blood flowing in the right direction again. With all the hiking and eating and visiting; the puppies were happy, we were happy, J's parents were happy. We were all happy freaks.

JAKL headed back home on Sunday afternoon and decided to stop to sleep in a hotel in Alburqurque for a good night's rest instead of driving straight through. When we finally reached Cheyenne on Monday, the temp was a balmy 34 degrees F. Oh, what a tease that weekend turned out to be. And now tonight brings us Spring snow that is yet another reminder that the Cold has not yet quite let us out of her icy grip.

You betcher bottom dollar I'll be dreaming about those warm bones of our Phoenix trip tonight!