Organ Pipe Natl' Monument

From Organ Pipe Natl Monument

We had a three day weekend with MLK day and decided to spend a night camping by the USA / Mexico border. The Organ Pipe Natl Monument was created to preserve the Sonoran desert. The park is full of saguaro and organ pipe cactus. Pretty much every plant, tree and shrub in the park has thorns or is poisonous.  

So of course we both got stuck a couple of times. With so much cacti, it's just a matter of time before you become a human pin cushion. I got up close and personal with a cholla (ie jumping cactus) while josh got tangled up in some catclaw. 

Some don't really care for desert landscape but we have grown to love it. We went on a 21 mile scenic loop that took us the foothills of the Ajo mountains. While on the loop we took in a classic sunset with silhouetted cactus all around us.

Most of the park can only be accessed now by day hikes. They had to close the backcounty camping because of the drug smugglers and banditos that make border crossings there. We stayed the campground and even though we could see the border fence from camp we felt pretty safe. 

While there we went to a ranger fireside chat. We were the youngest couple there by far. Any one of the other campers could have passed for our grandparents (mostly RV campers). It was fun, kind of like being invited to a traveling senior citizens meeting. 

We are very excited about moving back to Utah in February but as it turns out moving can be pretty stressful.  Josh has been working / interning 55 hour weeks for a few months now. I have started the job hunt and tried to get things set up for us to move. So it was nice to leave all that behind for a couple of days and just relax and enjoy the scenery.

A White Christmas

For Christmas we traveled back to the motherland where we could enjoy the snow and time with our families. We went through Vegas to avoid winter storms and were glad that we did. Vegas is quite a place during Christmas, not to mention the stellar room rates. This year we did Christmas with the Treasure's. We wrapped presents while watching Christmas movies and had our traditional reading from Luke and Christmas Eve drive to look at Christmas lights. With 9 of us all packed in the Honda Pilot it's sure to be a good time! We had a wonderful white Christmas morning with everyone in PJ's, opening presents around the tree. Later we went up to WJ to celebrate with the Bastian's. It was fun to spend time with everyone but we missed not having Russ in town. 

The rest of our break was filled with family time and Winter festivities. We went ice skating at the Galliven's Center down town and sledding up by Ben and Jodi's house on the East side. Josh's cousin Jenna had her mission farewell so we got to see a lot of the Bastian clan.

We are very grateful for our families and we were glad we could spend the holidays with them.