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. 

October / November: Kanab, North Rim, Halloween, a Wedding, our Anniversary, and Thanksgiving.

So to catch everyone up, the past couple of months have been busy but enjoyable. In October we met up with the Treasures in Kanab. Why Kanab, well why not? For one thing it's about halfway between Phoenix and Springville. It also happens to be two hours from a handful of National Parks. From Kanab we visited Bryce Canyon and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We had a great time hanging out with everyone and seeing the sights. We really made some great memories, like Jordan and his hat, and Ryan and Josh's discovery of "the caves".

Once back home in Glendale we wrapped up the month with Halloween. We didn't have great costumes (kind of the norm with us), but we did carve pumpkins with Russ which has become a tradition. The Lemons were in town for John and Amica's wedding. It was fun to get together and see everyone. The weather was beautiful and it was a great day for a wedding.

We started November out with our 4 year anniversary. It's unbelievable how fast time flies. We are so greatful for each other and our marriage. We look forward to many more.

Jessica came to visit over Veterans Day weekend, Trav couldn't make it because of work. Josh was so excited for me to have some girl time. We had lots of fun shopping, laughing at really old inside jokes and just doing girlie things. With Jess even traffic is loads of fun - that's its own story.

Thanksgiving was funny because we didn't know who was coming until right before. It all worked out though. We hosted Thanksgiving at our house with Russ's help. Brad, Katie, and Spencer made the long drive for turkey, and we had plenty of turkey. We had a great meal, we missed Mom and Dad, but it was great to have all the siblings together. While they were here we did a little bit of everything; a little rock band, a little hiking, a little bit of "rock Frisbee", and of course a little bit of crazy black Friday shopping. We also fit in some movies in too. All in all, it was really great to have everyone here and sad to see them leave.

Arizona State Fair

Fall must be here because the AZ State Fair has rolled around again. Where else can you pet the animals, people watch for hours, ride the "thrill" rides, see some cars smash each other up, eat greasy food, and oh, did I mention get sick from that greasy food? No place, except the good ol' state fair.

This years fair experience was pretty much like years past, except we saw figure 8 racing in the grandstand. Another wonderful event (a cousin to the demolition derby). Several cars race around a figure 8 and inevitably cars will crash in the middle, although not as many as we predicted. The crowd didn't disappoint either as we met our quota for mullets, and trucker hats.

Also new for us this year, was attending the pig walking/ judging. This is all new to me but apparently pigs are quite domesticated. It was fun to watch the kids perform and walk their pigs. Too bad for the pigs though because they were judged on their "market readiness".

That turtles got a cold.

Kids say the funniest things. So there we were looking at this reptile exhibit when we stumbled across to two tortoises and a couple of kids. The turtle's were exhibiting some adult behavior and the kids were trying to figure out just what was going on. The kids had all sorts of ideas to explain the tortoise's behavior, and were sharing their insight.

"It could be a race", one said
the other disagreed, "no, they are wrestling"
"that one has a cold, or maybe hiccups"
"maybe that one is saying gitty up?"

We only caught a few seconds of it on video, we hope you find it as funny as we did.

Balloon Fiesta in New Mexico

We have always wanted to see New Mexico, really I'm not being sarcastic; for some reason this surprises people. I guess we are suckers for the unknown. This years balloon festival, and some other circumstances, were just the excuse we needed to get out of town. Apparently New Mexico is the land of enchantment AND the national hotbed for ballooning. All just trivia until you see it for yourself. It was really amazing, and to think we nearly left town without seeing one balloon.

We spent the first day of our trip in artsy Santa Fe. What really caught us off guard is how old the city was (1607). When I think of really old colonial settlements I think of the East coast. I had forgotten about those Spanish Fathers wandering around the west. While in Santa Fe we saw the oldest Church in the USA and the oldest public building. The area around the Plaza was full of museums, art galleries, and tourist trap gift shops.

From Santa Fe we took a scenic drive down the turquoise trail to Albuquerque. Along the way we stumbled across Madrid, NM. As we drove through town it felt like we had been there before. We soon realized that this was the town they filmed "Wild Hogs" in. We saw lots of bikers and hippies while there. We also happened to time our trip with peak pine-nut season. So we spent some time on the side of the road hunting and gathering.

We then road the worlds longest ariel tramway to Sandia peak above Albuquerque. Unfortunately the town was full of tourists for the balloon festival so we waited in a Disneyland like nightmare line for a couple hours. The view from the top was amazing. Fall colors were just starting to speckle the forest.

That's about the time things went wrong. A storm blew in, that cancelled that nights balloon festivities, and we got stranded for several hours at a train station. It continued the next day with the mornings mass ascension also being called off due to the weather (unfortunately we found it was canceled after we had got up at 4:30 in the AM and got ready). Through it all we met some really nice people; the kind of people that restore your faith in humanity. So we started to pack up and get ready to head home when we had the same idea that comes to us at the end of every vacation, lets just stay one more day. We really wanted to see the festival and had prepaid for everything so... we stayed. And we were really glad we did.

That evening they held the "night glow". This is where they tie down the balloons and once inflated they twinkle and glow all different colors in the dark. By night fall there was several hundred balloons on the field for the show. The operators could then light up the balloons by turning on the torch/flame thrower. We were awestruck by all the balloons glowing around us, and words cannot explain the experience when the announcer called "all glow" and the entire field lit up.

The next morning we once again stood in awe as more than three hundred balloons lifted off with the sunrise. There was just so much to take in as one balloon after another floated skywards. After they launched we watched them dot the sky and drift away into the morning sun. As we left the field that morning we were so glad that we could see the balloons and also so grateful for all our other many blessings.

Route 66

We haven't seen all of route 66 but we have seen the Arizona highlights. Most of it honestly isn't worth mentioning (like Kingman). Sure its a scenic highway but more scenic than others? Not really. What sets apart "America's Highway" is the little (nearly dead) towns that dot it. Once upon a time when these towns where not bypassed by our modern freeways, each developed there own roadside oddities to encourage people to stop, shop, eat, or stay the night. The restaurants along 66 make some people nostalgic and others just wonder how they keep their food licence. That being said we have had the gold standard/holy grail malt milk shake on route 66. This was the milk shake that all other milk shakes are measured against. Simply Amazing. If you ever find yourself in Seligman YOUR LOST, but while your there get a malt.

Along those same lines, there is a restaurant in Williams (by the Grand Canyon) that has a great little place called the Pine Country Restaurant. Maybe the best Huevos Rancheros and homemade pie on earth. It was the thought of that pie that motivated our hike out of the Grand Canyon.

Remember the old Eagles song...

Well, I’m a standing on a corner

In Winslow, Arizona

And such a fine sight to see

It’s a girl, my lord, in a flatbed

Ford slowin’ down to take a look at me

Well that songs the only thing holding Winslow on the map. The whole downtown is dedicated to the Eagles complete with "the corner", two gift shops, and Eagles music blaring twenty-four, seven. We loved it, I have to admit. We took our obligatory picture, and phoned home to tell family we were "standing on the corner in Winslow, AZ" ! Total tourists.

In Holbrook we saw the Wigwam Hotel. Most everyone has seen "Cars", remember the individual tee-pee looking rooms? Yeah, this is where you can find them. They have all sorts of old cars parked around to give it a 50's feel. Some of the cars look like they might have been inspiration for some of the "Cars" characters (or vise versa). The place has seen better days but it was still fun to see. Have you stayed in a Wigwam lately?

In Holbrook there was also a dinosaur themed rock shop. Rocks are old and dinosaurs are old so I guess it works.
So that might be all of the Route 66 that we ever see. These colorful stops make long road trips memorable.