ARIZONA PART NUMERO DOS: the rest of the story
We flew in on Saturday and immediately hit the pool.
Sunday after Church we found it pouring rain. We decided to drive around Phoenix and checked out the sights. By check out the sights I mean we did a sports tour. We saw where the Diamond Backs play, Phoenix Suns, a bunch of baseball training camps (tis the season), etc.
Monday we woke up at 4am to go run outside and then decided that was a really crappy idea and went back to bed. A) I don't care if it is AZ...at 4am in March it is freezing. B) it was dark. really dark. C) we were just really tired and lazy. A few hours later we got up and I took Clayton to work. After that my day went somewhat like this: read while watching Today Show and eating breakfast, go running, shower and eat lunch, contact my place of work (ugh) and do some work via the Internet (stupid Internet...nothing like working while you are on vacay), shop and shop some more, drive back to Casa Bella (our home away from home for the week ... thank you VRBO.com) watch the endlessly funny Nightly News with Brian Williams (the guy cracks me up), eat dinner, read and anxiously await the C-mans phone call telling me he is ready to come home.
Tuesday...see Monday but throw in some lap swimming in the rain and a small hike on Hayden's Butte.
View of ASU's Sun Devil Stadium from the top of Hayden's Butte
View of Phoenix from top (really, really,
really zoomed in). You can see Sky Harbor airport and AZ Diamondbacks field.
Personally I think that scenery pics without people are lame-o. However, I have decided that setting up the camera on a tripod, setting the timer and running to get a decent picture of yourself 8 or 9 different times is even lamer. Thankfully no one was up there to
A) see me awkwardly trying to take pictures of myself (although as I replay the event in my head it is rather hilarious)
B) mug, rape, or murder me. What has happened to me? Where what was once independence has been sadly replaced with sissiness. I left the pepper spray at home and told Clayton that I would buy more before I went anywhere...a promise that I did not fulfill. woops.
The ASU "A".
Wednesday... woke up, took Clayton to work, read while watching the Today Show (I don't think you guys really understand how much I love that show) and ate breakfast. Oh yeah worked a bit...again...which sucked. Decided that it was warm enough to go to the pool and read and soak up the glorious rays (which have been noticeably absent in AZ the last few days) before I needed to go pick up Clayton. Oh yes! He only had a half day of work and then he was mine. Celebrated his success and the end of his work week by hanging out at the pool more and eating Sushi and YL.
Thursday... ran (wish I took a picture of the little mountain/ridgeline we ran each day. beautiful). Hiked Camelback Mountain. Intense hike AND parking situation. Apparently this is a really popular hike for the young folks (and some really buff oldies).
Oh yes that is me.
The husband. He absolutely
loves to get his picture taken.
Us. An intense hike of climbing boulders. You can rate the intensity by the amount of sweat on Clayton's shirt.
See...boulder climbing.
More pool time.
Friday... ran, pool, Ostridge Festival. I know, right!?! How cool is that! Not $9 bucks cool, but cool nonetheless. We were hoping to add "ride an ostridge" to the bucket list. That didn't happen. What did happen was we ate the ugly beasts and then they spit on me...not just once either. Clayton doesn't believe that they spit...so for the sake of proving that I am right (again) does anyone know if they spit? I know what I saw. But for some reason he doesn't believe me (maybe because I said I would by pepper spray and then didn't???).
Aren't they ugly??? Hideous.
Off to the races...the OSTRIDGE RACES! Warning...a race of this kind will put a perma grin on your face. How can you not smile while watching this!?! Strange things they do in AZ.
In Utah we have kids chase pigs at fairs or carnivals. In AZ they have kids chase Emu's.
Between races they brought out this world champion something or other guy. Clayton thought he was fascinating. I thought he was boring and needed to leave his hat on his head.
Manly men watch the Ostridge races while wearing a Little Mermaid backpack.
Saturday... we checked out and broke in (by that I mean walked in unnoticed) to the Embassey Suites pool. Then we hit YL one last time (sigh) and headed to the airport to find that they had overbooked our flight and we were chosen to stay behind (while our luggage flew ahead!!!). Apparently flights to SLC had been jam packed the last too days. Not sure what the draw to SLC is...spring skiing maybe, freaking cold temperatures, dirtier than tar air, or the Utah Jazz (hahaha ok we know that last one is NOT true). Anyway we ended up scoring almost $600 for free flights and getting a free flight home on Sunday (all other flights to SLC on Saturday were booked). Found a dirty Hilton (pretty sure there were still asbestos in the ceiling), were they charged us $30 for two contact cases and a small bottle travel size bottle of contact solution (highway robbery...Clayton made me take the cases back. said we would use cups) and called it a night.
Sunday... flew home with nasty breath (after the rip off for contact crap at the Hilton, we decided that clean breath and clean teeth would not be an option), dirty clothes, smelly pits, eye buggers, uncombed hair and nothing but peanuts to tide us over. lovely. "feeling pretty, oh so pretty..."
Later at home we gorged ourselves with real food (after a shower of course) while catching up on Modern Family, 24, The Office, Community, and Parks and Rec. The end.
Other trip highlights include but are not limited too...
1- After our hike on Camelback we saw a plump women (ok fat) sitting on the parking lot stretching while her red THONG was doing its best to entertain those passing by. sick. and wrong.
2- Trying to decide of man on flight home was wearing a hair piece. Debate occupied a good 15 minutes of flight time. Conclusion: definitely hair piece.
3- Government elitist who (in his mind) didn't deserve to be kicked off of the overbooked plane. He. was. irate. Brought some humor to the crappy situation.
4- Clayton's sore legs and pink belly
5 - many visits to Trader Joe's to get dried mango. Oh it is heavenly. We need a food dehydrator. Any recommendations for a good one?
6- "Living off the Land" aka daily free samples at the Whole Foods
7- $6.99 RVCA shirt. score.
8- Clayton getting his quadruple crown at work
9- 70 degree weather
10 - being upgraded from Chevy Aveo to a Toyota Yaris that we named Yarri (the double rr's make a "d" sound).
11- adding to Clayton's growing traffic record when I ran a yellow (ok so maybe it was red) light and the camera caught me. his name was on the car rental. woops.
12- only packing two pairs of shoes: flipflops and running shoes. That is a record for me.
13- Choosing birthday gifts for each other from SkyMall
14- Hot tubing at night
15 - adding to my endless loosing streak vs. Clayton at Quiddler
16 - being together...ahhhhhh
Wow. Long post. Congrats if you made it to the end. I'm sure Cort and Kami didn't.
