Life in Prescott...

...might have easily been a drunken' blur. It's a party town, yessir, with cowboys, natives, hippies and even those saloon-style swinging doors. But the air was crisp, it smelled like Fall, and for some reason, that little college reminded me of Green Mountain and Poultney. I did walk a bit of Whiskey Row at night, and stayed at a little campground a few miles above.

Other tasks for Prescott:

• Went to the house my grandparents built overlooking Thumb Butte. I'd been there before - over a decade ago.But still remember gazing out that back window, waiting for a cougar or a coyote to walk out...I couldn't tell you if one ever did, my back then my imagination was much more powerful than my memory, and you wouldn't believe what I "remember" seeing. It may have involved a ninja turtle. That's right.
  
• Find a Geocache and deliver a TB. For the dorks who know what I'm talking about, you're a dork. For those who don't, apparently you're known as a "muggle", and in all honesty I don't know which is worse.
• Find a Geocache. Yes, this one gets an honorary second mention. These things were terribly, terribly hard to find. BUT, in looking for the cache, I found this:which makes it all worthwhile, right? NO! Thank God I finally found one, I would've torn my hair out by the end of the day! Well, no, but it was darned frustrating.
  
• Decide whether to attend the McCain speech being held in the court. I decided against it (thinking I'd rather be in Cali when Obama wins), but this is not the first time I've faced this kind of political decision - the candidates were following me everywhere! Nashville, in particular, I left a day before... the first debate? the VP debate? I don't know. Anyway, when these things happen, you see this:And then this:
  

(Hippies...)

I'll leave you with what I saw as I left Prescott:

And back to the desert I go...

Mi Familia

So, in Arizona, after Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon, I'm headed down to Tempe to see some kin. And to meet some new additions to the family! It had been maybe 5 years since I've seen these folk, and of course it was great catching up - a lot happens in 5 years!

There was rest, relaxation, and little kids. Now, I know the latter often negates the former, but in my case it didn't - hanging out with the youngins was fun and seriously upflifting. Well, for me - for the little ones, I don't know, it might have been a little intense. Or, at least it seemed that way. One of them was seriously wierded out - he kept running away from me on his trike, going so far and so fast, that he'd eventually run up against the door.


And then, just generally hiding from me, but just a bit curious, he gives me the peek-around from within his room:

In the end, we definitely made friends though.

This was also an excellent break, first because I could hang out with the kids, and more than tha, I got to hang out with the kids during Halloween. Awesome neighborhoods in Tempe! Good people abound.

I've got no good Halloween pictures, but I did dress up as a trucker from Virginia, so give that time to resonate. (Sorry Stevie, totally borrowed your accent for that one... But I think I did it justice!)

Very nice to see family and take a break from the road, and a thousand thank-you's to Uncle Mike for making sure my vehicle was sound, and resolving my navigational dilemma. It was lovely to see you all, and I look forward to the next go-round!

Meanwhile, I'm off to Prescott College to see what life would have been like if I transferred for a Semester...

The State of the Grand Canyon

Gorgeous. Beautiful. Just like every postcard you've ever seen her in. I wish I were down in the crevices. There was one particular lake I would've liked to jump in; but rattle snakes are a factor, also a handful of laws preventing me from (or severely charging me for) the experience.

Tourists!

The Grand Canyon State

Enter Flagstaff, 7:30 PM; no, wait... The cell phone says 6:30?! That doesn't sound right, I wasn't supposed to cross another time zone for hundreds of miles!

So apparently, Arizona doesn't "do" the whole Daylight Savings "thing." Which is great in Spring - I know "Daylight Savings" becomes a muttered curse-word in my vernacular. But it will be an awful pain when California 'falls back' and I'm an hour behind again.

I have family in Arizona, which is wonderful. My Aunt and Uncle also have a house in Flagstaff, so this was a great check-point for me. A place to get some sound sleep after almost a week in the desert, to recoup and make plans with my kin. I also had to decide whether to shoot up to the Grand Canyon before going down to Tempe to see the relatives.

I've been there before when I was a kid, so there was no real pressure to go see this amazing thing for the first time; but I rationed that I would be looking into the 'grand' expanse with much different eyes than the last time, and what the hell, it's only an hour up the road.

The road from Flagstaff