Sedona, Oak Creek and Cave Springs

Just about every July, my brother-in-law takes his family up north to go camping.  They always go to the same place, the Cave Springs campground in Oak Creek Canyon.  Over the last six years or so (with the notable exception of last year), we have tagged along, at least for a few days each time.  Camping at Cave Springs brings a welcome break from cicada season here in Phoenix, and relief from all the symptoms of summer madness their ceaseless droning represents.    

Oak Creek Canyon is just north of Sedona, that internationally-recognized focal point of new-age flakiness set in the midst of some of the most amazing terrain on earth.  You’ve probably seen pictures of some of the more famous buttes and rock formations and the striking colors they display.  One of the things I like most about camping in Oak Creek is that we pass through red rock country on our way.  There’s nothing quite like the experience of arriving in Sedona’s environs after driving a hundred miles through the flat, washed out, non-descript landscapes of the desert.  It’s always a magical moment, coming around that final bend in the land of tan to see the first richly glowing rust-colored hills emerge in one fluid, constantly expanding vista.  It’s like that classic moment in The Wizard of Oz when the movie goes from black and white to Technicolor, or in the old version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, when they first step into the big room in Wonka’s candy wonderland.  It’s also something like an incredible strip-tease performance, only it’s Mother Nature peeling off her beige blouse, and taking off the horned-rim glasses, and unfastening her hair…  

Another few minutes of driving and the surroundings have completely transformed into something strangely wonderful.  It is a realm constructed entirely from enormous red blocks of weather-sculpted sandstone.  The world outside the car has abandoned its standard, bland palette in favor of one that focuses with an artist’s intensity on just three colors:  that signature color of the land itself, which we call red, but which is really an indescribable mix of pinks and reds and oranges and creams, and whose predominant hue seems to change with every elusive morphing of the light; the deep, dark, absorbing green of juniper and pine which cover the hills, stud the slopes of the buttes’ bases, and sprinkle across their tops like chocolate jimmies on a cupcake; and the color of a sky so sweet, so juicy, and so thickly blue that for some reason you can only think of watermelon, and how much you’d like to sink your teeth into it, and let those cool sky-juices run right down the sides of your mouth and drip from the point of your chin, puddling sky-blue at your feet.  Their combined vitality produces an exquisitely interlocking balance, a harmonization to some secret platonic template of beauty. 

It’s no wonder the vortex-worshippers and crystal gazers go ga-ga for it.  I know I feel different when I get there, although I’m not there to align my chakras or get my aura read.  But there is a mental shift that takes place upon arriving in red rock country, and for me it's the moment of release from all the work and stress that comes from getting the hell out of town.  Sedona is my visual confirmation that the escape is real, and now.  In turn, my body instinctively begins to relax, and my high-revving mind downshifts to a slower gear, automatically lowering the frantic spinning of my brain to a smoother, calmer rpm.

Rings of Fire

We in the Southwestern U.S. found ourselves smack dab in the path of a solar eclipse on Sunday, proving once again that when desert dwellers say we’ll move heaven and earth to create a little shade, we mean business.  And it’s only May.  Imagine what we’re capable of come July and August…

The eclipse we experienced May 20^th is known as an annular eclipse, and it occurs when the moon is too far away to fully obscure the sun as it passes before it.  This is in contrast to the more famous kind in which the moon completely covers up jolly old Sol, creating a total eclipse of the heart.  No, wait, I mean sun; Bonnie Tyler’s song just kind of naturally slipped out, child of the 80’s that I am.  Annular eclipses are also known as ring of fire eclipses because at their peak the moon fits perfectly within the white-hot circle of the sun, like a nestled pair of measuring spoons, if you can get your mind around a bigger spoon made of boiling, burning hydrogen gas.   These kinds of eclipses don’t occur very often, unless you’re a redwood tree, or a Galapagos tortoise maybe, in which case you’re probably thinking, Another one of these?  What’s it been?  Twenty years? Seems like just yesterday.  And why am I reading this person’s blog?

However, Phoenix wasn’t quite far enough north to experience the full effect of the eclipse, so on Sunday I packed up the family and drove them to the Grand Canyon, which was located within the annular sweet spot.  Three and a half hours drive each way, straight through; although when your traveling party includes a three-year-old, there is no such thing as ‘straight through.’

The George Bush Bet - Part Four

The fourth and final part of "The George Bush Bet" picks up with Sandy and I at the St. James Library in London.  We are there to resolve a bet concerning the first George Bush's early political career (To find out how that happened, you really need to start here).  We located the reference section, and an enormous book called Who's Who in Politics.  At stake is 100 pounds, and potential embarrassment on a multinational scale... 

It was a big book, and I doubted it would only include British politicians, unless it went back to Roman times.  I quickly jumped to the ‘B’s’ and scanned through the pages until I reached the ‘Bu’s.’   And then I saw the name ‘Bush, George Herbert Walker,’ and the entry that followed:

Like his father, Prescott Bush, who was elected a Senator from Connecticut in 1952, George became interested in public service and politics. He served two terms as a Representative to Congress from Texas. Twice he ran unsuccessfully for the Senate. Then he was appointed to a series of high-level positions: Ambassador to the United Nations, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Chief of the U. S. Liaison Office in the People's Republic of China, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. 

“I don’t believe it,” I said, sagging against the bookcase, instantly deflated.

           

“What?” Sandy said, trying to read over my shoulder.  I handed the book over to him with a finger pointing to the spot of defeat.  “Well,” he said, grinning broadly, but not smugly, “It looks like you were wrong, doesn’t it?  How can that be?  You said you were sure.”

“I don’t know,” I said vacantly.  My mind spun madly but in vain, as I tried to remember anyone ever saying anything about George Bush Sr. serving in the House of Representatives.

Sandy began to chuckle.  “I really thought you would win the bet,” he said, handing the book back to me.  I reread the brief passage again.  My stomach sank lower and lower.  Now I was going to have to explain a two hundred dollar expense with nothing to show for it to my wife.  I was suddenly unsure if she would even believe the story I was going to tell her.  I thought about the things, or rather the only thing I could think of,  that you could spend two-hundred dollars on in London without having at least a T-shirt or at least something to show for it.  My stomach crawled into a spider-hole.  I wished the rest of me could join it.

The George Bush Bet - Part Three

In Part Two of "The George Bush Bet," Sandy proposed a bet in the amount of 100 pounds centered on the question of whether George Bush Senior ever served as a US senator, representative, or governor prior to  becoming president.  I said none of the above, and Sandy took the field.  Part Three picks up with our search through the streets of London for the answer to this perplexing question.      

Sandy and I turned around and headed back towards the intersection we had crossed just a few minutes before.  The light was in our favor, so we crossed over to the corner on which Big Ben stood.  We passed beneath its towering presence, walking alongside the Parliament building towards the next light.  “You know, I’m a Free Mason,” he said, continuing his interesting habit of broad-jumping off into a new category of conversation for no apparent reason.  “Do you know what the Free Masons are?”  I told him I did, and that I had long been curious about the mysterious society and in particular, the illustriousness of their membership, which included Washington, Franklin and Jefferson, among many others.  I told him that my wife and I had gone into the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia once, but we had just missed the tour.  “You know, you’d make a good Mason.  I can tell about you that you’re a good man who’s interested in helping others.  What’s your religious affiliation, if you don’t mind my asking?” 

I have to admit, there were several moments where I got the distinct impression  he was conning me, this being one of them, but the simple sincerity with which he said things seemed difficult to fake.  I squinted, scrutinizing his face for any sign of contrivance.  He was looking at me expectantly, awaiting a response.  If Sandy was conning me, I decided, he was earning every penny with his performance. 

“Well, I was raised Catholic,” I replied, leaning subtly on the word ‘raised.’  I waited, as I always did, to see if the other person picked up on the nuance of the statement. 

“Oh,” he replied.  “In that case I suppose you would join the Knights of Columbus.”  I guess nuance doesn’t always translate well, even when it’s in the same language.

But I was persistent.  “You know, I really don’t see that happening,” I replied.  I smiled slyly and trotted out a favorite line I had appropriated from one of my friends.  “I’m more of a roaming Catholic.” I purposely added extra emphasis to the ‘ing,’ especially the ‘g’ sound, trying to ensure that he didn’t skip right over it, assuming I said ‘Roman.’  He gave no indication that he appreciated, or even noticed, the play on words.  I gave up.

The George Bush Bet - Part Two

The story of the George Bush bet continues.  While in London in 2004, I met Sandy, an Australian antique dealer.  He struck up an apparently innocent conversation with me about the Cenotaph, a British monument in the heart of the city, and then informed me that he had just won a bunch of money at a casino somewhere.  The conversation now turns, naturally, to the topic of the George Bushes, the current (in 2004) and former American presidents...  

“I can tell you’re a man who knows a great deal.  I have a question for you,” Sandy said as we resumed walking, “Tell me about this president of yours.  How did this George Bush get to be President of your country?  What did he do before he was President?  His father was President too, wasn’t he?” 

Although I was taken aback by the abrupt shift in topics, I have to admit it generated an immediate warm spark of kinship.  After all, I had been going around London asking cab drivers, subway passengers, ticket-takers and anyone else I thought might sit still for the question how they felt about Tony Blair and whether they thought he would survive the current surge of discontent over his commitment to the war in Iraq.  I was also soliciting opinions regarding a smaller tempest occurring simultaneously over Blair’s proposal to charge tuition to the state universities.  I did this because I am naturally curious about the opinions and attitudes of other people, but also because I felt a certain obligation to play against the stereotype of Americans as being comatose when it comes to the political affairs of other countries.    

In response to Sandy’s question, I explained that George Bush was the governor of Texas prior to being elected President, and mentioned that governors had a record of doing pretty well in presidential elections over the recent past.  For some reason, Sandy found this hard to believe.  “But what about your Senate and your . . . your . . . oh, what do you call them?”  He abruptly stopped short, his face suddenly scrunching into a painful grimace, and for a moment I thought he might be having a kidney stone attack.  I fleetingly wondered whether there was a British equivalent for ‘911.’  That led to a follow up thought, almost as fleeting, in which I had a mental image of the TV show Cops, except it was a British version called Bobbies, where round-hatted officers pursued their suspects by walking swiftly, Charlie Chaplin-style, swinging their nightsticks and calling out after their targets, “Pardon me, sir?  I don’t want to trouble you, but we’ve had this report of a triple homicide, you see, and the combination of blood and human remains on your clothes there is rather suspicious.  It wouldn’t be too much trouble to slow down for a moment, and let us have a look, would it?”  This thought so amused me that I almost forgot that my new friend was still in a state of mental anguish.

The George Bush Bet - Part One

Elizabeth, Jessica, my older sister Kristie and I took a trip to London in the early spring of 2004.  We were there for about a week, and had a great time exploring the city, at least as much as can be seen with a two-year-old in tow.  The following story relates an incident that is really just a sidebar to the overall trip, but it's interesting for being one of the more bizarre (and expensive) casual encounters I've had.  I wrote the whole thing down shortly after returning home, so unlike the tale of Uncle Day Weekend, this one won't be dragged out over the course of many weeks, but will be posted in four parts in an orderly and timely fashion.  Promise.   

The George Bush Bet - Part One

Let me say right upfront that I am not a gambler by nature.  I just don’t have the personality for it; I get no adrenaline rush from the idea of making or losing money on the outcome of a game of chance. 

It’s not that I’ve never known the pleasures to be found in lady luck’s boudoir. The first money bet I ever made was for twenty dollars when I was in the eighth grade.  That was almost a weeks’ worth of profits from the collection receipts on my paper route.  The bet was on an NFL game in ‘81, and happened to be one where the 49’ers came back from behind to win at the end and, more importantly, cover the spread.  I remember the intense emotional roller coaster I went through during that game:  the wrenching impact of every handoff, the agonizing anticipation of every five-step drop, the life-and-death implications of every third and long.  My dad had never seen me so involved in a sporting event before, and I think it made him happy, or at least a little relieved. 

I remember feeling the hopeless despair when it looked like the game was over and I was going to somehow have to pay off this bet and pay for the newspapers this week as well.  I couldn’t believe I was so stupid as to bet all my money on a football game. 

But it wasn’t over yet.  There was the flickering glimmer of hope, building with each completed pass by Montana as the Niners moved down the field, and then – miracle of miracles! – the touchdown, and the game was over!  I knew in that moment the thrill of victory that ABC always talked about.  It was electrifying, heady stuff, and instantly addictive, at least until I lost a bet a few games later.  Somehow, the cold sobriety of losing killed any further desire to taste the intoxicating bubbles of winning.

Uncle Day Weekend - Part 8

My prolonged absence from the blog has been due mostly to my determination to finish this story once and for all.  I have been working on it non-stop for two weeks, and while the result is far from perfect, I am thoroughly ready to call 'uncle' on Uncle Day Weekend...

For readers who can remember that far back, Part 7 detailed the majority of our visit to a little-known place called Bearizona. This visit occurred within the larger context of our Labor Day weekend trip, which we rechristened 'Uncle' Day weekend because we couldn’t take the summer heat in Phoenix anymore, and so sought refuge in the high country around Flagstaff.  Another goal was to get there and back without using the I-17 at any time, and to not travel the same road twice.  Part 8 carries us all the way to the conclusion of this story. 

Bearizona’s black bear exhibit was large in size and impressive in the number of bears it contained.  The dirt road through the enclosure was probably close to a half-mile long, if you straightened out the two large loops designed to give the visitor more viewing opportunities.  Once we entered, we saw almost immediately that the bears were active.  The staff must have just fed them, because a substantial number of bears were just off the edge of the trail, eating breakfast.  For some reason, they reminded me of old pictures of Dust-Bowl-era migrants pulled over informally along the shoulders of the Mother Road to eat, picnicking on their way to the Promised Land.  I must have seen a picture like that once upon a time; otherwise, I have no idea why that thought would even come to me.  Some of the bears were on all fours, and some were sitting straight up on their haunches, but all were doing the same thing:  eating slices of white bread.  Each one had a slice of the stuff already in its mouth, or was holding it with a paw.  We noticed one bear was holding his piece up to the sun as though he were appreciating its form, the way I might hold up a plump chunk of king crab leg glistening with clarified butter.  Some had piles of slices next to them.  

Black bears and white bread.
Sounds like a country song...

Who knew bears had a thing for Wonder Bread?  And they ate it with such apparent relish, too; it seemed to be a delicacy to them, like eating dessert first.  I’m sure they had been given other food as well; good food, healthy food, food with actual flavor.  All they seemed interested in was the Wonder Bread.  It was funny, but on some level, also a little disturbing.

Uncle Day Weekend - Part 7

Uncle Day Weekend is the continuing saga of an overnight road trip we took over Labor Day Weekend.  Wondering why it’s called ‘Uncle Day?’  Check this out.  In part 6, we made it just inside the gates of Bearizona, a relatively new attraction near Williams, Arizona.  Part 7 is all about what we saw inside…

The first area of the park after the munched motorhome display (check out part 6 if you want to see a picture) is the donkey exhibit.  The map calls them American Burros.  This, I suppose, is in contrast to Mexican burros, which I love, especially with shredded beef and red chile sauce, but American burros are just donkeys.  It’s a strange way to start, although I suppose if you’re going to show donkeys at a wild animal park, the best place to put them is at the beginning.  They’re certainly not going to provide the big finish.  At Bearizona, there were maybe ten of them spread around randomly over the wide, bare ground of their enclosure, standing under pine trees or just out in the open.  Even they seemed confused as to why they were there.  We drove slowly through the large pen, searching for any sign of interesting behavior, or even movement.  One kind of twitched his ear, and then another lazily bent his neck to look in our direction.  He began to saunter towards us, and I got the feeling he might be coming over to bum a cigarette.  Sensing our non-smoker aura, he changed direction at the last moment and shuffled past us, meandering slowly along the road, eventually stopping and standing in another part of the pen.  That was exciting.  We moved on.

Donkeys in their natural habitat. I think there are four of them in this picture.

So cool.

The next exhibit was bison.  I love bison.  They are unequivocally my favorite North American mammal.  I love their massive, shaggy, triangular heads with their scraggly goatees, and thick, stubby horns.  Above the hips, they look like furry Marines, with thick necks, immense chests, enormous shoulders, and torsos which narrow sharply to a trim, dare I say positively svelte, waist.   Yet from the waist back, it’s as though God slapped an average cow’s rear end onto this monumental beast.  Granted, a cow that spends a lot of time at the gym doing squats, but a cow nonetheless.  This almost comical combination makes them look as though they’re always on the verge of tipping forward onto their broad, flat heads, leaving their little back legs wiggling helplessly in the air.  It’s an image that makes you want to laugh, but you quickly suppress the urge, because bison look as though they’re just waiting for you to give them a reason to turn you into mulch.

Uncle Day Weekend - Part 6

In part 5, I’m sure you remember, we spent an evening at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ.  We slumbered the night away peacefully, and the next morning it was waffles, brochure rack, and Bearizona. I also rhapsodized about the many fine qualities of Super 8 motels. Now it is Monday, Labor (Uncle) Day, and we are ready to set off on the return trip home.  Remember, the goal was to go from Phoenix to Flagstaff and back without using Interstate 17, and without retracing our steps…

Back at the car, I called the number on the Bearizona brochure to verify the hours and admission price.  The person I spoke with told me they were already open for the day, would stay open until 7 p.m., and the cost to get in was $16 per adult, $8 for kids, with free admission for children two-and-under.  Although I grumbled about the cost of admission, we decided to take a chance and check it out.  We would be driving through Williams anyway, so we always had the option of skipping it if the bear place turned out to be three bear cubs in a playpen, or something like that.    

We gassed up the Sportage and rolled onto the westbound I-40 shortly after eight for the 30-mile drive to Williams.  The I-40 west of Flagstaff is one of the stretches of interstate that many people who live in the Phoenix metropolitan area just don’t use.  Williams does provide a way to get to the Grand Canyon, via Highway 64, but most people, me included, prefer the much more scenic Highway 180 which winds north and west from Santa Fe Drive in Flagstaff, skirting the voluminous San Francisco Peaks through stands of aspen, fir and spruce, mixed in with the pine and juniper.  Once you get past Williams, I-40 is a hundred miles of terra incognita to most people from the Valley.  If it weren’t for the fact that a small stretch of I-40 serves as a critical link for people traveling between Phoenix and Las Vegas, its existence west of Flagstaff would be probably be doubted by even the more religious members of our community. 

Uncle Day Weekend - Part 5

Part 4 primarily concerned itself with finding a place to eat dinner while in Flagstaff over Labor Day weekend.  I still don’t know how I got 5 pages out of that one part of the story.  Part 5 picks up as we leave the restaurant on Sunday evening. 

Uncle’s Day Weekend – Part 5

Dusk was creeping overhead as we left Ni Marco’s Pizza.  “How about we drive up to the Lowell Observatory?”  I suggested once we were back on the road.  There were no objections, so instead of following the curve of Milton/Santa Fe avenues, we turned left and headed up Mars Hill Road.  What a great name:  Mars Hill Road.  I don’t know if it was through pure serendipity, or was something less than a coincidence that an observatory came to be located on Mars Hill, but it is perfectly fitting.  We wound our way up in the strengthening darkness, and parked in the lot at the top.  Being a Sunday night, we weren’t sure if they would even be open, but it turned out that they had a special event as part of the holiday weekend, and were open until eleven.

We wandered around the visitor’s center, looking at the exhibits, and just giving Maria a chance to exhaust herself.  It was now around seven, and as I recall, she had napped for literally no more than ten minutes that afternoon.  But she was showing no ill effects, and seemed to be in no imminent danger of pooping out.  We waited around for some video presentation to start, but Maria wouldn’t stay, pronouncing the dimly-lit hall and spacey interlude music “too scary,” so Elizabeth took her back to the exhibit hall where she could continue trying to pull the display meteors off their stands.  I’m a sucker for anything scientific, or that deals with nature, so I was even able to stomach the Mannheim Steamroller music that introduced the video.  Jessica, however, took all of two minutes to become hopelessly bored and annoyed.  I looked at her several times, vacillating between telling her to suck it up, and giving in to her unspoken request to go.  I flashed forward in my imagination to our retirement days.  Elizabeth and I would do nothing but travel, happily watching long, badly scored nature videos in places just like the Lowell Observatory, and we would have the best time of our lives.  I nudged Jessica, jerked my head slightly towards the exit, and we left quietly.

Uncle Day Weekend - Part 4

In Part 3, we finally made it to Flagstaff after a full day of high country entertainment, including but not limited to, a dangerous lake, phantom meteors and motorcycles, and porta-potties.  Part 4 picks up after our arrival at the motel late Sunday afternoon. 

After a brief rest, we left our room in Flagstaff and got back in the car in search of a restaurant for dinner.  Our motel was to the east of downtown, part of a row of motels that parallels Interstate 40. We had no idea what we wanted to eat, so we figured we would drive through the heart of town looking for something suitable.  Crossing the railroad tracks, we turned left onto Flagstaff’s main drag, Santa Fe Ave, also known as the I-40 Business Loop, or more romantically, Route 66.  We called out the names of restaurants familiar and unknown as we passed them by, hoping something would spontaneously emerge, like a star in the east, that we all could agree on.  We reached the big curve that bent our line of travel from west to south, and the road changed names from Santa Fe to Milton Ave.  A mile or so ahead, the dreaded I-17 now loomed before us, and still no dining revelation had occurred.  Flagstaff is not a city we know particularly well, but this indecision over where to eat was definitely familiar territory.  I reproached myself silently for not anticipating this problem, for allowing myself to be lulled into complacency.  When it comes to eating out, anytime you set off without a clear destination in mind, you must accept the high probability of serious complications.   Now we found ourselves sliding towards the precipice of possible disaster.  “Well, what are you hungry for?” I finally had to ask.

Uncle Day Weekend - Part 3

Alright, I know this is late, and I apologize profusely to those of you who waited with (was that baited, SB?) breath for this installment, and were disappointed when it didn't appear on Sunday as promised.  As I mentioned in replying to some of you individually, life sometimes intrudes on our plans, and this weekend was a great example of that.  Jessica had her 10th birthday on Saturday, and our weekend was booked with a sleepover Friday night, and then a family party on Saturday.  Now, I'm not using that as an excuse, since I had known that Jessica was turning 10 on Saturday for awhile now, maybe even weeks.  I still thought I had everything under control, but then there are the unaccounted things that happen, and we had one of those on Sunday.  So, with final apologies for the delay, let's get right back to the action, shall we?  I hope it proves worth the extra wait.  

The story left off with us trying to find a place in or around Strawberry, AZ, to have our picnic lunch on the way to Flagstaff.  We pick things up around noon on Sunday of Labor (Uncle) Day weekend . . .

 Uncle Day Weekend – Part 3

We scoured the roadside for picnic areas, but saw nothing more than a few areas where the trees pulled back from the road to create a rocky, semi-grassy opening.  My internal stressometer was starting to pick up signals.  “We’re going to need a place that has a bathroom,” Elizabeth reminded me as our heads pivoted swiftly from side to side.  I gestured with one arm to the acres of open land around us.

“We’re in one,” I said.

“We’re going to need a real bathroom,” she said, forcing me to meet her eyes. End of discussion on that point.  The pressure was definitely building inside the car.  This little snafu had the potential to become a major negative check mark in the mental tally I was keeping.  The kids had been great so far; they were watching Beauty and the Beast on the portable DVD player.  But how much longer?  Eight miles passed, then nine.  I wasn’t enjoying the pine trees and the thick white clouds in the sky anymore.  We drove past a filling station with a diner next to it.  “There,” Elizabeth said, pointing. 

“I thought we brought our lunch.  If we eat there, it’s going to seriously impact our budget,” I insisted. Some people spend their lives defending their country, others their honor.  I am the great defender of the budget.

Uncle Day Weekend - Part 2

This is part 2 in the saga of Uncle Day Weekend, a recounting of  our trip up north over part of Labor Day weekend just to get away from the heat.  Part 1, if you remember, focused on the events leading up to the trip itself.

Sunday morning arrived to find us engaged in our usual harried efforts to throw everything together at the last minute before a road trip.   Typically, we start off at harried, progress to flustered, and usually come within sight of completely unhinged, a pattern which normally includes a fair amount of ugliness and some bitter recriminations between Elizabeth and me.  It’s funny; people tell us all the time that we are so good to each other, so kind and respectful.  HA!  That’s just the show we put on for mass consumption; the truth is, we fight like hell.  We rip each other apart at times, and have no compunction about going for the other’s throat (remember the open door, anyone?).  The secret to our success, I suppose, is that as nasty as our confrontations can be in the moment, we get over them quickly, and accept them for what they are: clashes between two people who agree on where we want to go, but almost always disagree about how to get there.  Which is exactly why I didn’t tell her about taking a different way to Flagstaff.

Uncle Day Weekend - Part 1

“UNCLE!”   You might have heard this being screamed last week around seven-thirty on Tuesday morning.  That was me.   Sorry if I disturbed you.  That was officially the moment I finally cracked under the heat.  We had been hanging in there pretty well, but August, with its near-constant 110 degree days, aggravating humidity and complete lack of rain did me in.  We spent every single scorching second of the summer in the Valley this year.  Well, technically that’s not true.  Elizabeth’s cousin scored us free comp vouchers to stay for two nights at the Harrah’s in Laughlin, Nevada, so in June we took a trip to one of the few places on Earth that regularly beats our heat island inferno in the daily mercury velocity competition.  But it was a change of scenery, sort of, and the Colorado River was cool, even if the hotel pool wasn’t, and besides, did I mention it didn’t cost anything to stay there?  That’s an important consideration when your family’s income has taken a substantial hit, thanks to a certain freelance writer, who’s great at the free department, but not so good at lancing yet.  

We finally decided we had to get out of town, and restore our faith in the existence of weather where you don’t have to check the labels of your clothes to make sure they’re flame-retardant before you step outside.