![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
argurotoxosI hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving. Since we spent the large part of Thanksgiving Day on various airplanes, we just had our traditional meal of turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, sweet potatoes, creamed corn, and pie last night.
Arizona was very nice, although that's a rather bland expression. Pleasantly relaxing, with good company and lovely weather, would be a more apt description. As usual with my travels, I kept a list of quick notes of each day's events. However, unlike some of my other journeys - especially those in Europe - we mostly stayed around my grandma's area and didn't do a great deal of sightseeing. My dad wanted to visit more places, including Hoover Dam and Las Vegas, but Arizona is a deceptively large state with a surprisingly wide range of temperatures (at least to my Mid-West and East Coast preconceptions) and driving three hours each way to reach a location becomes tiresome.
In the end, we visited five attractions. My dad's always liked Westerns and was eager to do something involving cowboys, so we went to dinner with entertainment and a staged gun fight at a place roughly forty minutes from my grandma's called the Rockin' R Ranch. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, although it wasn't devoid of it's own brand of cheesiness.
As for my mum, several people from her work had recommended going to Sedona, a tourist city popular for its red rock formations. They especially insisted we be there for sunset; we assumed it had something to do with how the rocks would look in the light of the setting sun, but discovered it was more that actual sunsets there are particularly spectacular and colourful. My mum said afterward that Sedona was her favourite of all the places we visited, so it was mission successful for her.
My choices both revolved around space exploration. The first was less than half an hour from my grandma's house – the Challenger Space Center. Unfortunately, what we didn't know was that it was largely geared toward elementary-age children and relatively small; we all left disappointed. The second was Lowell Observatory, which happened to be located in between Sedona and our last attraction. While also relatively small (London museums have ruined my expectations of size), it was quite interesting. The only downside is that we weren't able to attend any night viewings through their telescopes due to weather conditions.
Our last visit was to the Grand Canyon. You don't realise how immense it is until you're there; in the eight hours we spent there, we barely saw 1% of the Canyon. I greatly preferred it to Sedona for it's greater sense of isolation and wilderness, although I'm sure not being there during the height of the tourist season helped.
The rest of the time we spent around the house – playing cards, fixing things for my grandma, going for walks, visiting the local recreation centres, chatting, and relaxing. Coincidentally, we happened to be there during a warm spell; daytime temperatures were in the mid-80s [high 20s Celsius] around the Phoenix area (we were about half an hour northwest from downtown Phoenix) and it was sunny until our last few days. While my presumptions had informed me to expect this, the entire state of Arizona does not, in fact, have weather of this kind. Case in point: while we were at the Lowell Observatory up in Flagstaff (about three hours north of Phoenix), it was unusually warm in the mid-60s [high 10s Celsius] and had snowed the previous weekend.
That's the basics. To save your eyes, everything else is under LJ cuts. Photos will be up soon.
My grandma lives in a city near Phoenix reserved for senior citizens. There's an age restriction on how old you have to be to buy a house in the area which, I believe, is fifty years. The roads are extra wide, apparently more for aesthetics and the appearance of no traffic congestion than any other reason. Similarly, all of the power lines are underground; the lack of electric poles is quite striking. Garbage cans are also kept underground with only the lids on the surface and trash collection is twice a week. Recycling, however, is not collected and instead is deposited individually behind the local grocery store.
Many people in the area have golf carts, which can be driven on any road with a speed limit of 35 MPH or lower. Of course, they can also be driven on the numerous golf courses in the area. I counted up all of the golf courses within twenty minutes' drive once and believe the total was around fifteen. Lots of golf courses. There are also four recreation centres which require a membership fee and offer various sporting activities, including swimming pools, weight rooms, bowling, billiards, miniature golf, bocci, ping pong, lawn bowling, tennis, and walking tracks.
As for flora, lots of cacti. Most houses have small rocks covering their yard in place of grass. A number of houses also have fruit trees (oranges, grapefruit, and lemons mostly), though these require special watering due to the climate. (When it rained shortly before we left at the end of November, it was the first rain the area had experienced since the end of August.) None of the wildlife appear to be interesting in eating the fruit, so any of it that falls off prematurely tends to be quickly sapped of its moisture and turned hard as a rock.
The fauna that we were primarily able to observe was birds. Especially desert quail. There was a flock of them that wandered around my grandma's backyard around early afternoon and roosted in one of her bushes for the night. We also saw a few hummingbirds and mockingbirds, as well as several other species we couldn't identify. There were also a number of hares and a few coyote, the latter of which were smaller than I had expected. (I had the notion that coyote were more similar to wolves than they actually are.) What we didn't see were any javelina (desert pigs), snakes, or lizards (particularly geckos), although they do supposedly live in the area.
My grandma actually owns two houses that are right next to each other; the house she liked most wasn't available when she first moved out to Arizona (she only stays for the late fall to mid-spring and returns to Ohio for the rest of the time) and she bought it when it went on the market later. Both of the houses have two bedrooms and two full bathrooms, although the one she stays in is slightly bigger. We [my parents and I] stayed in the other house, which my grandma rents out from January to March. It was larger and nicer than I had expected, although I had few ideas of what the house was going to be like. I found it more comfortable than our house; the only difficulty I had settling in, besides the sifting through drawers to find where things were and the typical light sleeping for the first few days, was that the bed mattress was slightly harder than I was used to. A very minor thing indeed.
It was quiet in a way it isn't here in upstate New York. Even though the houses aren't that far apart from each other, there were rarely people out walking or driving on my grandma's street, which lent to an air of seclusion, even if mostly illusion. At the same time, it was never truly quiet, what with the birds and the occasional airplanes.
Wednesday, 5 November
Our airplane to Newark, New Jersey (our transfer point) left one hour behind schedule. Nevertheless, we had no trouble making our connection. While flying down the Hudson River, we were treated to trees with their autumn leaves, most in dark red with a few oranges thrown in; these latter became more prominent the closer we came to Newark. The numerous patches of water and constantly rolling landscape were far more noticeable than ever possible with a land perspective.
The flight from Newark to Phoenix was six hours. We were served dinner, but no entertainment was offered and it was fairly cramped. I read for most of the flight.
We were picked up at the Phoenix airport by my grandma and one of her friends. My initial impressions of Phoenix were that it was very flat and the cacti and palm trees seemed so unnatural to me that they appeared fake.
Thursday, 6 November
Our first encounter with the neighbourhood quails. Even though they can fly, they rarely do. One of their calls sounds almost like laughing; my dad compared it to a hyena's giggle, but the rest of us disagreed.
We took a brief drive downtown (maybe five minutes away) to pick up some items at the grocery store and see the area. Shortly after we got back, we played cards. [Hosey, our traditional family card game, played with a Pinochle deck with trump and bowers.] Usually, my dad and I play against my mum and grandma, but my dad commented that we could switch it around since we weren't in Ohio this time; my mum and I won two of the first three games against my dad and grandma.
Just after dark, my parents and I left to attend a local concert put on by a touring Texas-based Air Force group specialising in big band music from the 1920s through 1940s. We had checked the weather and, seeing that it was going to be around 60 degrees [15.5 Celsius], only took light jackets. Big mistake. The lack of humidity makes it feel much cooler and it gets cold quickly in the desert. As my dad voiced afterwards, who would have thought that we'd be freezing in 60 degrees?
After the concert, my dad and I watched the tail end of a Sherlock Holmes show, followed by an Independent Lens documentary about an attempted matricide, on PBS. We shortly came to the conclusion that the PBS in Phoenix had better offerings than our station in upstate New York.
Friday, 7 November
The four of us played shuffleboard at one of the local recreation centres; my mum and grandma won. Pizza was ordered for dinner and several games of cards were played.
Saturday, 8 November
My parents and I went to an arts and crafts fair in the morning. They had a wide variety of creations, from quilts to metal figures to jewellery to pottery. My favourite was a menacing spider crafted from rusty iron; it appealed to the Thief in me [the Thief computer game series, originally by Looking Glass Studios].
We played cards in the afternoon before heading to Rockin' R Ranch. The setup was of a small, stereotypical Western town as you might imagine it from a TV show. There was a saloon, candy store, fake caves, and a trough for goldpanning. We took a wagon ride with draft horses, which kicked up an unbelievable amount of dust that hung in the air and caught the flash of my camera for the rest of the night. There was also a short comedy show based on the idea of travelling medicine conmen with magical cure-all elixirs.
Dinner took place in a large indoor hall with wooden picnic tables and consisted of applesauce, beans, beef, baked potatoes, biscuits, spice cake, lemonade, and black coffee. Everything was tasty and served on tin plates. There were maybe sixty people there, including a group of Purple Hat ladies. After dinner was a roughly hour-long show with songs followed by a staged gunfight. The performers were mostly from the same family and everyone wore cowboy-inspired apparel.
Since it wasn't too far out of the way, we ended the night by driving to the Arizona Temple [for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints] in Mesa and arrived just as it was closing. The numerous light strands for their Christmas display were partly up, but not lit.
Sunday, 9 November
More cards, both Hosey and a new game called Sequence, in which a mat with cards printed randomly across it is used almost like a bingo sheet; you cover cards up on the mat with chips based on which cards you hold in your hand and try to get five chips in a row.
There was a thunderstorm in the early afternoon; we could hear the thunder and see the lightning, but didn't get any rain. Some places further away had hail.
After the storm, my dad and I went up on the roof to look at the tiles and see if any were missing or damaged. My fear of heights is peculiar; I don't mind being up high - indeed, I enjoy the view and isolation - but I dislike the transition and don't feel secure on ladders. The two of us also fertilised my grandma's fruit trees (oranges and grapefruits) and picked up any dead fruit.
More Hosey at night. A brown toad hopped on my foot as I was going out to look at the sky.
Monday, 10 November
Drove to the Challenger Space Center in late morning, only to be disappointed by its rather severe limitations. Saw a large mockingbird as we left.
Afterwards, we drove to Cabela's, a huge outfitters store with all kinds of sporting and hunting supplies, including weaponry (a gun library, compound bows, scopes, ammunition, and knives), camouflage gear, hundreds of varieties of fishing lures and reels, tents and outdoor cooking supplies, and a food store with unusual meats, such as elk and rattlesnake. Perhaps most impressive were the life-sized animal displays, produced by taxidermists with museum-level quality. There was an African area, a desert area, a northeast woods area, and a mountain area, each featuring animals of their respective environments. There was also a medium-sized aquarium with (live) fish. I had been dubious about going (it had been recommended by my grandma's friend who had greeted us at the airport), but it was quite impressive.
We ate a late lunch/early dinner at The Elephant Bar, which was very good with excellent (and I-can't-believe-how-sweet-this-is) desserts. From there, we drove back to my grandma's area.
Around 18:30 [6:30 PM], my parents and I went to one of the recreation centres to play miniature golf - which I was terrible at - and use the equipment in their workout room. While driving back, we saw a coyote trotting along a sidewalk.
Tuesday, 11 November
A relative down day. Laundry and looking up directions and hotels. We played bocci at one of the recreation centres, which I had never played before and was similarly not very good at; my mum and grandma won. My parents went to another concert at night while I stayed at home and watched House and Boston Legal.
Wednesday, 12 November
Drive to Flagstaff to visit Lowell Observatory. We took a tour of the complex and spent about two and a half hours there. A very different landscape from Phoenix, almost like the northeast.
Our original plan had been to spend only two hours at the Observatory, then drive an hour to Sedona for the sunset, then drive back to Flagstaff for the night and go up to the Grand Canyon the next day. In order to pace ourselves better - and in hopes of attending a night viewing at the Observatory - we decided to save Sedona for Thursday and move the Grand Canyon to Friday.
We found a hotel, only to return to the Observatory during the beginning of their night hours and find out they were cancelling (or, at the very least, delaying) star viewing due to cloud cover. Dinner was able to largely make up for the disappointment, which we had at a small restaurant with an eclectic menu; I ordered all Greek food, including baklava for dessert.
Thursday, 13 November
Drive to Sedona. We stopped at several senic overlooks along the way, including one at Oak Creek Canyon, along which a group of Native American merchants were displaying their crafts.
The red rocks of Sedona were, well, red rocks, albeit large and crafted by erosion. We drove a short distance out to Montezuma Well, a pool of water supplied by underground springs which local Native Americans used to create an irrigation canal. The place next to the canal hardly felt like a desert at all, surrounded by running water and overhanging trees, and was . . . spectacular in its calmness.
Following the road south, we stopped briefly at Montezuma Castle - a Native American dwelling carved into the cliffs - but didn't stay long due to a fee. (Montezuma Well, on the other hand, was free.) On the way back north to Sedona, we stopped in a casino, mainly to use the restroom and procure drinks. Having little interest in gambling and having been informed exclusively by spy movies and TV shows from the 1960s, I was shocked to find everything electronicised and personalised. Not that I exactly expected to waltz in to find men done up in tuxedos smoking around crowded blackjack tables with guns hidden under layers of clothing (I'm looking at you, Man From U.N.C.L.E.), but it was my primary reference and I found it had its own air of old-fashioned style. Instead, bright flashing lights assault the senses with the feeling of an arcade.
Back to Sedona. We ate dinner at the small local airport, which was something of a letdown, and then walked out to join a throng of people clustered on the nearby overlook awaiting the sunset with cameras ready. It was beautiful, but always constrained by civilization.
Nightfall. Up to the Grand Canyon.
Friday, 14 November
After a buffet-style breakfast at our hotel, we went to the National Geographic centre just outside the Grand Canyon entrance for an IMAX film about said Canyon. While visually impressive, the storyline was bizarre and there was little educational value, which is something I've come to expect from National Geographic.
At the Grand Canyon, one of the South Rim's walking trails was closed and the North Rim's facilities were shut down, but we were still able to cover most of the South Rim trail, which ran along the edge of the Canyon. Lunch was at Bright Angel Lodge. About two hours before dusk, we nearly ran into a herd of elk, who were slowly and calmly crossing one of the paved paths and payed us little mind. Like the night before, we clustered with others (although fewer) to observe sunset from an overlook and left shortly after.
On the drive back to the Phoenix area, the temperature varied from 37 degrees [3 Celsius] (near the Canyon) to 74 [23 Celsius] (Phoenix).
Saturday, 15 November
Watched part of Daredevil on TV while transferring photos to my laptop. I had seen it with a high school friend years ago; it never quite sat right with me. Too clichéd?
Parents decided to go swimming in the afternoon at one of the recreation centres; I helped my grandma order a book online for a friend's birthday and talked while swinging in the sun room and watching the quails scuttle back and forth. After dusk, we ate dinner together, then played cards and unsuccessfully tried to get the sensor light mounted on the garage to work.
Sunday, 16 November
Brunch at a local restaurant, cards. Took a walk with mum after dinner, then watched Filth (Masterpiece Contemporary, about a crusade to censor the BBC) on PBS with dad, followed by Stargate SG-1 (which happened to be my favourite episode – ‘Absolutely wacko!') and Hannibal, which I'd never seen in its entirety; it wasn't nearly as good as Silence of the Lambs.
Monday, 17 November
Parents and grandma to pool again. Dinner at grandma's, followed by a viewing of the musical Kismet as put on by a local Ohio group (Ohio local, not Arizona) and starring one of my uncles in one of the major roles.
Tuesday, 18 November
Parents and I swam at recreation centre. Went out to see a brief fly-by of the International Space Station after dusk. Cards.
Wednesday, 19 November
Had lunch at Murphy's Restaurant in Prescott, a two-hour drive each way, with three of grandma's friends. Took the scenic route on the way there to see a rock some locals thought looked like a frog and painted as such. The entire trip - plus eating and socialising - took seven hours. Isolation time for me afterwards, followed by watching two episodes of Monarchy: The Royal Family At Work with mum (latter's interest).
Thursday, 20 November
Dad finally fixed a broken burner on the stove (it was more of a saga, really, complete with a specially ordered part), only to have the oven clock be excessively noisy. Stopped by two Goodwills and a Trader Joe's. Cards.
Am obviously trying now to be brief. Didn't intend to go on so; haven't written anything this long since research paper from last semester. Apologies to those still reading, who must be bored to tears.
Friday, 21 November
Biked to recreation centre with Dope to play billiards and use the walking track. Had dinner with five of grandma's friends, then played cards and lost three games in a row.
Saturday, 22 November
Lunch with parents and grandma at P.F. Chang's; I think I'm losing my taste for Chinese food. Stopped at three local comics stores; ironically, couldn't find any of the Batman issues I was looking for, but did buy some used Star Trek novels and a few oWoD items [the old World of Darkness RPG line by White Wolf, including Vampire: The Masquerade]. Played cards. Watched Red Green with dad.
Saturday, 23 November
Went with my grandma and dad to pick up one of my uncles and his partner from the airport; they were staying for about five days and sleeping in the same house as my grandma. We had a large lunch/dinner with what my mind categorises as Ohio food (sweet potatoes, noodles with meat, sweet pickles, and more). Cards.
Monday, 24 November
Woke up with sore throat and possible fever. Went with walk with mum anyway. Uncle made sauerkraut for dinner. Cards. Watched a documentary on PBS about art looting by the Nazis during World War II before bed.
Tuesday, 25 November
Another walk with mum. Cards. Uncle and partner went up to Williams to take a train to the Grand Canyon.
Wednesday, 26 November
Clean-up day. Laundry, vacuuming, and the like. Final score on cards was 18 games (me and mum) to 21 (dad and grandma). Watched Boston Legal with dad.
Thursday, 27 November
Woke up around 4:30 [AM] and arrived at airport around 6, which turned out to be excessively early. Tried futilely to sleep from Phoenix to Newark; no special Thanksgiving food. Saw downtown Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty both while touching down and departing from Newark; Manhattan looked like cluster of dull-coloured rectangles sticking up into the sky. Cold, but didn't feel as cold as expected after being in Arizona. Back from airport around 19:00 [7 PM].
Arizona was very nice, although that's a rather bland expression. Pleasantly relaxing, with good company and lovely weather, would be a more apt description. As usual with my travels, I kept a list of quick notes of each day's events. However, unlike some of my other journeys - especially those in Europe - we mostly stayed around my grandma's area and didn't do a great deal of sightseeing. My dad wanted to visit more places, including Hoover Dam and Las Vegas, but Arizona is a deceptively large state with a surprisingly wide range of temperatures (at least to my Mid-West and East Coast preconceptions) and driving three hours each way to reach a location becomes tiresome.
In the end, we visited five attractions. My dad's always liked Westerns and was eager to do something involving cowboys, so we went to dinner with entertainment and a staged gun fight at a place roughly forty minutes from my grandma's called the Rockin' R Ranch. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, although it wasn't devoid of it's own brand of cheesiness.
As for my mum, several people from her work had recommended going to Sedona, a tourist city popular for its red rock formations. They especially insisted we be there for sunset; we assumed it had something to do with how the rocks would look in the light of the setting sun, but discovered it was more that actual sunsets there are particularly spectacular and colourful. My mum said afterward that Sedona was her favourite of all the places we visited, so it was mission successful for her.
My choices both revolved around space exploration. The first was less than half an hour from my grandma's house – the Challenger Space Center. Unfortunately, what we didn't know was that it was largely geared toward elementary-age children and relatively small; we all left disappointed. The second was Lowell Observatory, which happened to be located in between Sedona and our last attraction. While also relatively small (London museums have ruined my expectations of size), it was quite interesting. The only downside is that we weren't able to attend any night viewings through their telescopes due to weather conditions.
Our last visit was to the Grand Canyon. You don't realise how immense it is until you're there; in the eight hours we spent there, we barely saw 1% of the Canyon. I greatly preferred it to Sedona for it's greater sense of isolation and wilderness, although I'm sure not being there during the height of the tourist season helped.
The rest of the time we spent around the house – playing cards, fixing things for my grandma, going for walks, visiting the local recreation centres, chatting, and relaxing. Coincidentally, we happened to be there during a warm spell; daytime temperatures were in the mid-80s [high 20s Celsius] around the Phoenix area (we were about half an hour northwest from downtown Phoenix) and it was sunny until our last few days. While my presumptions had informed me to expect this, the entire state of Arizona does not, in fact, have weather of this kind. Case in point: while we were at the Lowell Observatory up in Flagstaff (about three hours north of Phoenix), it was unusually warm in the mid-60s [high 10s Celsius] and had snowed the previous weekend.
That's the basics. To save your eyes, everything else is under LJ cuts. Photos will be up soon.
My grandma lives in a city near Phoenix reserved for senior citizens. There's an age restriction on how old you have to be to buy a house in the area which, I believe, is fifty years. The roads are extra wide, apparently more for aesthetics and the appearance of no traffic congestion than any other reason. Similarly, all of the power lines are underground; the lack of electric poles is quite striking. Garbage cans are also kept underground with only the lids on the surface and trash collection is twice a week. Recycling, however, is not collected and instead is deposited individually behind the local grocery store.
Many people in the area have golf carts, which can be driven on any road with a speed limit of 35 MPH or lower. Of course, they can also be driven on the numerous golf courses in the area. I counted up all of the golf courses within twenty minutes' drive once and believe the total was around fifteen. Lots of golf courses. There are also four recreation centres which require a membership fee and offer various sporting activities, including swimming pools, weight rooms, bowling, billiards, miniature golf, bocci, ping pong, lawn bowling, tennis, and walking tracks.
As for flora, lots of cacti. Most houses have small rocks covering their yard in place of grass. A number of houses also have fruit trees (oranges, grapefruit, and lemons mostly), though these require special watering due to the climate. (When it rained shortly before we left at the end of November, it was the first rain the area had experienced since the end of August.) None of the wildlife appear to be interesting in eating the fruit, so any of it that falls off prematurely tends to be quickly sapped of its moisture and turned hard as a rock.
The fauna that we were primarily able to observe was birds. Especially desert quail. There was a flock of them that wandered around my grandma's backyard around early afternoon and roosted in one of her bushes for the night. We also saw a few hummingbirds and mockingbirds, as well as several other species we couldn't identify. There were also a number of hares and a few coyote, the latter of which were smaller than I had expected. (I had the notion that coyote were more similar to wolves than they actually are.) What we didn't see were any javelina (desert pigs), snakes, or lizards (particularly geckos), although they do supposedly live in the area.
My grandma actually owns two houses that are right next to each other; the house she liked most wasn't available when she first moved out to Arizona (she only stays for the late fall to mid-spring and returns to Ohio for the rest of the time) and she bought it when it went on the market later. Both of the houses have two bedrooms and two full bathrooms, although the one she stays in is slightly bigger. We [my parents and I] stayed in the other house, which my grandma rents out from January to March. It was larger and nicer than I had expected, although I had few ideas of what the house was going to be like. I found it more comfortable than our house; the only difficulty I had settling in, besides the sifting through drawers to find where things were and the typical light sleeping for the first few days, was that the bed mattress was slightly harder than I was used to. A very minor thing indeed.
It was quiet in a way it isn't here in upstate New York. Even though the houses aren't that far apart from each other, there were rarely people out walking or driving on my grandma's street, which lent to an air of seclusion, even if mostly illusion. At the same time, it was never truly quiet, what with the birds and the occasional airplanes.
Wednesday, 5 November
Our airplane to Newark, New Jersey (our transfer point) left one hour behind schedule. Nevertheless, we had no trouble making our connection. While flying down the Hudson River, we were treated to trees with their autumn leaves, most in dark red with a few oranges thrown in; these latter became more prominent the closer we came to Newark. The numerous patches of water and constantly rolling landscape were far more noticeable than ever possible with a land perspective.
The flight from Newark to Phoenix was six hours. We were served dinner, but no entertainment was offered and it was fairly cramped. I read for most of the flight.
We were picked up at the Phoenix airport by my grandma and one of her friends. My initial impressions of Phoenix were that it was very flat and the cacti and palm trees seemed so unnatural to me that they appeared fake.
Thursday, 6 November
Our first encounter with the neighbourhood quails. Even though they can fly, they rarely do. One of their calls sounds almost like laughing; my dad compared it to a hyena's giggle, but the rest of us disagreed.
We took a brief drive downtown (maybe five minutes away) to pick up some items at the grocery store and see the area. Shortly after we got back, we played cards. [Hosey, our traditional family card game, played with a Pinochle deck with trump and bowers.] Usually, my dad and I play against my mum and grandma, but my dad commented that we could switch it around since we weren't in Ohio this time; my mum and I won two of the first three games against my dad and grandma.
Just after dark, my parents and I left to attend a local concert put on by a touring Texas-based Air Force group specialising in big band music from the 1920s through 1940s. We had checked the weather and, seeing that it was going to be around 60 degrees [15.5 Celsius], only took light jackets. Big mistake. The lack of humidity makes it feel much cooler and it gets cold quickly in the desert. As my dad voiced afterwards, who would have thought that we'd be freezing in 60 degrees?
After the concert, my dad and I watched the tail end of a Sherlock Holmes show, followed by an Independent Lens documentary about an attempted matricide, on PBS. We shortly came to the conclusion that the PBS in Phoenix had better offerings than our station in upstate New York.
Friday, 7 November
The four of us played shuffleboard at one of the local recreation centres; my mum and grandma won. Pizza was ordered for dinner and several games of cards were played.
Saturday, 8 November
My parents and I went to an arts and crafts fair in the morning. They had a wide variety of creations, from quilts to metal figures to jewellery to pottery. My favourite was a menacing spider crafted from rusty iron; it appealed to the Thief in me [the Thief computer game series, originally by Looking Glass Studios].
We played cards in the afternoon before heading to Rockin' R Ranch. The setup was of a small, stereotypical Western town as you might imagine it from a TV show. There was a saloon, candy store, fake caves, and a trough for goldpanning. We took a wagon ride with draft horses, which kicked up an unbelievable amount of dust that hung in the air and caught the flash of my camera for the rest of the night. There was also a short comedy show based on the idea of travelling medicine conmen with magical cure-all elixirs.
Dinner took place in a large indoor hall with wooden picnic tables and consisted of applesauce, beans, beef, baked potatoes, biscuits, spice cake, lemonade, and black coffee. Everything was tasty and served on tin plates. There were maybe sixty people there, including a group of Purple Hat ladies. After dinner was a roughly hour-long show with songs followed by a staged gunfight. The performers were mostly from the same family and everyone wore cowboy-inspired apparel.
Since it wasn't too far out of the way, we ended the night by driving to the Arizona Temple [for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints] in Mesa and arrived just as it was closing. The numerous light strands for their Christmas display were partly up, but not lit.
Sunday, 9 November
More cards, both Hosey and a new game called Sequence, in which a mat with cards printed randomly across it is used almost like a bingo sheet; you cover cards up on the mat with chips based on which cards you hold in your hand and try to get five chips in a row.
There was a thunderstorm in the early afternoon; we could hear the thunder and see the lightning, but didn't get any rain. Some places further away had hail.
After the storm, my dad and I went up on the roof to look at the tiles and see if any were missing or damaged. My fear of heights is peculiar; I don't mind being up high - indeed, I enjoy the view and isolation - but I dislike the transition and don't feel secure on ladders. The two of us also fertilised my grandma's fruit trees (oranges and grapefruits) and picked up any dead fruit.
More Hosey at night. A brown toad hopped on my foot as I was going out to look at the sky.
Monday, 10 November
Drove to the Challenger Space Center in late morning, only to be disappointed by its rather severe limitations. Saw a large mockingbird as we left.
Afterwards, we drove to Cabela's, a huge outfitters store with all kinds of sporting and hunting supplies, including weaponry (a gun library, compound bows, scopes, ammunition, and knives), camouflage gear, hundreds of varieties of fishing lures and reels, tents and outdoor cooking supplies, and a food store with unusual meats, such as elk and rattlesnake. Perhaps most impressive were the life-sized animal displays, produced by taxidermists with museum-level quality. There was an African area, a desert area, a northeast woods area, and a mountain area, each featuring animals of their respective environments. There was also a medium-sized aquarium with (live) fish. I had been dubious about going (it had been recommended by my grandma's friend who had greeted us at the airport), but it was quite impressive.
We ate a late lunch/early dinner at The Elephant Bar, which was very good with excellent (and I-can't-believe-how-sweet-this-is) desserts. From there, we drove back to my grandma's area.
Around 18:30 [6:30 PM], my parents and I went to one of the recreation centres to play miniature golf - which I was terrible at - and use the equipment in their workout room. While driving back, we saw a coyote trotting along a sidewalk.
Tuesday, 11 November
A relative down day. Laundry and looking up directions and hotels. We played bocci at one of the recreation centres, which I had never played before and was similarly not very good at; my mum and grandma won. My parents went to another concert at night while I stayed at home and watched House and Boston Legal.
Wednesday, 12 November
Drive to Flagstaff to visit Lowell Observatory. We took a tour of the complex and spent about two and a half hours there. A very different landscape from Phoenix, almost like the northeast.
Our original plan had been to spend only two hours at the Observatory, then drive an hour to Sedona for the sunset, then drive back to Flagstaff for the night and go up to the Grand Canyon the next day. In order to pace ourselves better - and in hopes of attending a night viewing at the Observatory - we decided to save Sedona for Thursday and move the Grand Canyon to Friday.
We found a hotel, only to return to the Observatory during the beginning of their night hours and find out they were cancelling (or, at the very least, delaying) star viewing due to cloud cover. Dinner was able to largely make up for the disappointment, which we had at a small restaurant with an eclectic menu; I ordered all Greek food, including baklava for dessert.
Thursday, 13 November
Drive to Sedona. We stopped at several senic overlooks along the way, including one at Oak Creek Canyon, along which a group of Native American merchants were displaying their crafts.
The red rocks of Sedona were, well, red rocks, albeit large and crafted by erosion. We drove a short distance out to Montezuma Well, a pool of water supplied by underground springs which local Native Americans used to create an irrigation canal. The place next to the canal hardly felt like a desert at all, surrounded by running water and overhanging trees, and was . . . spectacular in its calmness.
Following the road south, we stopped briefly at Montezuma Castle - a Native American dwelling carved into the cliffs - but didn't stay long due to a fee. (Montezuma Well, on the other hand, was free.) On the way back north to Sedona, we stopped in a casino, mainly to use the restroom and procure drinks. Having little interest in gambling and having been informed exclusively by spy movies and TV shows from the 1960s, I was shocked to find everything electronicised and personalised. Not that I exactly expected to waltz in to find men done up in tuxedos smoking around crowded blackjack tables with guns hidden under layers of clothing (I'm looking at you, Man From U.N.C.L.E.), but it was my primary reference and I found it had its own air of old-fashioned style. Instead, bright flashing lights assault the senses with the feeling of an arcade.
Back to Sedona. We ate dinner at the small local airport, which was something of a letdown, and then walked out to join a throng of people clustered on the nearby overlook awaiting the sunset with cameras ready. It was beautiful, but always constrained by civilization.
Nightfall. Up to the Grand Canyon.
Friday, 14 November
After a buffet-style breakfast at our hotel, we went to the National Geographic centre just outside the Grand Canyon entrance for an IMAX film about said Canyon. While visually impressive, the storyline was bizarre and there was little educational value, which is something I've come to expect from National Geographic.
At the Grand Canyon, one of the South Rim's walking trails was closed and the North Rim's facilities were shut down, but we were still able to cover most of the South Rim trail, which ran along the edge of the Canyon. Lunch was at Bright Angel Lodge. About two hours before dusk, we nearly ran into a herd of elk, who were slowly and calmly crossing one of the paved paths and payed us little mind. Like the night before, we clustered with others (although fewer) to observe sunset from an overlook and left shortly after.
On the drive back to the Phoenix area, the temperature varied from 37 degrees [3 Celsius] (near the Canyon) to 74 [23 Celsius] (Phoenix).
Saturday, 15 November
Watched part of Daredevil on TV while transferring photos to my laptop. I had seen it with a high school friend years ago; it never quite sat right with me. Too clichéd?
Parents decided to go swimming in the afternoon at one of the recreation centres; I helped my grandma order a book online for a friend's birthday and talked while swinging in the sun room and watching the quails scuttle back and forth. After dusk, we ate dinner together, then played cards and unsuccessfully tried to get the sensor light mounted on the garage to work.
Sunday, 16 November
Brunch at a local restaurant, cards. Took a walk with mum after dinner, then watched Filth (Masterpiece Contemporary, about a crusade to censor the BBC) on PBS with dad, followed by Stargate SG-1 (which happened to be my favourite episode – ‘Absolutely wacko!') and Hannibal, which I'd never seen in its entirety; it wasn't nearly as good as Silence of the Lambs.
Monday, 17 November
Parents and grandma to pool again. Dinner at grandma's, followed by a viewing of the musical Kismet as put on by a local Ohio group (Ohio local, not Arizona) and starring one of my uncles in one of the major roles.
Tuesday, 18 November
Parents and I swam at recreation centre. Went out to see a brief fly-by of the International Space Station after dusk. Cards.
Wednesday, 19 November
Had lunch at Murphy's Restaurant in Prescott, a two-hour drive each way, with three of grandma's friends. Took the scenic route on the way there to see a rock some locals thought looked like a frog and painted as such. The entire trip - plus eating and socialising - took seven hours. Isolation time for me afterwards, followed by watching two episodes of Monarchy: The Royal Family At Work with mum (latter's interest).
Thursday, 20 November
Dad finally fixed a broken burner on the stove (it was more of a saga, really, complete with a specially ordered part), only to have the oven clock be excessively noisy. Stopped by two Goodwills and a Trader Joe's. Cards.
Am obviously trying now to be brief. Didn't intend to go on so; haven't written anything this long since research paper from last semester. Apologies to those still reading, who must be bored to tears.
Friday, 21 November
Biked to recreation centre with Dope to play billiards and use the walking track. Had dinner with five of grandma's friends, then played cards and lost three games in a row.
Saturday, 22 November
Lunch with parents and grandma at P.F. Chang's; I think I'm losing my taste for Chinese food. Stopped at three local comics stores; ironically, couldn't find any of the Batman issues I was looking for, but did buy some used Star Trek novels and a few oWoD items [the old World of Darkness RPG line by White Wolf, including Vampire: The Masquerade]. Played cards. Watched Red Green with dad.
Saturday, 23 November
Went with my grandma and dad to pick up one of my uncles and his partner from the airport; they were staying for about five days and sleeping in the same house as my grandma. We had a large lunch/dinner with what my mind categorises as Ohio food (sweet potatoes, noodles with meat, sweet pickles, and more). Cards.
Monday, 24 November
Woke up with sore throat and possible fever. Went with walk with mum anyway. Uncle made sauerkraut for dinner. Cards. Watched a documentary on PBS about art looting by the Nazis during World War II before bed.
Tuesday, 25 November
Another walk with mum. Cards. Uncle and partner went up to Williams to take a train to the Grand Canyon.
Wednesday, 26 November
Clean-up day. Laundry, vacuuming, and the like. Final score on cards was 18 games (me and mum) to 21 (dad and grandma). Watched Boston Legal with dad.
Thursday, 27 November
Woke up around 4:30 [AM] and arrived at airport around 6, which turned out to be excessively early. Tried futilely to sleep from Phoenix to Newark; no special Thanksgiving food. Saw downtown Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty both while touching down and departing from Newark; Manhattan looked like cluster of dull-coloured rectangles sticking up into the sky. Cold, but didn't feel as cold as expected after being in Arizona. Back from airport around 19:00 [7 PM].
