Overall, this trip has been better than expected. Well, I should say it was less bad than expected. It was OK. What I'm trying to say is, I'm ready to come home. Now.
I'll give you this: Arizona is very pretty, in a bleak, desert sort of way. My friend and I escaped from the meeting this afternoon and drove to Sedona, which everyone said was "cool" and a "must see" and "only a short 2-hour drive away". It was gorgeous. And cold. And windy. We didn't see any snakes, because did you know that snakes hibernate in the winter? I did not know that, and hearing that snakes give you a four-month break of looking out for their slithery, venomous bodies was pretty much the second-best news I've heard all week (right behind the "you don't have to give a presentation" news).
After we went on our overpriced but lovely guided hike around Red Rocks, we decided to stop in a coffee shop to go to the bathroom and get warmed up before taking off for the 2-hour ride back to Scottsdale. Except the coffee shop next to our car was closed. As was the one down the street. And the rest of the shops on the block. All closed. It was 5:30pm.
The only thing that was open was a diner, so we stopped in, had some coffee and soup, and used the bathroom. In the 30 minutes we were inside, it apparently started to snow. A lot. Like, half an inch in half an hour. You know what they should really put in the trunk of a rental car? A snow scraper. Or even a snow brush, or ANYTHING TO BE USED TO WIPE SNOW OFF THE WINDOWS. We used a t-shirt (the one my friend happened to be wearing) to wipe off the back, and I decided to use the old roll-down trick on my driver's window. This resulted in me getting a half-inch window-sized block of snow in my lap. I swear, I have used this trick a million and half times in my twenty six years on this earth, and NEVER has the snow fallen INTO the car before. Never. Arizona snow apparently responds to a different gravitational force than East Coast snow. Must be something to do with all those energy vortexes that we were supposedly driving over.
After I drove the car into a curb trying to make a U-turn on the highway (I thought I was turning into a parking lot, damn snow on the ground makes it hard to see) (as does snow falling from the sky in biblical proportions), we thanked the vortex gods that we had decided to spend that extra $23 on rental car insurance and sped home. The one thing I have to say I love about Arizona: Speed Limit 75, baby.
So now I'm home in my hotel room, and I really should be packing, but I'm so bored. Really, what hotel charges this much money for a room and then has only ONE channel playing an actual show? In what alternate universe is my beloved USA an All Car Shows, All The Time Network? WHERE ARE MY LAW AND ORDER RERUNS? I just ordered my room service favorite, French Onion soup, and it came in a styrofoam container and that was the final straw. I just spend $11 to rent a movie (a first for me), and then I'm going to sleep and in 12 hours I'll be on my way home.
(Yea, don't even ask about this.)
great photos! ya know, the only western state I haven't been to is Arizona. I enjoyed reading about your week there, though!
Posted by: janet | Saturday, January 20, 2007 at 01:10 PM
Pretty cactus, pretty hair, pretty sunny views. But the pig pics? Freaky.
Posted by: motherofbun | Monday, January 22, 2007 at 06:13 PM
My cousin is going to ASU right now. He e-mailed me last week to complain to me about the snow. I didn't have any sympathy for him. Nope, none at all.
(lovely pictures, by the way!)
Posted by: Isabel | Wednesday, January 24, 2007 at 04:47 PM