Reflections on Arizona and my 3 year plan

Like I said in my other post, I’m not really sure vacation is supposed to be a life changing event, but maybe it is…I mean, there is a whole genre of books and movies about (mostly) white women going to exotic places and having their whole worlds change (see “Under the Tuscan Sun”, “Eat, Pray, Love”, “The Holiday”, “Wild”- ok, maybe not a vacation, “How Stella Got Her Groove Back”, “Tracks”- also not a vacation and seriously one of my favorite movies etc etc etc. I think part of the reason why I truly enjoyed Arizona was because we didn’t do anything extravagant yet everything was special. I like to focus on where I am when I am on a trip, not what I am doing. I want to spend more of my life like this.

James and I have been exploring minimalism recently and really want to simplify every aspect of our lives. It sort of started in a material sense when we sold our house in Woodstock and “downsized”. Honestly the house we have now still feels too big. We don’t have a lot of “stuff” anyway, but have slowly been getting rid of things we don’t need. Being vegan also helps; I skip ¾ of the grocery store when shopping and use much simpler recipes.

Our ultimate form of minimalism will come when my student loans are paid off and we can sell our house, thus having no debt. After 10 years at my job, I will be able to qualify for loan forgiveness (Dear Jesus please do not let the political powers that be discontinue the public services student loan forgiveness program). I have 3 years to go. In 2020, I would like to quit my job, sell our house, buy a travel trailer and figure out something new to do for a while. Maybe we'll move a new place, maybe we won't. Maybe I'll still be a social worker, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll be a fire watcher like I wanted to be when I was a kid. Who knows...

Scottsdale Pics

             

Scavenging in Scottsdale

The Grand Hunt

https://www.instagram.com/constructed_adventures/

Chris had a huge event planned for his birthday. He runs a company called Constructed Adventures which plans elaborate scavenger hunts for special occasions (engagements, birthdays, company outings, etc). He puts a lot of heart and soul into the planning and implementation, so it is a truly sentimental experience. He also has a drone so he can film your special event from awesome angles! It is one of the most unique concepts I have ever heard of. As someone who is very rarely surprised by anything, I think Chris could even plan something that would stun me.

So for his birthday, Chris planned a massive scavenger hunt all around downtown Scottsdale with the end goal of the party-goers finding him in a surprise location. It involved lots of walking, drinking, puzzle solving, map reading, socializing and generally acting crazy. It was almost like being in a Judd Apatow movie, running around trying to navigate all these absurd challenges in order to party (think Super Bad). We got to meet tons of new people and literally see all of Scottsdale. Chris’ day job is at a certain online review company and I give this birthday party 5/5 stars!

Sedona Pics

Bell Rock

Airport Vortex

Cathedral Rock

Chapel of the Holy Cross

Views from the Chapel

Boynton Canyon

Midgely Bridge

Oak Creek Canyon

Weekend- Phoenix and Scottsdale

We discovered two great vegan restaurants side by side in Central Phoenix- Green and Nami.  We ate at Green for dinner when we got back from Sedona and then went to Nami for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday mornings. This is definitely not health food but after running around for the past few days, we burned a lot of calories and felt we deserved it.

After breakfast each day we walked up and down the streets surrounding the restaurant, which are all historic neighborhoods full of gorgeous homes on tree lined streets. One side of the street is awesome southwestern influenced Bungalows and the other side is more stately Tudors. We also saw wild lovebirds! At first we didn't believe it, but I looked it up and sure enough certain neighborhoods in Phoenix have flocks of wild lovebirds. This area of Phoenix seems to be the up and coming "hip"(ster) part of town. It reminded me a lot of certain parts of Tampa (i.e. I felt very at home).

We also went to a nifty old diner called MacAlpine’s, which is also home to a huge vintage market. There is an old fashioned soda fountain and a large selection of milkshakes and other retro treats (not vegan, so we didn't try anything). I did buy a vintage turquoise ring from the antique store and the manager there was incredibly knowledgeable and spent a lot of time explaining vintage jewelry to me.

We spent both Saturday and Sunday afternoons in Old Town Scottsdale. I always thought Scottsdale was just a boring suburb of Phoenix, but it is a truly cool town. The old town area is huge, full of art galleries and very upscale. Hardly like the Atlanta suburbs (at least, not the one we live in). The weather was beautiful and perfect for strolling around enjoying the sculptures and landscape. I could seriously see myself living in Scottsdale.

More about our night out in Scottsdale in my next post!

Day 3- Sedona

Fri 2/10/17

Initially, we planned to do a driving tour called the Apache Trail on Friday, but ended up changing plans because our AirBnB hostess mentioned it is a really rough drive and I did not want to chance messing up our rental car. Plenty of websites say it is fine to do in a sedan but our hostess said it’s a very narrow road and people do not drive courteously. The weather was also forecast (at that time) to be bad on the weekend, when we initially planned to go to Sedona, and we felt Sedona was something we did not want to pass up. So we went to Sedona on Friday instead.

We left Phoenix around 8 am and got to Sedona a little before 10 am. It was a very nice drive and hardly felt like 2 hrs.The scenery changes rapidly as you drive north of Phoenix and in no time, amazing desert formations appear. There are intriguing signs along the highway indicating ghost towns (I wanted to stop; James said that's how horror movies start). We also saw some hot air balloons!

I found a basic driving tour online that seemed to hit most of the highlights of Sedona so we roughly followed it. We did skip some sections based on time and/or confusion about what exactly we were looking for.I only referenced the map, not the CD the website mentions.The areas on the tour are:

1 - Bell Rock
2 - Cathedral Rock
3 - Chapel of the Holy Cross
4 - Schnebly Hill Road- skipped (it appeared to be a dirt road and no dirt roads for the rental car)
5 - Airport Vortex
6 - Airport Mesa
7 - West Sedona- skipped (could not really figure what exactly we were looking for)
8 - Boynton Canyon
9 - Upper Red Rock Loop- skipped (in interest of time, wish we hadn't skipped it)
10 - Red Rock Crossing- skipped (in interest of time, wish we hadn't skipped it)
11 - Uptown Sedona
12 - Midgley Bridge
13 - Indian Gardens- skipped (could not find exact location)
14 - Slide Rock- skipped (state park with a $10 fee. We didn't have enough time to truly explore)
15 - West Fork
16 - Upper Oak Creek Vista and Canyon

A lot of the tour areas do require a parking fee and some had very small parking lots.

We at lunch at a lovely café- ChocolaTree- total hippie vibe, raw, vegan, etc. It’s a little outside the main drag of Sedona but was perfectly situated on our tour. It's located between the Airport Vortex and Boynton Canyon.

We saw the bare minimum on our whirlwind tour, but the tour really does take you from the desert to the mountains and I felt like we traveled so much more than we actually did. I would definitely like to return to Sedona and spend time visiting the northern part of Arizona.

Day 3 observations- in AZ, you can go from the desert to snow in a~30 min drive, there is nothing a crystal or vortex can't heal, spring water tastes drastically better than Phoenix city water.

Sedona pics to follow in their own post!

Day 2- Tucson

Thurs 2/9/17

We met up again with our friend Chris around 9 am on Thursday morning and he chauffeured us to Tucson, where his parents live. Chris and James grew up together in Georgia and Chris’ family moved to Tucson when he was a teenager. 

Along the way we stopped at Rooster Cogburn’s Ostrich Ranch and fed the critters. We then had lunch with Chris’ parents at their house before heading into Tucson to see the University of Arizona. We walked around the campus, which had shocking numbers of grassy quads just like any other university. U of A is a more modern school compared to UGA, but it was a pretty campus and the downtown area bordering the college was cool. 

We stopped for coffee and then drove to the other side of Tucson to visit Gates Pass, which is a park and scenic overlook area. We hiked a short ways up a small mountain (hill?) and took some pictures. It was really pretty with tons of saguaro cacti dotting the landscape as far as the eye could see. I guess I never really realized cacti grow in “forests”; I just always had an image in my head of one giant, lone cactus standing by itself out in the desert. The Pass is probably a great place to watch the sun set, but we left before that happened. There is a little hut at the top of the hill w/a grill, so also a good place for a picnic.

We then drove back to Phoenix and ate at a fabulous restaurant in Scottsdale called Diego Pops. Really cool décor and the food was amazing. Highly recommend.

Day 2 observations- college kids look younger than ever, I have been pronouncing "Saguaro" incorrectly my entire life, there are a lot of strip clubs in/around Phoenix.

Day 1- Phoenix

Weds 2/8/17

Our flight arrived in Phoenix around 2:30 pm but unfortunately we had to wait in line for quite a while at the rental car counter. I would not recommend Advantage for rental cars. We got an upgrade but I didn't really care about that and would have rather gotten my half hour back, mainly because by the time we got the car, rush hour had set in. 

We got to our AirBnB a little after 4 pm and met with our hostess and her adorable dog to learn about the Airstream. The hostess lives in a central part of Phoenix known as the “Historic Homesteads”. I researched the neighborhood and found the homes were most built in the 1930s as part of a New Deal program. The neighborhood is full of fruit trees and ranch style homes.

After getting settled, we met up with our friend Chris who lives in Scottsdale and went out to eat at McFate Brewing Company. We spent the evening reminiscing with Chris and planning our next day, which would be a trip to the Tucson area.

Day 1 observations- Sky Harbour airport is one of the least interesting airports I've ever been to, there are orange trees everywhere, there is a "Mormon Channel" on the radio.

Arizona, or how my vacation caused me to have an existential crisis

I am super excited to share my experiences and pictures from Arizona and will do so with a post covering each day we were there. To kick it off though, I feel I must write about how this vacation made me feel. Let me first explain, this is the first actual vacation I have been on since 2005 (I was 21 then, for reference). No visiting family, no traveling for work obligations, no repeat trips to places I have been over and over and over again. Sorry, family in Florida and New Hampshire- I love you all, I just don't consider going to my hometown to be a vacation. 

So basically since being entrenched in adult life, I have not been on vacation. I have been at my job nearly 7 years with no real vacation. I took time off to move, fix up my house, go to my sister's graduation, etc. I had completely forgotten what it is like to experience an existence or location different than my own. And now that I have, I don't want to go back.

When I was younger, I lived for travel. I went to Europe three times by the time I was 21. I learned to ski in Italy. I walked to Poland. I walked to the Czech Republic (from Germany, but still). I spent 3 days canoeing down a river buying food from road side huts. I actually spoke another language fluently. I didn't sit at a desk all day. I didn't spend all my time worrying about other people's problems. I didn't have any money but I also didn't care. I want to be that way again. I want to be carefree. So, in summary, here is a cheesy meme I made from a photo I took in Arizona. More to come soon...

The mountain of life

• Distance: Oh I dunno- a million miles
• Terrain: Rocky
• Location: here, there and everywhere

Well, here we go again. I tried to blog and failed- miserably. A year later, I had forgotten I even had a blog. Strangely enough, a new-found hatred for Facebook reminded me. I can't stand the political conversations and personal drama all over Facebook, so I wanted to delete my profile. But then the panic set in- how will I keep up with people? How will I share my photos? Etc Etc Etc. Then I remembered, I HAVE A BLOG! I can post my pictures there and people who genuinely care about me (aka not people from high school who never talked to me then) can keep up with it if they want to. 

So what I have I been doing for the past year? Not hiking enough, unfortunately. Let's see:

Spring 2016- sold our beloved house in Woodstock and moved to Cumming, which triggered a major life crisis/mental breakdown. I had a very hard time with the move and literally fell apart. It took me months to unpack at our new house and I just never felt at home. I still don't. I dislike Forsyth County and I strongly dislike the name Cumming. Freaking obscene. 

Summer 2016- hmm don't really remember. I got in a car accident and totaled my car. That was memorable. Bought a car with 4 wheel drive. Yee haw!! All of North Georgia was on fire so we didn't really hike a lot. Lake Lanier (which we live within walking distance of) was a dried up mud pit. Overall not a great summer. 

Fall 2016- Football, yay! Again, not a lot of hiking because my husband's life revolves around football and this season was of particular interest because hey, new coach. Gotta see what he is going to do. We did got to Athens for a game or two and that was fantastic.Fostered a precious munchkin named Nessa, who got adopted by some fabulous people near Athens also. 

Winter 2016- went to Florida on vacation and camped on the Gulf Coast, in addition to visiting my family. That was lovely. The typical holiday season. We even got some snow right after new years. I accepted a new position at work, which has given me some extra free time so that is a plus. Free time to watch an entire season of Game of Thrones and now I've moved onto some vintage HBO: Oz. What a delightful show. 

We are going to Arizona next week to visit a friend and I am so excited about that. I have never been west of the Mississippi. I have never been in a desert, nor experienced this thing they call "dry heat". This is another reason why I was like, I have got to get my blog back up and running!! I will take probably a million pictures. I already have an extremely detailed, probably impossible itinerary drawn up. Oh and we're staying in an Airstream trailer from AirBnB. All my desert dreams are coming true. 

So hopefully writing in my blog again will help me get back on track with what I truly enjoy- traveling and being outside.