Sorry for the delay on posting this. Since we got back from this trip I have been all over the country and haven't had a moment to myself.Earlier this July Marni and I just took a vacation to visit our friends Scott and Louise in Prescott Arizona. We woke up super early drove to the Portland Airport, and quick were on our way to what I thought was gonna be a super hot and dry part of the US.
On the left you can see a preview of the Grand Canyon. We had many adventures planned. Visiting the Grand Canyon was one of them. Mostly I just wanted to take a lot of photos of a places I had never seen to before. I also enjoy seeing how other people in the other States live. Every state seems to have a different mind set and way of life.
Landing in AZ was fine. It was a lot hotter than I like, but we didn't have to spend much time outside. We waited for a while outside for the shuttle to take us to the car rental building. It was the "dry heat" I was expecting. Not to bad with a slight breeze but still somewhere over 105 degrees.(Still to hot for me. Makes me miss snowboarding.)
Rent-a-car places are always nice inside, but when you get to the garage they are awful. Row after row after row of cars, and you can never find yours quickly. When we found the spot ours was supposed to be in the wrong car was in it. So instead of driving off the lot with a gas guzzling SUV, they upgraded us for free to a little blue Toyota Prius. If you have never been in a Hybrid car before you will find them confusing the first time. This one didn't even have a key, it had a little cartridge, a push start button, and a little joy stick controller. It was probably 115 degrees in the car and all I wanted to do was get it started and turn on the air conditioning! It took way to long, finally we got it running buy just pushing a bunch of levers and buttons around until the dang thing started.
So finally on our way we left Phoenix. With a long drive ahead of us we got to see some of the local nothingness. Brown, Dry, and lots of Cacti. Very different from the very green Oregon I reside in. Its a wonder anything can live out here. BTW its not the best area for biking. Not just because of the heat, but because everything is so spread out. If you didn't die of heat stroke, it would take you forever to get anywhere. Anyone out there thinking just anyone can give up their car is horribly mistaken.
I generally don't like taking photos from a car, but these give you a good idea of what its like in the area outside downtown Phoenix.The roads all have interesting names probably based back from the old wild west days. Names like "Dead Mans Wash" "Horse Thief Road" and our favorite "Bloody Basin Road".
You may also notice there are no mandatory Helmet laws in Arizona State, so we saw a lot of bikers with no head gear. The locals like to say they have more "personal freedoms" than other states. This attracts a certain type of person to this part of the country. People with a little more wild side I suppose, and they all want you to stay off their property!
When we made it up to Prescott AZ, (Marni's old stomping grounds) We found Scott and Louise's rental house. We unpacked, talked for a few minutes, and by this time I got to experience the opposite of the dry weather I was expecting... A very wet and rainy Arizona. Turns out its Monsoon season. The day starts off dry and then by about noon it rains massively for a few hours.Not good for Scott and Louise because they are having a new house built, and with no roof yet it was getting very wet. Their last 2 homes had mold problems. Wanting to avoid collecting water they rushed us up to the newly half framed home.
(the photos to the left are taken from their new property)
Everyone, (even the kids) grabbed a broom and started sweeping the water off the exposed wood floor. This was becoming a daily ritual for Scott since it was a holiday weekend, it was going to be another week before the roof was on. Fingers crossed the water will dry out enough under the framing so no Mold will grow once the builders sealed the flooring.
As you can imagine after flying down from Oregon and driving XXX Miles to Prescott we were pretty tired. So we didn't get to do much more.We did stop at a Safeway to get some snacks, and in the spirit of Arizona personal freedom I was surprised to find them selling hard alcohol in the isles along with everything else. Other than that places like Safeway are pretty much the same anywhere you go.
After all that, we drove back to their rental house and watched some fireworks in the distant sky. Nothing to spectacular, but the kids still liked em.
I was able to catch a little of the sunset to, but before that I tried to take a few decent photos from around the house. The better photos are still yet to come!
