Good morning!!!

We did it! part 2

Dead forest, dead Naomi.

She looks a little crazy....

Top of the world!

You can't really tell in this photo, but the edge of the cliff is about 2' to my right.  I don't think I breathed the entire time I was out there!

The peak in the background is Humphrey's, which we will be doing at the end of June.  So exciting!

We did it!

Debbie, my friend/coworker (from now on, friend) and I were going to climb Humphrey's Peak this weekend...until we learned that there is still snow at the top and the winds have a tendency to knock big sturdy men over.  We decided to leave that one until later in the summer when it is calmer and instead tackled the north face of Wilson Mountain .  We think it is about 12 miles round trip if you do it correctly. Debbie might have a little Halasz blood....she gets as lost as we Halasz women do.  We, however, did not follow the trail perfectly and so did a little extra rock climbing, which was exciting.  Two blondes, wandering around in the desert.  Thankfully, we had planned much better this week and so had plenty of water, sun and bug protection, and a lovely picnic for the summit.  Lots of laughing later, we reached the car happy and exhausted.  Not sure where we'll hike next week, but we met some super helpful people at the hiking store in Sedona, so we figure we'll just stop in there and let them tell us where to go.

This is kind of a photo dump because I don't know how to do the slideshow like what Dan does.  Maybe I can learn that over the week of Amanda's wedding....hint hint!

"How can a mountain be a secret?" And thus began the hike...

The beginning of the trail is all butterfly bushes.  It smelled divine and looked beautiful!

 So much greener than Yuma!

"How long did it take to make this happen?!?"

Our feet, chillin' at the top of the mountain

Gourmet lunch.  It was so delicious!

Officially a hiker!

We saw a lot of burned-out trees from a huge wild fire

I have a few more that I can't figure out how to get onto this post, so I'll make another post.

Special thanks to Grandpa Steve for the suggestion of covered hiking shoes.  They have proved invaluable for preventing many stubbed toes, snarls in pricker bushes, and future run-ins with critters.  So great!

xoxo

More Sedona

Deb sent me a few of her pictures. The bottom two are of me at the bottom of Devil's Bridge looking up. It was really far!

Sedona!

Not to be confused with Sonoma, which is California wine country!

Debbie, my coworker, and I went up to Sedona yesterday to do a bit of day hiking.  We had planned to do the Brins Mesa hike for the views and the Devils Bridge hike for the experience for a total of 4ish miles of hiking.  13 miles of hiking and a 7 mile cab ride later, we learned that we have a lot to learn. And that we need to spend a bit more time looking at the map and a bit less time talking! All in all, though, it was pretty darn fun and the scenery was incredible.  You can read more about the different hikes here.

I will definitely be going back to Sedona (only an hour away!!) to do more hiking. It is so unique and majestic!

That's Debbie at the top of Devil's Bridge.  

Giant Asparagus

The pictures don't do it justice, especially from my slightly crappy camera.

Have a great week!  xoxo

Forecast: sunny!

This just in from The Weather Channel for Android.

I forgot to add these from the pre-Highland night!

woah!

Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms in my life!  I love you!



I made it to *most* of the festivities I had posted about earlier.  Here's the rundown:

Friday was the pre-Highland Games party at the pub.  Fun to watch the little girls dance and listen to one good, one really bad (there is no in-between) bag piper.  I was asked to dance a waltz, which I regret declining and was also asked several times why my hair wasn't red.  Well, because I'm a blonde ;-)

Then my co-worker, Debbie, and I met for dinner and so I skipped the fiddle concert.  Worth it, because it turned out to be a really fun night!

Saturday I went to the Farmer's Market and got some delicious home-made, frozen vegan (read: no lard!) tamales and salsa in addition to kale, etc., saw a patient, and then met Debbie and her friend downtown for the Art and Wine festival.

The Colorado River outside of the Dam

 Downtown Prescott is pretty cute!  This is courthouse square pre-Artfest

This is a cute Western-ish boutique mall downtown

Turns out there isn't much good Arizona wine, but we ferreted out the good ones. Then Saturday night was the star party, which was especially fun because most people there had never seen the stars through a telescope.






















Today was church (great priest), groceries, and.....a good, long, taxing hike!  (finally to the part with the pictures!)  I hiked at the Groom Creek Loop Trail.  It was 9.4 miles and led to a forest-fire watch tower at the summit.  I wasn't gutsy enough to take pictures from the wire steps up to the guard tower, but I did get these ones at the top and then along the way back down.

vast

"Spruce Mtn. Lookout Elevation 7693"
Basically, a mile and a half above where I was a week ago.
Crazy.

I love the shadow of the clouds on the land below.  Just so cool.

A quick trip to Trader Joe's and I was home to get ready for the week (and shower!)  Not a bad way to end my first week here....

xoxo