Tuomo writes: Tomorrow's the day when we drive up to the Grand Canyon. Not the Pequeno Canyon, the Moderately Attractive Canyon or even the Meh Canyon. Nope, to the Grand One...! I'm looking forward to seeing something totally breath-taking and connecting with Mother Earth like the Hopis or the Navajos. Or something :-)
The weather continues to be warm 22-27 C (75-85 F) and totally cloudless. I still can't overcome the fact that it's so flat and dry. To the extent that when the other day we drove to Lake Pleasant, I started to feel that once you've seen one saguaro, you've seen them all! Now if only my sore throat and snorkely nose stopped bothering me - and Dave.
Another observation: Scottsdale specialises on (overpriced) Hopi and Navajo jewelry, Glendale in antique stores, and Peoria in car dealerships :-) I've seen some totally gorgeous Native American art work and jewelry (I love turquoise both as a colour and as a mineral) but man is it ever expensive! Oh well as long as the margin goes to the benefit of some impoverished native boy or girl who can now attend college.
Oh and Weight Watchers is not going very well (as I'm about to force pieces of chocolate down my throat...). And I was already down 8.5 lbs (3.9 kg)! All that despite the fact that I'm reading a fabulous book on weight loss You on a Diet... I guess I just have to keep in mind - as both WW and the book point out - that just like GPS navigating systems, I can get back on the right track at the next available moment...
Ja reilun kolmen viikon kuluttua mä olenkin Suomessa äidin synttäreitä juhlistamassa!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Greetings from Arizona!
Tuomo writes: No, we haven't moved again even though it's been like a month and a half since my last posting... A severe case of blog fatigue I guess...
At any rate, we're down in Arizona on vacation. We flew down on Good Friday after a night in Seattle. The drive down to Seattle was a nuisance and a half of itself because we had to wait over two hours to cross the border; since it was Thursday before Easter weekend on which most Canadians get four days off there must have been more than the usual amount of people wanting to go to the States... At Phoenix Airport, we were greeted by Dave's parents who have been staying in Peoria, a 45 minute drive from the airport, for almost two months.
Let me tell ya: not a cloud in the sky and the temperatures above 20 C (70 F)! What a huge difference it makes in comparison to the weather we left behind in Vancouver. In fact my brother text-messaged me a virtual raspberry in response to my description of the weather here :-)
So far we've seen a "ghost town," or a tourist trap with shops, ateliers, and actors who put on a tableau on what life was like in the Southwest in the late 1900s: lots of smoke and guns banging. I was almost convinced that a scorpion would pounce on me at any given moment... In fact the ghost town was next to a place called Lost Dutchmen. I could in fact almost imagine the following dialogue going on, "'t Is heel heet hier! Waar zijn we eigenlijk? Schatje, zeg maar: wat heb je eens met de kaart gedaan? Zeg me niet dat we weer verkeert zijn! Ik zei toch drie uur geleden dat we aan dat hoge lelijke cactus aan links zou keren hebben!!" :-) [It's very hot here. Where are we after all? Sweetie, tell me: what did you do with the map this time. Don't tell me that we're lost again! I told you three hours ago that we should have turned left at that tall ugly cactus!!] Please correct my Dutch if there are mistakes... :-)
At any rate, the sights have been quite spectacular, to say the least. Unlike the mountaineous British Columbia, the Phoenix area is quite flat (with mountains in the horizon) with cactuses and desert all around. The other day we went on a 90 minute cruise on Lake Saguaro on the Desert Belle, and man was it magnificient! We should do something similar once we get back to BC...
Later on this week, we'll be heading up north to see the Grand Canyon, a long-time dream of mine! More on that and hopefully photos in the near future... In the mean time, wish you were here :-)
At any rate, we're down in Arizona on vacation. We flew down on Good Friday after a night in Seattle. The drive down to Seattle was a nuisance and a half of itself because we had to wait over two hours to cross the border; since it was Thursday before Easter weekend on which most Canadians get four days off there must have been more than the usual amount of people wanting to go to the States... At Phoenix Airport, we were greeted by Dave's parents who have been staying in Peoria, a 45 minute drive from the airport, for almost two months.
Let me tell ya: not a cloud in the sky and the temperatures above 20 C (70 F)! What a huge difference it makes in comparison to the weather we left behind in Vancouver. In fact my brother text-messaged me a virtual raspberry in response to my description of the weather here :-)
So far we've seen a "ghost town," or a tourist trap with shops, ateliers, and actors who put on a tableau on what life was like in the Southwest in the late 1900s: lots of smoke and guns banging. I was almost convinced that a scorpion would pounce on me at any given moment... In fact the ghost town was next to a place called Lost Dutchmen. I could in fact almost imagine the following dialogue going on, "'t Is heel heet hier! Waar zijn we eigenlijk? Schatje, zeg maar: wat heb je eens met de kaart gedaan? Zeg me niet dat we weer verkeert zijn! Ik zei toch drie uur geleden dat we aan dat hoge lelijke cactus aan links zou keren hebben!!" :-) [It's very hot here. Where are we after all? Sweetie, tell me: what did you do with the map this time. Don't tell me that we're lost again! I told you three hours ago that we should have turned left at that tall ugly cactus!!] Please correct my Dutch if there are mistakes... :-)
At any rate, the sights have been quite spectacular, to say the least. Unlike the mountaineous British Columbia, the Phoenix area is quite flat (with mountains in the horizon) with cactuses and desert all around. The other day we went on a 90 minute cruise on Lake Saguaro on the Desert Belle, and man was it magnificient! We should do something similar once we get back to BC...
Later on this week, we'll be heading up north to see the Grand Canyon, a long-time dream of mine! More on that and hopefully photos in the near future... In the mean time, wish you were here :-)
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