Blogging once again from Arizona!
Pictures of all the fun are posted on our Picasa page
We left NC the Saturday after Christmas, drove for four days and arrived at Mattogno’s the day before New Year’s Eve. We had planned four nights on the road but my desire to get through west Texas as quickly as I could, gave us one long hard day of 710 miles and almost 12 hours but in the end it was worth it
On NYE, we opened Christmas gifts then went to a children’s celebration put on by the town - a scaled down version of what was planned for the adult evening entertainment. It was provided by a group from Tuscon, Flam Chen, a pyrotechnic troupe. The girls had a lot of fun - stilt walkers, acrobats, lantern making and a brief show. Anne-Marie got her picture in the paper learning to use Pois, a gymnastic thing similar to Indian Clubs which, when used by those in the know are flaming. The kids’ had no flames!
Chris and Lisa got a babysitter for the night so the four of us went out to dinner then they went to the Flam Chen evening and we went back to hotel and crashed. It was midnight in NC, anyway..
On NYD, we just “vegged out” with Lisa and Chris recovering from the celebrations and me and Jim taking full advantage of a day with nothing planned.
On Friday afternoon, Chris took us up to Juniper Flats in the Mule Mountains (which are part of the Continental Divide) to watch the sunset. What a beautiful sight! From where we were, over 7000 feet, we could see for miles and when the sun set behind the mountains it was enough to take you breath away. The climb was a bit of an adventure but luckily it’s a drive Chris has made many times so he was comfortable with the narrow, windy, steep dirt road. I just sat in the back seat and held my breath!
Saturday morning, we all piled into the van we had rented and headed for Tuscon for a day at the Reid Park Zoo. It’s a small zoo when compared to the NC Zoo but a great size for a day trip and it’s well kept, clean and well planned out. The girls had a great time. Since the family has a zoo membership, they were familiar with the paths and the special events that occurred during the day. Anne-Marie, in particular, was waiting for the time to feed the giraffes - one her favorite zoo events.
Sunday has no pictures for you to see - I had the camera to catch the excitement on the girls’ faces but never got the opportunity. We were prepared for a well thought out day of geocaching… maps, coordinates, GPS and goodies for the cache. It was cold and windy in the high desert but we were ready to go. After the first couple of disappointments we were pretty sure the day was going to be “bust.” We looked at about five or six sites, walked though rocks, thorny bushes and cacti and returned home empty handed, chilled to the bone and hungry. I wonder do people actually find things? Did somebody take the caches from the sites we looked at? Are we unable to read directions accurately? I dunno…
Kids are back to school today (Monday) and tomorrow will be our last day in Bisbee and we head back Wednesday morning. One last thing before we leave… our traditional pool and pizza party at the hotel the night before we leave. The folks at Hampton Inn are so gracious and let us just party as long and hard as we want.