Arizona

My good friend is moving to the desert, which has me dreaming of cactus, brilliant blue skies and desert hikes. If you find yourself heading to the desert soon too, you should check out these links:

Our favorite thing to do in Arizona, Hiking in Sedona.
A great place to beat the heat, the Phoenix Library.
There aren't many places where you can enjoy city hiking.
Spend a day in the wild west town of Goldfield and hike along the Flatiron Trail.
A Christmas in Arizona.
Rawhide, a western town of fun for all ages.
Rule #1 in Arizona: visit Sedona

Lake Powell: Hiking to the Natural Bridge

Aside from all the PDA, we were able to enjoy another natural site on our Lake Powell tour. On the mid point of our tour we docked and were given time to hike and explore the Natural Bridges National Monument. One interesting tidbit, I believe it is one of the few national monuments you have to access by boat. If it weren't for our tour or being with someone who knows the area you might not even know it existed.

Hiking in Sedona and getting everything I ever wanted

As much as I like clothes, shopping and dressing up, I equally enjoy hiking, camping and getting dirty. When I was pregnant everyone automatically assumed I wanted a girl, but I was hoping for a boy. Aside from the fact my family is predominately girls, it was my heart's desire to raise a kind, gentle hearted man, like my husband.

The day the ultrasound technician told us we were having a boy, I shed a few tears of joy. My dream had come true and in that moment life was perfect. I was having my little boy and would be able to raise him with my kind hearted man. Oh, how my heart was full.

Now, as we wade through moments of sadness and miss our little boy everyday, we are reminded at every turn, how beautiful the world still is. In every raindrop, tree branch or flower, the wonder our son would have had for all these things can be reflected in our own eyes. For the brief time we spent with our son, I know he would want us overflowing with happiness and gratitude each and everyday.

Great weekend getaway: Hiking in Sedona

There are places I have visited often enough they feel familiar, they remind me of old friends I am excited to see again. For me, Sedona is one of those places. The hiking is impeccable, the weather fantastic and the views are something out of a desert dream. If I ever had to relocate to Arizona, I would only choose to live in Sedona. Hiking midday, midweek in the middle of May we had the place to ourselves., it was such a perfect day.

Four Corners

Normally, I pride myself on taking well thought out, and researched vacations. I like to seek out great local restaurants to eat at or locally made shops to visit, but since Four Corners was on my list of places to visit and we were passing through anyways, it seemed like a shame to miss.

Walking through Upper Antelope Canyon

Have you ever been inside a slot canyon? I had never been, so I was excited to visit the most photographed slot canyon in the world, Antelope Canyon. This particular canyon is located on a Navajo reservation, which means the only way to access it is by going on a tour. Since it was the last tour of the day, there were only ten of us, which meant we were able to take photographs without strangers being in them and enjoy the canyon as if we had the place to ourselves. The ride out to the canyon was extremely bumpy, we were continuously bouncing up and off our bench. It felt adventurous being jiggled around and kicking up so much dust as we barreled down the dirt road.

A lesson learned at Horseshoe Bend

While we were hiking down to Horseshoe Bend a gentleman passed us and told us, "You are too late, the lights are out, it is over" Confused and yet undeterred by this man's comments we continued to near Horseshoe Bend as the sun was setting. We decided to stop here after a full day of boating and slot canyon viewing. Since it is the most photographed section of the Colorado River we wanted to see it for ourselves.

Lake Powell and a whole lot of PDA

One of the single best parts of traveling are the wild stories you are able to reflect upon and laugh about once you are home. It was not until we found ourselves in Southern Utah that we realized thousands of Europeans make what they call a "Grand Circle" tour of the national parks in the Southwest. Most of our time was spent surrounded by retirees who drove enormous RVs and people speaking French. Apparently, there is significant advertising efforts drawing record numbers of European to otherwise remote places in the United States. As part of our tour, we decided to spend a day at Lake Powell. We wanted to be able to see the lake without needing to rent a houseboat, so we opted for a scenic boat ride around the lake. Now this was not a one hour tour, but rather a seven hour tour. We were on this boat and surrounded by the same people for quite some time.

Heading to the Southwest!

After much deliberation on where to vacation (our top choices were: Amsterdam, New Zealand and Kauai) we finally decided on hiking our way through the Southwest- completely random I know! We found inexpensive flights to Las Vegas and then made our way through Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and then Arizona. This was the first time we have taken a ten day vacation with the sole purpose to hike and visit National Parks.

By the end of our road trip I realized we had nothing in the way of souvenirs besides post cards because all we had done was hike, eat, sleep, drive and then repeat. Cameron and I have been fortunate enough to go on some epic vacations over the years, so this simple vacation was embarked upon with low expectations, which oftentimes equates to more fun. While I sift through the thousand or so photos I took, here are just a few to give you a taste of the Southwest through our eyes.

Designing for intense sunshine

Living in Seattle, the sunshine is not as much of a driving force behind our design, as it is in places like Phoenix. I find it fascinating to see how people implement different designs based on the climate in which they live. These rotating sun shades were interesting enough to warrant pulling over and popping into the library to check it out.

These days libraries have a very hip vibe to them. Note the glass wall of elevator banks, they have a tendency to feel more like shopping malls and retail stores than libraries.

The neon signage makes you feel like you are a music store.

My newspaper man checking out the local paper.

I loved this large type sign, so clever.

Checking out the library was a great way to spend an hour and a good respite if you are in need of getting away from the sunshine.

City hiking

Maybe it is the heat that makes everyone crabby, but there seems to be a general lack of friendliness on the trails in Phoenix. People tend to have a get in and out approach (similar to hitting a gym on their lunch hour) when tacking the surrounding mountains as opposed to enjoying the scenery and the fresh air. People quite literally will push by you if they want to pass either going up or coming down. We are not accustomed to this in Seattle; almost every hiker we come across smiles and says hello. Quite possibly the proximity of these trails to the city means the people hiking them are not familiar with hikers etiquette or common courtesy.

The concept of city hiking is a foreign one in Seattle, but very popular in Phoenix.

Phoenix on Dwellable

Goldfield and Flatiron Trail

We planned a hike in the Superstition Mountains, but were waylaid by the charming ghost town of Goldfield.

Cameron was speedy with the camera and caught this fun sequence of the gun fight at high noon.

I thought there would be more of a show, but it was all over pretty quickly.

Did you know cacti normally do not grow "arms" until they are over 100 years old?

Random large cage in the middle of the street.

Looking down on the town of Goldfield.

Cameron taking it easy in the sunshine.

Our first hike in the Superstitions.

Flatiron Trail, well more of a scramble.

The "jumping" cactus that I decided would be a good idea to kick to see how easily they really come off. Then in an effort to rip it off my shoe Cameron ended up with it attached to his finger. He was not happy with my judgement that day.

Vicious little cactus, but beautiful nonetheless.

There is a certain allure to the desert.

 The light changed just about every minute depending on where we were on the mountain.

After our hike we waited for the sunset to get some more silhouette shots.

Arizona on Dwellable