I finally decdied to give in and post this posting anyway, it is from last month already but as you can see it is when I started having trouble posting pictures, they keep turning out solid colors....
I have tried and tried to get it to work to no avail. Then I thought maybe it had something to do with the source, all of these pictures were my work camera and emailed home. Baby Teekin's worked so that makes me happy but I have tried two other postings where I am not having any luck, one of them is not from my work camera so I am boggled, anyway, enjoy the story without pictures, I intended on having! a lot of them included so you will have to use your imagination!
108 degrees in the shade
Mind you this was certainly not the hottest temperature that my patio thermometer reached, tis only the hottest temp when I thought to capture the moment...I believe it reached 115 on a couple of days during my recent working vacation to a national Big Brothers Big Sisters of America conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. And boy, it sure was hot.
Thank goodness for the pool!
This is the South Pool, it was the main pool and one of five that our conference center/resort had to offer...by far the way I wish I could travel more often...the Scottsdale Fairmont Princess. There were five pools in all. Here is the one with two waterslides...it was so fun to get to go down them a bunch of times in a row like when we were kids.
My room was awesome- it was located in one of the Casitas, little cottage like villas that stood aside from the actual hotel part. It was a shame J couldn't share the beauty of it with me...although I know he wouldn't be down with the heat. Thank goodness for air conditioning. I needed a sweater in my conference rooms. Brrr. Go figure.
Rabbits everywhere, very cute, small with big ears. They were fun to watch.
But the best part about the whole trip was that I was able to reconnect with an old friend. It has been 10 years since I roomed with a girl named Angela. THis, when I decided to move across the country for a term, see another part of America and take classes at a different university. I ended up at Northern Arizona University (Go Lumberjacks! ) in Flagstaff, AZ.
This was an incredible adventure that I got to go on and Arizona will always have a place in my heart. Last time I saw Angela was 8 years ago when J & I moved from Rhode Island to Oregon and took a 2 month roadtrip to do it. We stopped in Flag, where Ang was finishing up school and visited for a while. Turns out we had some Exoploder, I mean Explorer repairs so this was one of the stops where we stayed the longest. We kept touch via mail for a couple years and eventually lost touch. When I found out I was going to Scottsdale I immediatly thought of Ang since that is her home of origin. I had her parents info but the phone number didn't work (little did I know that the greater Phoenix/Scottsdale area had changed their area code ). I did internet searches and discovered you can find out a lot of stuff about people if you are willing to pay for it...kinda scary. But to no avail, every number I found, even one for her brother turned up a dead end. So I gave up for a few days and then decided that I would make one last attempt and send a card to her parents address and see if it would work. Nothing. More than a week went by so I lost hope.
Monday morning, day of trip, at the airport telling my colleague this very story and how I wished I had found my friend and then with15 minutes til boarding the plane, like it was meant to be, voilla, my phone rings , it is Angela!!!! Yay!
We made contact! And we got to see each other several times and hang out. She took me on a hike that embarrasingly kicked my ars!
Pinnacle Peak
What you can't see in this illusional picture is the second ascent/descent on the other side that is the contnuation of the trail to its endpoint where you turn around and do the double ascent/descents again. This was 6:30 in the morning, but let me tell you it pretty darn hot already and I would bet that by the time my sorry butt made it back to start it was 90 degrees already.
AZ Wildlife...Mr. Lizard, biggest one I have seen in the wild.
