Pokemon Sheets

one of my best decisions was to stay at a hostel while in tucson. i admit that i was a little bit concerned, since the last time i stayed at a hostel in hawaii -- ironically named "hedonesia" -- i contracted a tropical disease. the time before that, all of my luggage got stolen. however, even though my motivation was to find a cheap place to sleep and change my clothes, and to spend all other moments of the day running around doing things ... i love it here at the roadrunner hostel.

1. i get to sleep on the top bunk ! and name me one major hotel chain where the top sheet doesn't match the bottom sheet doesn't match the pillowcase. or where you get to snuggle up to your favorite pokemons after a long hard day in the sun. this morning i brushed my teeth in the kitchen sink while listening to the life story of an australian pirate. its just like being at home!

2. waffles. a waffle breakfast is served every morning at 7 AM, which provides extra incentive to get up early to start your day. miraculously, almost everyone is up by 730 and in the kitchen. this morning i ate with 4 australians who had only heard of waffles, never actually experienced them. i did not think i'd be spending my vacation teaching someone how to make a waffle or discussing the uncontrollable urge to fill up every hole of the waffle with the same level of syrup and cut it into neat little boxes while youre eating it. FYI -- i have never cut a waffle diagonally.

3. as a solo traveller, its nice to have company. some of the other guests are travellers, just staying a few nights like me, and from all over the world. then there are the handful of people -- young and old -- who live here for weeks or months at a time. (i decided that i could not do this, not because i would need personal space, but because i could not decrease my beauty product collection to a manageable size to be stored/schlepped around while maintaining my current level of hygeine. this revelation is slightly amusing in itself since i pretty much always look like crap anyway.) i'm sad to be leaving my bunkmate helen, a 40 year old CPA who relocated to tucson 6 weeks ago after leaving her husband in michigan. she's here while apartment hunting. angie will be here until at least october while she finishes her anthropology degree at U of A. she sleeps with a harp on her bed. beau moved in after his motorcycle got stolen and he needed to be closer to downtown. he works at a scrap metal yard while waiting for his career as a freelance journalist to take off. side note: he looks like a scalliwag and could easily replace johnny depp as capt. jack sparrow. then there's dick, the token dirty old man ... i have no idea what his story is (im afraid to ask and get sucked into a 3-hour dissertation) or what he does during the day, but he talks to his cat and salutes me everytime he sees me and knows where all the good ice cream shoppes (pronounced shop-eez) are and reminds me to be safe. these people are not sissies.

this place is definitely superior to a sterile hotel room, even if it does take me 10 minutes to climb awkwardly out of my bunk in the middle of the night to pee. 100 times.

Enter At Your Own Risk

you know you're going to have a good day when the entrance to the trailhead reminds you of your own personal liability, and contains a laundry list of hazards -- and especially when they are then reiterated every couple miles for good measure. today i visited sabino canyon which is hands down my favorite place in arizona thus far. i even loved the drive across tucson in the early morning sunshine. i hiked about 8 miles round trip down seven falls trail, braving the threats of sudden & intense thunderstorms, falling rocks, venomous wildlife, flash floods, and mountain lion attack. the ranger told me that if i heard helicopter sounds to start climbing. outloud i smiled and said "ok," but in my head, i said "yeah right, my clumsy ass is going to be able to clamber up the side of a canyon while dodging the ubiquitous cactuses for any appreciable distance, so i probably will just try to take a good picture of it before i am swept away."

the trail criss-crossed over the creek 6 or 8 times and since tucson got about 400 inches of rain yesterday, the water was cool and clean and plentiful. a nice man caught me fording this flooded road (i wisely opted NOT to caulk the wagon and float it across). i would have absolutely loved this place as a kid. i could've traveled the whole 8 miles jumping from rock to rock and probably constructed some dam masterpieces (ha ha) if i weren't so amazed by the backdrop and conscious of dropping my camera in the water. i did not encounter any storms/lions/hazardous rocks, but i took eleventy bazillion pictures of the mountains, complete with beautiful cross-bedding.

it is surprisingly vibrant and green for the desert. i will remind you that some of these plants look like normal old bushes, but they are actually cactuses and will get you good if you stop paying attention. (i've managed to stop myself from taking a picture of every lizard that passes, but am still attempting to capture the perfect cactus on film.)

anyway, im not sure i made it all the way to the 7 falls, but i found my own private piece of paradise on the way next to this miniature waterfall.

side note: i am amused looking through my photos because i asked a passing hiker to take a picture of me next to it -- he took about 12 in a row, and i could make a perfect little flip book of me wading into the water, climbing onto the rock and laughing hysterically. anyway, off to the right was a huge flat rock with a huge rock canopy hanging over it. that spot is where i want to pitch my tent and live for the rest of my life. and i don't sleep on the ground. i spent about an hour on that rock in the shade daydreaming and listening to the water ... then i realized that a flash flood could come through any moment and i wouldn't even have a chance to get a picture of it, and so i dragged myself back to suburbia.

yesterday i went to the arizona-sonora desert museum, which is actually a very well-put-together and realistic zoo with cactus gardens, a hummingbird aviary, animal exhibits, and an extremely impressive rock & mineral and fossil display. then, i hiked through the saguaro national forest (pronounced sa-war-o -- i am just like a local now melissa). a forest of cactuses. in my head, the desert is just a flat expanse of sand with one or two cacti sticking out of it to break up the horizon a little bit. UNTRUE! there are tons of them, pretty densely-packed, and they go on for miles and miles across the hills.

the saguaro is the stereotypical, two-armed cactus and is the state tree of arizona, and its flower is the state flower. a cactus is surprisingly similar to a tree. i thought it was more like an aloe plant -- tough & green on the outside, but ooey gooey on the inside. instead, a cactus has an interior structure made of a bark-like substance that is a lot like the slats of wood that are bound together to make a barrel. here is a picture of a dead cactus, with the slats separating. i also learned that the spines on a cactus are for SHADE. thankfully, i have not had to resort to using toothpicks to shade myself. my favorite cactus is called the strawberry hedgehog. i want to kiss the person who named it.

a real life coyote also ran across my path while i was in the cactus forest ... unfortunately too quickly to get a picture ! they only get about 25 lbs. though, and this one looked like a cute friendly little doggy!

i have not yet come across any venomous wildlife, but am relentlessly (and fruitlessly thus far) quizzing the locals for good stories about snakes and/or scorpions. from my research, i have gathered that the only people who get bit by snakes are those who deserve it, and a scorpion sting is not a big deal -- like a bee sting -- it sucks, but you get over it. i have been bombarded, however, with literature detailing the proper protocol when approached by a mountain lion. i didnt even know there WERE mountain lions in arizona until i saw a poster in the bathroom instructing me that my best hope to "make myself look bigger," allegedly by raising my arms above my head. awesome. but so far, so good. off to overgaard in apache country tomorrow.

Cactus Is The New Black

so far i have gotten poked by about 100 cactuses. (i know the real word is "cacti" but it seems more legitimate and ferocious to be attacked by many, many cactuses.) this high rate of pokage is a result of two things. 1. EVERYTHING in arizona is a cactus. there are plants that look like trees and regular old plants, but they are just very well camouflaged cactuses. 2. cactuses are bigger than they appear... because they have spines sticking out of them which makes them sometimes 4 or 5 inches closer to you than you think. but i find out very quickly when i get too close. and its worth it. the scenery here is absolutely amazing. during my hike, i captured this view while crossing a very dangerous thoroughfare. this is what it looks like in EVERY direction.

i have spent a significant amount of time underground ... yesterday i toured kartchner caverns, a remarkably well-preserved limestone cave. apparently some guys were wandering around in the desert in the 70s and came across a hole in the ground, which they then decided to climb into for a few hundred feet, first coming to a "lake of mud" that ranges in consistency from peanut butter to sour cream, and finally discovering the huge cavern. i did not think this sounded like the best idea, which is probably why i've never discovered anything. i also toured 2 mines -- the good enough silver mine in tombstone, and the copper queen mine in bisbee -- and learned about how miners dug these giant tunnels in the 1800s with an iron pole, some dynamite, and 3 candles for $4/day. whoa. eventually they got electricity and water and telephone lines down there, but it was still DARK and dangerous and cold. here i am calling for help about 1500 feet in. (the only other person on the tour was an old guy, who was impressed with my knowledge/interest in the mine and offered to take a lot of funny pictures of me pretending to use the antiquated equipment. joe and i are now best friends.) unfortunately a lot of my pictures came out entirely black, but that is kind of accurate.

last night, i stayed at a magical place, the shady dell trailer park. when i pulled up, i thought there was no way i was going to fit, let alone sleep and exist in something so small, but the 12-foot "crown" is the highlight of my trip so far. (see left, behind the gas pump.) absent having to walk across the parking lot to use the ladies' room every 15 minutes, it was perfect. the interior was decorated 50s style with one of those funny old radios and ... who remembers the viewmaster !??! i was able to visit paris, the hoover dam, and san francisco from the comfort of my "3/4 size" bed. allegedly, the bed sleeps 2 -- it would have to be someone i REALLY liked -- and the first person to rent it was 6'3" 200 lbs. i fit really well, but i havent yet hit the 200 lb. mark. although, you can see the cookie jar in the background that came stocked. i had breakfast at the diner pictured above, which seats a grand total of 7 people at one time. the food was good ! and of all things, we talked about grits. it was like being back at clemson where i was amazed at the northerners who put raisins and syrup on their grits. bleh. i even met a lady who lived in her RV full time at the trailer park. she seemed pretty crazy, but i like that.

anyway, i am back in tucson for a few days, crossing my fingers for sunshine, and looking forward to the arizona-sonora desert museum tomorrow. i will continue to recognize monsoons as "mere thunderstorms" but had the joy of riding through this one today. as i said, the views, even from the highway, are spectacular.

Loosen Up While You Still Can

i have spent much of my summer study breaks staring intensely at a map and scouring my arizona tourism department propoganda in anticipation of my post-bar "vacation"... and have decided on the following tentative itinerary.

• wed. july 25. have a cold one in tucson to recover from the monotony of the previous 10 weeks & prepare for next-day departure
• thurs. july 26. head south for visits to the OK corral in tombstone and an old copper mine in bisbee, AZ. staying the night in the luxurious crown at the shady dell trailer park. hilarious.
• fri. july 27. tour kartchner caverns in sierra vista, AZ. head back to tucson.
• sat. july 28. visit arizona-sonora desert museum/zoo for my fill of saguaro cacti; visit "big nasty"the desert tortoise at colossal cave mountain park; possible moonlit bike ride up mt. lemmon.
• sun. july 29. take a tram ride around sabino canyon and hike the seven-falls trail (i am curious about this because my mental picture of AZ is devoid of water) and the juan batista national historic trail.
• mon. july 30. depart along the scenic salt river canyon highway for overgaard, AZ to visit with shirley & richard in the apache sitgreaves national forest.
• tues. july 31. hike in the painted desert & petrified forest (with one of the best geologic & fossil records of the late triassic! yay geology).
• wed. aug 1. depart for williams, AZ and the historic grand canyon hotel (aka OLD) on route 66. visit the world's largest travertine (aka limestone) bridge in tonto natural bridge state park on the way.
• thurs. aug 2. grand canyon things !! i have to at least go and check in so that they can verify i am not under 4 feet tall or > 200 lbs soaking wet and speak fluent english for the next day's adventure ...
• fri. aug 3. ride a mule into the grand canyon for a picnic lunch. this is the planned highlight of my trip. (my parents, however, are familiar with mule-riding and anxious to hear how i fair after 7 hours on this majestic beast.) depart for the grand canyone international hostel in flagstaff, AZ which will serve as my hub for the rest of the trip.
• sat. aug 4. hike humphrey's peak & the red mountain ruins in flagstaff.
• sun. aug 5. visit the ghost town of jerome, AZ; take the verde canyon railroad scenic train tour
• mon. aug 6. hike the red rocks of sedona, AZ where i will experience spiritual adventure, healing, relaxation, and rejuvenation and hopefully cool off on a natural sandstone slide at slide rock state park. be sure to check back for my take on this sure-to-be-mystical adventure.
• tues. aug 7. explore the kaibob national forest & meteor crater in winslow, AZ (where i fully intend to stand on the corner, for you eagles fans).
• wed. aug 8. enjoy a leisurely drive back south to phoenix, hopefully in time for a hike through the superstition mountains, before jumping on my 11PM flight home.
• thurs. aug 9. arrive in richmond, VA smelly, sunburnt, and exhausted :) ... possibly ready to face the rest of my uncertain life.

i will need a lot of water and a lot of caffeine, but am super-excited about all the sunshine & geology. the time difference is on my side at least. on a side note, the time difference in itself is a mental exercise because although the state does not participate in daylight savings time as a whole, some places do -- like the navajo nation and don't they just get up with the sun? why the heck do they care what time it is? -- and then you have to figure out whether we save daylight in the winter or whether we save it in the summer. i'm still not sure, but the time difference is 3 hours. anyway, hopefully i'll be able to get up at my normal crack-of-dawn east coast time and be outside prior to the peak of 100+ temperatures. even though it is, allegedly, a dry heat.