Arizona Trip

Well, my family has returned from another successful trip to the great state of Arizona. Why Arizona, you might ask? We like to go to places where it's really hot so we can walk into air-conditioned rooms and it feels really good. But seriously.. it's really hot over there.

Our first stop was Scottsdale, Arizona, where we stayed at the Doubletree Resort. Our 2 day stay there included the usual mall run, poolside antics, and movie watching. We also had some fine dining at the Blue Moose. Brian (my brother) and I were also able to locate the fitness center, where we played racquetball and I attempted/failed at lifting weights. It was in the 100s outside, so it felt really good when you walked into the hotel room, which we did numerous times.

From Scottsdale, we headed to our cabin in the woods in Prescott. It wasn't as hot here and so it didn't feel as good when you walked into a building, but we still did a lot of exciting things here. Some highlights include:

1. Visiting Montezuma Castle and Montezuma Well. Montezuma Castle looks like this:

And the Well looks like this:

Both were really cool to places to see. I think some tourists were literally expecting a castle when they visited Montezuma Castle and I think they were a bit disappointed.. but I thought this was more interesting anyways. I mean, they built their home in a wall!

2. Playing volleyball at the local rec center with strangers. Every Monday and Wednesday is open volleyball in the mornings, so we went and checked out the competition. Turns out some people take their weekly open to the public volleyball very seriously. There was a guy there that had a strong resemblance to the guy with the glasses in Dodgeball, the one that knew all the rules and stuff. Upon arriving, he quickly approached us and indicated that his court was not for beginners, to which I scoffed at for assuming I was a beginner and played on that court anyways. I may have been on the shallow end of the skill pool there, but after a couple games of warming up I was doing a bit better.

3. Stargazing. The night sky in Arizona, especially in Prescott, is SO dark and clear that you can see the stars REALLY well. You can even see the disc of the Milky Way, which is awesome to see. I used the Google Sky app on my Droid phone to find constellations and stars in the sky, including Aquarius (my constellation!). The last night we were there was the night of a meteor shower, so I got to see lots of shooting stars as well. :)

4. Watching a group of Cloggers at the Square. Clogging is the dancing where you make lots of noises with your feet, and the Square is one of those American parks where senior citizens tend to gather and you can find square dancing or something going on most nights.

5. Fearing the cicadas. This is a cicada:

They are HUGE seasonal bugs, and it turns out they were in season when we got there. They are really big, and really loud. Anyways, one night at the Square, it was getting dark and what I thought were bats flying above us actually turned out to be some of the cicadas that had been screeching earlier. They began to descend lower and lower until finally one of them flew staight into a littly boy's head. You could actually hear the impact of that thing hit him. The littly boy then proceeded to pick up the cicada with his hand, examine it, and place it under his shirt, to which I did this: o_O. I guess that's what little boys do? Maybe there was a time when I was young that I would have done that too, but now you couldn't pay me to do that..

6. We also saw Lynx Lake, a nearby body of water in Prescott.
And there you have it folks, another trip to Arizona. Special thanks to Mom for actually finding stuff to do in Prescott besides the mall. Also thanks to my new Droid phone for making the car rides a lot less boring.