Grand Canyon.............

It is hard to avoid the Grand Canyon when traveling the northern part of Arizona! So make the best of it. We spent the night before and the morning of my birthday admiring the beautiful scenery of the Grand. It was a good place to be on a birthday, it makes you realize that no matter how hold you are... it just doesn't matter in Geologic time!

The long road home...

After spending an eventful time in Tucson, it was finally time to start making our way back to Idaho...of course, we have to stop a few more places. The Mesa Temple was a highlight. It is such a unique and beautiful temple.

To the Barrio!

Once more we headed to downtown Tucson, destination...the Barrio Viejo! This ancient neighborhood is so fun
and colorful...

Run for the Border...

OK, we didn't really want to get too close to Mexico...especially with all the drug war problems down there, but we decided to go see another mission that was in ruins. It was a nice drive. Oh, then we went and saw a few more cacti!

Saguaro cactus

OK, we are enamored by the saguaro cacti. It was so fun looking for the quintessential (road runner & coyote) cactus. And man they are tall! Did you know that they only start growing their arms after they are 12 feet tall and that they only grow about 2-3 inches a year! Some of these cactus are hundreds of years old!

Downtown Tucson...colorful place!

We headed for downtown Tucson just to look around, wow...what a colorful place! Then we drove through the Saguaros.

The aftermath....

So we taped up the windows of our car last night because the police warned us that it was 100% chance that the car could be stolen if they could see the broken windows. We did a pretty good job I thought. The hotel let us park under the canopy that night so they could watch it for us. And by noon the next day we had new glass in the windows and we were heading to Saguaro National Park. By the way, the thief only got our huge tripod....that pinches fingers, and a bag of wood that we had just bought. I was more upset about the wood...it is extremely rare and gorgeous (the same thing Brian made my earrings out of for Valentines). Did I mention earlier that this was an adventure!

Butterfly and broken glass!

That same day we went to a botanical garden. We walked outdoors in the wonderful sunshine then spent hours in a butterfly garden mesmerized by the newly hatched butterflies. Afterwards we headed for the air conditioning of our hotel room...while we were relaxing there we got a phone call from the front desk. Our car had been broken into and the cops were outside waiting for us to make a report. Funny part, our car was right below our window and we didn't hear a thing.

Second Day of Sunshine

Our first full day in Arizona started early. We headed out to the 300 year old San Xavier Mission. We spent hours taking images of this beautifully restored mission and the cactus gardens surrounding it. Did I mention that it was 85 degrees by 11:00 a.m. :)

Time to Find the Sun!!

Well, Brian and I decided to run away during the semester break. The only thing we were looking for was the sun! We found it by driving south. We headed for Arizona to warm up and shoot some cactus! I love it when we head out on one of our adventures. On the way we passed the Vermillion Cliffs...