Southern Arizona

The next morning, we finished off our donuts and the cereal we bought on a big grocery trip (I didn't write about that, did I? Somewhat hilarious the 11 of us wandering through Albertson's trying to find each other--especially since the kids continued their car-ride mixings. Buck and I were in sticker shock at the prices, eeek!!) We packed up our bags, entered our own personal departure code into our friends' security system, and headed south.

One thing I'd read about in the Arizona travel guide given to us by the friendly shopkeeper in Glendale, was the Sonora dog. It is a hot dog in a soft Mexican roll, covered with things like beans, pico de gallo, onions, some sort of jalapeno mayo, and all sorts of unusual things. As you can see, Brennen was impressed. In fact, his first Sonora dog disappeared so quickly, he asked if he could buy himself a second round of lunch :) Of course, we agreed.

We also managed to get early check-in at our hotel. It was very convenient that they gave Buck's family rooms immediately across and down the hall on the same floor. Didn't that work out nicely? And that Jazzy was welcome to stay.

My original "plan" included visiting several national parks to load up Graysen's Junior Ranger badge collection/to explore all the amazing places our country has set aside to be enjoyed. Unfortunately our time schematic didn't not fully align with my aforementioned plan. However, I'm super glad we made it to Saguaro National Park on this visit--I don't remember if we went there when we were younger, but it was unforgettable (to an adult :) Acres and acres of cacti--like a pine forest, but even more prickly!

Brennen found the first pressed penny machine of the vacation! Possibly the only one, now that I think about it . . .



Thankful that, though the weather looked moody over the desert, it remained warm and sunny. We walked a short trail in a "wash." You can see where the water carves out the sand bank and how no plant life really grows in the midst of the wash. We were pretty glad that nothing happened to be suddenly washing that day, because if you remember yesterday's pictures, someone left the sprinkler on in Arizona that week :)















Buck found a cactus hugging buddy! There are just so many options in Arizona for the hugging of cacti (I really want to say cactuses . . . whoa, spellcheck allowed it!) Buck later mentioned that, despite several warnings, he decided to see if all the rumors were true about teddy bear cactuses (I'm using it now :). And, yes, if you touch them, they really do jump out and stick in your skin. He poked a cactus. Yup. That's what he did, ha! "It made me bleed," he admitted :)

Oh, so next we drove to another section of the park and hiked up another hieroglyph trail. It was super steep and we weren't sure how well Z would do, but she gutted it out and cheered herself on at the top of the mountain, "I did it!!" Pretty cool!







The kids went into major selfie mode given the "good lighting." I posted their results below. I normally don't go with sunshine behind, because of the shadows, but Caelan insisted this lighting looked really cool :)









The hieroglyphs were at the top of that rock pile, the one behind the group pic above. Caelan got a zoomed in picture of one of the guys who looks like he's showing his arm muscles in a body posture that is apparently very popular in our youth group right now. "Square up!" the kids say to each other, though none of them seem to know what they mean by it :)

Back at the ranger station, we had a few things to do. Graysen indeed earned a Junior Ranger badge--and the gift shop gave him a discount coupon for anything he wanted to purchase! I've never seen that done before, but thought it was very cool. He purchased a sweet Saguaro National Park hat as his souvenir. 

Also in the ranger station they had a very large lady tarantula. Her name was something along the lines of Peggy Newman . . . which makes a giant spider seem slightly less terrifying. While Buck and the ranger lady discussed Peggy, Buck noticed a taxidermized (or maybe resin-ized?) bug nearby. The ranger lady explained that this VERY DANGEROUS wasp kills tarantulas by stinging them and laying eggs in them or something crazy like that. Apparently their sting is one of the absolute most painful stings in the world . . . here is a close up picture the SAME kind of wasp that Buck took on our hike in the White Tanks a few days earlier (gasp!!)

We stopped back at the hotel briefly, then checked out a fast food restaurant that our friends recommended. Apparently, it started in Tucson in the 1970's so we were in the original home of eegees. The subs and buffalo fries were great, but the main attraction was their ice drinks--kind of like slushees, but with chunks of real fruit in them. Very nice!