Kamp

There's no place like Vegas...ha ha ha. And since most everyone has been there at least once, I am going to keep this short and just talk about the "new stuff" that we did. First off, we decided to stay at a new hotel called the Aria. That lasted one night! lol! It's a luxury hotel...the entire room is electronic and controlled with the remote control. I'm talking the shades, lighting, temperature...all with the remote. The bed was super comfortable (and you can purchase them from the hotel's website) and the finish was modern and sleek. Now for the bad part. If you just want to pay an arm and a leg for a fancy hotel, then Aria would probably suit you just fine. However, we chose the Aria over other hotels that we were looking ... read more

There is a train trip on the Verde Canyon Railroad that I have been wanting to check out for a while. It's just a small 20 min trip up one way, and back the same way. We finally got some time and motivation to go try it out a few weeks ago. They have a special "Ales on Rails" all through the month of October to celebrate Oktoberfest, and we managed to get reservations for the last weekend. This 4 hour trip leaves out of Clarksville, which is a small town about 10 minutes north of Jerome on highway 89 and 2 hours north of Phoenix. It meanders up through the Verde Canyon along the Verde River to Perkinsville, an old abandoned ghost town. There, the engines switch to the other side of the train and ... read more

Ok, it sounds crazy to drive all the way to Montana to go camping, but it turned out to be an awesome trip! Originally we were supposed to go up to Utah and go camping with some of our friends that live there, then we were going to drive to Montana from there to pick up my nephews and bring them to Arizona for a few weeks. When our camping plans fell through Jeremy and I decided to just drive straight to Montana and go camping there. We had all the camping gear packed up anyway and had a couple extra days, so we figured why not! We convinced my sister and her life partner (lol) Scott to join us, and spent the weekend at Georgetown Lake. We got rained on a bit, but we still ... read more

Luke had it's semi-annual air show here this last weekend and I was thinking about going, but didn't. My sister said she would have been interested in seeing the pictures, but I have plenty of pictures of airplanes. Some were taken at Lackland AFB, TX when I was in basic training, some at Sheppard AFB, TX when I was in tech school, and some were from an airshow I attended when I was stationed here in Arizona the first time. I'll do my best to get the names of the planes right! So, Kelly, here ya go! (Ok so, after further review, I don't have as many pictures as I thought. It doesn't help that I can't find half of them! So I promise I will go to the airshow next time and take more pictures!) ... read more

In August of 2006, I changed career fields and had to go to Biloxi Mississippi for my Tech School. We were stationed in Utah at the time. It was a 4 week school, so I decided to drive. I crossed 7 states each way, and a lot of them were new to me, so I was pretty excited. It had only been a year since Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. I don't know what I was expecting...I guess I figured that after a year, most of the clean up would be done. I was dead wrong! It looked like Katrina had just happened the week before. If the destruction was still that bad a year later, I can't imagine what it was like the day after. New Orleans got a lot of attention and damage because ... read more