Blogs from Arizona, United States, North America - page 273

Just a quick "Shari" update for you all. After nearly 20 hours of continuous travel she arrived at her starting point in central Virginia. Tonight (thursday) she is spending her first (of many) nights somewhere along the trail. I expect an update from her when she arrives at the first town along the way...about 70 miles. I'll share that with you as soon as I hear from her. In the meantime feel free to write any messages for her here on the blog. She'll be thrilled to hear from every one of you. Thanks for your support, Mike... read more

Hola from the border!!! I made it here safely...and with no major problems at all. In fact, traveling here was perfectly enjoyable...minus the 4:15am wake-up call! I've been catching up with Dave and Sue Thomas since I arrived in Nogales and tonight we'll be joining Dr. Pazos (my Mexican partner) and his family across the border in Nogales, Sonora for dinner. Yesterday Sue and I were able to meet with my Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) site coordinator, Brandon, and one of the other YAVs for lunch. It was exciting finally putting faces with names and talking about the exciting year ahead!! I will be in Tucson this Friday through next Tuesday for YAV orientation, so I'm pretty busy this first week here. I plan to explain my situation more in-depth once I return from Tucson, but ... read more

What's there to do in Phoenix? Little that l knew, when l was asked to travel to Phoenix Arizona for work, Arizona has some amazing desert views, 40 + degrees temperatures, monsoons weather and one of the worlds most natural wonders... Jo and l arrived in Phoenix from a long and tiring Delta flight, (travelling over the Atlantic always seems to hit me worst with jet lag than the Pacific) anyhow it was late and we were tired at 6pm on Friday evening, all we wanted was a beer and a big 9 oz steak! So that’s what we went and had and went straight to bed. With the over night temperatures of 33 degrees, and my jet lag kicking in l was awake, up and in the hotel swimming pool by 7:00am the next morning. ... read more

Day 15 - August 19, 2006 We left Bryce Canyon, and headed for the Grand Canyon. It takes about three hours to reach the Grand Canyon from Bryce. While in the Kaibab National Forest that precedes the North Rim (of the Grand Canyon), we saw a condor flying high above. (These really are as big-looking as they say.) There are lots of trees here (no, not all national forests have lots of trees), but unfortunately much of the forest here was hit hard by a large forest fire earlier this summer. The Grand Canyon is very grand, and we enjoyed our approximately fourteen minutes of viewing time of the North Rim. We’ll catch the South Rim some other time. I am glad to report that none of us stepped off the edge, unlike those unfortunate people ... read more

It can't be past 3:30 in the morning, yet I find myself responsive to someone's request to get out of bed. How can this be? I've never woken up this early! Why am I not dismissing them with an irritated grunt and burying my head in the pillow? Wait! This isn't even my pillow! Where the hell am I? And then, as consciousness slowly begins to set in, I realize where I am and what I'm doing. I'm in my friend Ben's cabin, and today is the day that we're going to hike to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon with his friends Kenny and Sabrina from Taiwan and Lukas from the Czech Republic. I don my jacket and pack, scarf some noodles with Kenny and Ben, and then run to the Backcountry Office to ... read more