Vacation in the Land of the Shopping Mall

Go ahead, call us bad bloggers. We went on holiday from work and from Baku and neglected our blog entries as well. Rory is back in Baku now, but I'm still on vacation for 5 more days.

We arrived in Phoenix the weekend before Christmas and had time for last minute shopping and the beginnings of serious relaxing at The Boulders Resort in Cavecreek, AZ just north of Phoenix. We only spent two nights there, but it was luxuriously relaxing and we hope for another visit sometime. We had major jetlag that first week and spent several mornings walking or jogging golf courses before dawn. By the way, Phoenix is having its coldest winter in years (start temp was 29F and high was 44F for last weekend's Phoenix Marathon) and we did not bring the clothes for it. We froze on these pre-dawn ventures until we bought some warm stuff. These pictures are of Arizona's famous saguaro cactus, exclusive to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. Saguaro cactus can grow to 40 feet tall, begins to grow arms between 50 and 100 years of age, and lives 150-200 years.

That's a sunrise just starting to peep over the horizon.

We were only in Phoenix for 10 days, but found time to squeeze in a morning of hiking in the Superstition Mountains near Phoenix in between the bouts of frenzied shopping in which we always find ourselves during trips to the States. There was an unusual thick fog covering the Phoenix area that morning. Rory and I had no idea we were even in a mountainous area until we drove above the fog right at the trailhead. Our trusty guides knew exactly where we were however. Good thing since Rory hasn't figured out exactly how that GPS he bought works yet.

Our hike included lovely desert scenery, perfect blue sky and Tonto and John Wayne hiding behind every second saguaro cactus. We even encountered a GENUINE HUNTER on our hike. He was a bit pale and pudgy with glasses and a knotted hanky on his head and carrying a big big shotgun. We hadn't seen a living (or even moving) thing for a couple hours so Rory asked him what he was shooting at, tin cans? He tells Rory, "I am a genuine hunter...I shoot to kill and I kill to eat..." He claimed to be hunting rabbit, but hadn't seen anything to shoot at. We made sure to get way out in front of him (which in retrospect probably wasn't the best place to be) and our trusty guides directed him to an alternate trail less likely to have rabbit-looking hikers for target practice. We heard two shots echoing through the valley a couple hours later.

After a wonderful Christmas with Chris' family, we headed to Boston and New Hampshire to celebrate New Year's.