DEVO Dan Turned 40 this year... Carefree was supposed to be his birthday gift, but our friend Gregor came out with tickets to Diva - or was it Tivo? or Divo? TV? something - to reminisce about the first concert Dan & Gregor went to together. So here we are at xmas time. Turns out it's not bad at all: the weather is nice and warm during the day, cool and fresh at night, and not a cloud in the sky. We celebrated Dan's birthday with a nice bottle of Robert Sinsky Pinot... Yumm...
Bunnies Everywhere We're staying at The Boulders, a fabulous spa resort near Scottsdale. The name is very fitting: the resort is built around precariously piled up boulders. There's a pile in every direction. We particularly like the one visible from the Spa. The city, Carefree, is also very fitting to our trip: all we want to do is relax, get treatments, maybe hike a bit, and sleep. On the first day we notice a few bunnies on the grassy area... Awhh... the next day we see some more... and then more... and more... there are hundreds of bunnies - all identical color and size - ALL OVER the place! Green grass trimmers!
Pricklies One would think that after the prickly pear incident in Santa Catalina island we wouldn't want to be around anything prickly, but noooo, we can't keep away. The cacti are big, fat, and thorny and of course Assana is drawn to them. Noooooooo, don't touch that!
A good portion of the cacti at the resort are wrapped in xmas lights. It is very cute and makes for such a pretty site at night.
Pumpkinville We go on a long hike in a state park full of Saguaros: they are so cool! The next day our hotel sets us up with a retired geologist dude who takes us for a hike among the boulders and tells us all about Phoenix - did you know that they originally called it Pumpkinville? - the valley it is located in, the indians, the rocks, everything. We like our factmo, so we decide to go on a star gazing outing with him that evening: the night sky, she is very pretty away from all the city light. One forgets about the bjillion stars.
Lots of good food, great spa treatments, and beautiful Palo Verde trees... We'll be going back to The Boulders.
