A Week with a Teenager!
She was arriving June sixteenth-twenty-twelve for a week in the desert. We were filled with excitement but also wondering what were we going to do with a teenager? The airport is not crowded this time of the year but construction is happening there. It should have been an easy in and out but the airport entrances and exits had changed and instead of entering the airport, driving to Terminal 4 and the Southwest Airlines parking lot we were heading south to Tucson!
Anxiety set in as we were circling the perimeter of the airport in rush hour traffic on the I-10 looking for the next airport exit to find our way back in for another chance to find terminal 4 parking lot and get to the security waiting area outside of the Southwest gates! Whew--we did made it in time to see Kayla walking out of the security area and into our company!
Our first stop before heading to Carefree was Oregano's in Old Scottsdale for a pizza dinner. Picasso salad, sausage and presto pizza, and a pizooki (cookie dough baked in a small cake pan with 3 scoops of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sparkles) Mmmmm good!
Off to downtown Phoenix for an inter-league play baseball game. The Diamondbacks and the Seattle Mariners--the first time that the M's have come to play in Phoenix (besides spring training)! The Mariners outhit the Diamondbacks--they had 14 hits and scored in double digits but it wasn't enough. After being M's fans for 25 years how could we root, root, root for the home team? We really wanted the M's to win but it didn't happen--final score D/backs 14, M's 10. It was a good game and a good place to stay cool--70 degrees inside of Chase Field and 100 degrees outside!
We settled into a new routine while Kayla was here with lots of swimming, games, scrapbooking, picture taking and movies. The libraries supplied us with movies and it was another cool place to be in the afternoons when it was too hot outside.
Lots of swimming going on!
Swim strokes: Recovery, Head Entry, Catch, Pull, Push, Recovery, Head Entry, Catch, Pull, Push, over, over, and over again.
The desert sun is intense this time of year and is the largest object in the solar system, it is 93 million miles away and the sun's power (the warmth) is about 386 billion mega watts--so much warmer than a warm Sonoran Desert summer day--which makes the pool a refreshing pleasure!
Tennis anyone?
To put tennis scoring simply, one must win: four points to win a game, six games to win a set, two (or rarely three) sets to win a match. By winning a coin toss or a spin of the racquet one player gets to choose one of the following: serve, receive serve, choose an end of the court, or have the other player choose. In most tournaments, the first to win two sets (best of three) wins the match. In recreational play often the players keeping going until they are exhausted!
Spending time in the desert taking pictures, just being silly and having FUN! And resting after an early morning and trying to keep up!
The morning in the desert is still a beautiful time but unless you are out enjoying it by 5:00 or before you really are missing out. Even though it is warm the small birds are still Chirp, Chirp, Chirping away and the sky is full of all the new off spring learning to fly!
Botanical Gardens
It was a great morning in the gardens, miles of walking and a lot to look at--even in the distance a Jack (jackrabbit) was enjoying the morning--too far and fast to capture in the lens. But we did see small birds, gila woodpecker, cactus wren, we could hear the curve-billed thrasher, and this beautiful little no name so far?
The saguaro standing behind Kayla has upraised arms that are not only a lonely perch for vultures or hawks but part of a forest of storage tanks filled with life.
We spotted a monarch butterfly, hummingbirds and my favorite of the day was the Collared Lizard (up to 12 inches long), Chuckwalla (up to 14 inches long), or Sagebrush Lizard ( about 6 inches long) aka Chuck! They are all similar but this one and the Collared males are the prettiest.
(Copyright 2012)
No comments:
Post a Comment