Day 34 - Phoenix, AZ

Thursday, October 14th, 2010

It was good to sleep in a bed again.

Kevin had already gone to work for the morning and William was off at school. Heidi and I talked about taking Henry and Caroline to the Spur Cross Ranch, a conservation area in Maricopa County. Heidi checked the weather and said “Oh, it’s going to be a nice day today, it’s only going to get up to 95 degrees.” I think we have different perspectives on what constitutes "a nice day". We decided to go on the hike earlier in the day before the sun was directly over head. I went out to my car to grab my water bottle and it was already hot, and it wasn’t even 10am yet.

After lathering up with sun block, we packed their minivan with water bottles, snacks, bags and kid carriers to drive the 15 minutes to Spur Cross Ranch. I toted Henry around on my back using a kid backpack contraption and Heidi carried Caroline in a sling. We walked around for about an hour through fields of mostly different varieties of cacti, small sections of trees and grassy areas and across dried up creek beds. We were in the desert and it was hot. I slowed my walking pace considerably when I approached a tree presenting its small offering of shade. People always talk about the difference of dry air compared to high humidity; sure it is different, but hot is still hot. Not that I ever had any doubt, by living in a desert is not a place for these cold loving bones.

After getting back to the car and strapping in the kids, we blasted the air conditioning to cool off. November is only two weeks away and the average high temperature just recently receded below 100 degrees. I couldn’t imagine long summer days in the 120s.

On the way home, we stopped at an authentic southwestern restaurant serving American Indian / Mexican cuisine, called Indian Village. Based on the owner’s recommendation, I ordered the #14, Navajo Taco. It was a pile of red chili beans, cheese, lettuce, tomato and onion on top of an old Navajo recipe for soft Fry Bread. A few splashes of their hot sauce and it was just right.

I spent a good part of the day uploading some additional pictures, updating links and trying to work on adding some video to the blog, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, but just didn’t have the time, or the resources. I have now added a tab to a new page where I will post links to videos I’ve taken a while back. I will also embed these videos in the blog post from the day they were shot.