Monsoon Mayhem!

Last night a monsoon bursted over our city. It swept in from the east, uprooting 60 year old to 1 year old trees alike.

This is a 60+ year pine tree fell with a soft thud last night from the micro burst. Wind currents transforming into stinging whips smoted many trees like this one all over the valley.

Our easy going neighbor Jim(whose tree it was). My parent's drive way that the tree fell to.

As a child I always wanted to climb to its very tip top. To see what the birds were squawking about. To see over the rooftops. To have climbed one of the tallest trees in the neighborhood. This morning I walked right into its sticky center. No bird's nests though. I ceremoniously took a piece of it's peppered colored bark and green needles to press as a memoir.

The Sanoran desert is anything but a dull and lifeless land.

I love you ARIZONA!

"This is the sense of the desert hills, that there is room enough and time enough."

--> Mary Austin
Above our camp was the shadow of a striking profile. Appropriately, we were on the lands of the Dine (the people). 'Navajo' was a name dubbed by the Spanish. Meaning "theif".

Dad's trips are led by Native guides who take such good care of us. At night there are always flutes and drums, dancing and singing, story telling and answering questions around a great fire.

This fall dad has us signed up for:

Cochis Trail ----- Canyon de Chelly ------ Mohave Desert

Rijeka, Croatia

Me. Who recommends reading Balkan Ghosts, Neighbors, and anything else related to eastern europe. And I thought canada was the only shadow on the map in grade school....
There was so much destruction and evil terrorizing these people, such an urgency for a Savior. They were forgotten, ignored, and it makes me all the more passionate that zander is teaching history to american kids.

Heard it through the grape vine that there were nude beaches. Alas! I did but see only a few brazen old women. The waters were warm, except for pockets of shockingly cold flows,escaping from a spring in the cliffside.