Greetings from Arizona!
Hi folks! Here is my "I'm not at home" post as usual...
My family and I had the profound luck to have planned last spring a 6-day vacation/graduation in Arizona in the middle of December, having no way to have known that two huge snowstorms would promptly dump over a foot of snow on the ground back home in Boston (we literally flew over the storm on Thursday as it approached Boston). We have sent picture messages of the beautiful palm trees and flowers back home, while they've sent us pictures of snow angels and front yards buried deep in snow. We know it's a real mean thing to do, but at the same time we can't help ourselves! Here in Arizona it's been colder than we've expected (mainly in the 50's) but still way better than what awaits us when we return home tomorrow.
We spent the first two days of our trip in Tucson. On Friday we went to Biosphere 2, which is pretty much just like it sounds - a big greenhouse looking thing that people lived in for a while. Saturday was sunniski's graduation from the University of Arizona, the main purpose of our trip. She went through their online program to earn her master's degree in Library Science. We went to the big winter commencement ceremony, then a smaller reception for her program. Right from there we drove down to Rio Rico (where we are now), checked in to another hotel (which my cousin works at, so we got a killer rate) and drove to Patagonia, where my aunt lives. Yesterday we went to Tombstone and did all the wonderfully kitchy/touristy stuff there, then had a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant in honor of my sister's best friend Ben, who is with us on the trip and had his birthday yesterday. Then today we are splitting up some, with us younger folks hoping to see some wineries and later go up to the family "shack" in the mountains. My goodness, I am tired just thinking about it.
Well, now it's time to go grab some breakfast (it's about 8:00 AM here). I hope everyone back east is able to dig out OK - and don't worry, I'll be back there soon enough :P
My family and I had the profound luck to have planned last spring a 6-day vacation/graduation in Arizona in the middle of December, having no way to have known that two huge snowstorms would promptly dump over a foot of snow on the ground back home in Boston (we literally flew over the storm on Thursday as it approached Boston). We have sent picture messages of the beautiful palm trees and flowers back home, while they've sent us pictures of snow angels and front yards buried deep in snow. We know it's a real mean thing to do, but at the same time we can't help ourselves! Here in Arizona it's been colder than we've expected (mainly in the 50's) but still way better than what awaits us when we return home tomorrow.
We spent the first two days of our trip in Tucson. On Friday we went to Biosphere 2, which is pretty much just like it sounds - a big greenhouse looking thing that people lived in for a while. Saturday was sunniski's graduation from the University of Arizona, the main purpose of our trip. She went through their online program to earn her master's degree in Library Science. We went to the big winter commencement ceremony, then a smaller reception for her program. Right from there we drove down to Rio Rico (where we are now), checked in to another hotel (which my cousin works at, so we got a killer rate) and drove to Patagonia, where my aunt lives. Yesterday we went to Tombstone and did all the wonderfully kitchy/touristy stuff there, then had a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant in honor of my sister's best friend Ben, who is with us on the trip and had his birthday yesterday. Then today we are splitting up some, with us younger folks hoping to see some wineries and later go up to the family "shack" in the mountains. My goodness, I am tired just thinking about it.
Well, now it's time to go grab some breakfast (it's about 8:00 AM here). I hope everyone back east is able to dig out OK - and don't worry, I'll be back there soon enough :P