Tag Archives: Arizona

If Snakes Slither Through the Crack in the Cabin Door and Slide into the Red, Heart-Shaped Hot Tub, I’m Outta Here

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Prospectors in the 1800s camped at Big Bug Creek in search of gold.

Prospectors in the 1800s camped at Big Bug Creek in search of gold. Giant insects attacked one group of prospectors in 1863, thus the name Big Bug Creek~as the story goes (which I read online).

“I want to go home,” I tell Jerry. “It’s creepy here. I hear monkeys outside.”

“Aw, c’mon. Have fun. I’m having fun. Be adventurous.”

It’s a little before sunset and we’re inside Cabin #4 on Big Bug Creek.

When we checked in at the front desk at the main lodge, I asked the clerk if he knew why the creek is named Big Bug Creek. I hoped he would calm my apprehensions of mammoth bugs waiting for us in our cabin.

The clerk, a sixtyish gentleman wearing gray slacks hoisted by suspenders, answered without making eye contact. “I have no idea,” he said. “We have no big bugs. Now, please read this form and sign it.” read more

The Big Bugs at Big Bug Creek Better Not Touch My Coffee

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This is how we cool off in Arizona.

This is how we cool off in Arizona.

I’m looking forward to Wednesday when the temperature plunges to the heavenly temperature of 111-degrees. According to our local news, Sunday’s 118 temperature is the fifth-hottest day recorded in Phoenix since the beginning of time.

With the threat of another scorching hot day predicted, Jerry and I wake as the Arizona sun makes its appearance for the proverbial crack of dawn. We hope to get some shopping done before high noon when the street’s asphalt bubbles and boils. Bubbling asphalt can be hard on the tires. read more

Eat, Pray, Gourd

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Running of the Gourds Casa Grande, Arizona

Running of the Gourds
13th Annual Gourd Festival, Casa Grande, Arizona

As someone from Washington state, I’m used to chocolate slugs on a stick and naked people in colorful body paint peddling bicycles in a parade.

However, I’m not at all used to Arizona’s scorpions (dead, I think) melted inside sweet lollypops or festivals celebrating gourds. While I’ve never licked a sugary scorpion or seen a naked person riding a bicycle in the desert, I have seen–as of today–my first gourd festival.

Road Trip: the long way to Disneyland, part 1

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disneyland“I love road trips,” Jerry says. “Out on the open road, driving through the desert where everything is charmingly barren and the cactus stand erect and look happy.”

I agree with Jerry, the desert has a lonely charm of beauty with creosote bush, prickly pear, cholla and saguaros framed by slate-blue mountains~and not a human in sight.

The charming barren Sonoran desert

The charming barren Sonoran Desert with happy, erect cactus.

To pass the time we reminisce of past trips. “Remember the Bed and Breakfast that served us a muffin the size of a marshmallow?” Jerry asks.

Beware the Toilet in Room 26

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Hotel Vendome, Prescott, Arizona (where your life is never the same once you stay here).

Hotel Vendome, Prescott, Arizona (where your life, and perhaps hairstyle, are never the same once you stay here).

“I can’t find the key,” I told Jerry and dumped the contents of my purse on the Victorian carpet of the hotel’s hallway.  My wallet, driver’s license, lip gloss, Tic Tac mints, and receipts hit the floor. Jerry stood silently as I searched for our room key, the only one issued to us. Jerry held a luggage bag strapped to his shoulder and a suitcase propped beside him.

“I’ll tell the lady at the front desk,” I said as Jerry continued to stand silently in front of our locked room, number 26. He had a long-suffering, trying-to-understand-how-this-happened expression. read more