7-23-2010

Alright, who put Jesus in the claw machine? You guys know he doesn't like confined spaces. Someone better get him out before Easter comes around and he just lets himself out.

On the way to lunch we saw the movie Tremors but for real.

We went out into an eerie night and braved a monsoon to go to the second annual Ingenuity bridge party event thing. We went to the first one last year and really enjoyed it, but thanks to a tip from our friends we found out that this year's was way more fundraiser and way less fun. So we just went out to fun bars instead. On the way back to our cars at the end of the night, we saw this super creepy van parked down the street all by itself. In an overly excited rush of questionable judgement, we charged to van to discover what they were up to. This is what we found. An incredibly dedicated "cat lady" driving around feeding a herd of stray cats in a thunderstorm (there were tons more, but most of them ran away before I could take any pictures). I guess she has a circut and regularly visits various "colonies" of cats throughout the area. Needless to say we were excited beyond words about this...I'm surprised we don't have fleas now.

7-22-2010

Sometimes my job gets cool stuff for people to look at. This is a new crazy 3d projector thing that shoots hologram animations.

7-21-2010

My commuting drive is pretty boring now. I wish we had saguaro cacti.

Everyone wears hats at this bar.

7-20-2010

Does this picture inception you into thinking about cat faces?

NOT REALLY A SPOILER ALERT: This doesn't really give anything away, but don't click here if you're worried about that sort of stuff.

Here are some assorted vacation snapshots from the little plastic camera I got for Nicole. I just grabbed a few random ones that I liked a lot, but they were all pretty awesome. I actually prefer the lo-fi aesthetic of these over some of the pictures I took of the same stuff. I think we're going to put them in an album.

Border Patrol checkpoint
Tuscon
Mt. Lemmon
Me as a cactus
Somewhere
Road Warrior
All I ever really want to do with my life
Sedona
Skully Sedona
Grand
Viva Las Vegas

7-19-2010

This is me sitting on my couch doing absolutely nothing but watching SyFy shows on the DVR and loving life.

7-18-2010

We flew all night until the sun came up in Chicago. Then we flew some more. Then we got home and slept.

7-17-2010

After crepes for breakfast, Nicole cashed out a big $20.00 winner. I won 45¢ on my last dollar game, so I guess I left up. Then we went to visit the Pawn Stars TV show set. None of the cast was there, but there were more tourists here than on the strip...all jammed into a building the size of my living room. Nicole actually almost bought something, but they were selling antique rings at TV show prices, so we left to look down the street. The shops that aren't on TV aren't quite as busy. Then we saw this sign and got married again. We honeymooned in Old Vegas. Old Vegas is cool. It's grimier and a little trashier than the strip and has more character. I like that about it. We saw the Partridge Family again and it reminded me of Tuscon. We also saw my friend from Tuscon I got the tattoo of. Then we left Las Vegas to do this all night. Nicole saw another old friend flying out of the airport.

7-16-2010

After my first night of sleeping in a real bed in a week, I woke up here. We ventured out into the hotel, and ate at an all-you-can-eat cotton candy and fortune cookie buffet. Then we went to see a stripper and do tourist stuff. We got sucked into a swirling vortex of shopping, walking, and looking at things. Nicole played every cat related slot machine we saw while I got in trouble for taking pictures in casinos. Then we went to Wynn's main theater to see Le Reve. I didn't take any pictures of the show because they told us it would make the performers die, but it was really incredible. Unfortunately, this is all you get to see. Obvious Vegas tourist must. Nicole got to eat more seafood than what's left in the Gulf Coast. Then we got to watch this classy gal "dance" while we played 1¢ slots all night.

7-15-2010

On the road again for a day in the car headed North and West. We stopped to see Montezuma's Castle, drove through places like this, pulled off the road in Sedona, took more pictures in Sedona, looked at skulls in Sedona, drove up windy mountain roads, saw Oak Creek Canyon, climbed on a huge giant hole in the ground, drove on some road named Route 66, and drove past bed time. Nicole was very excited to see the Hoover Dam because she's a huge nerd and her favorite movie ever is Fools Rush In. It was the equivalent of me visiting the Death Star (which makes me an even bigger nerd).

Finally, after a long and eventful day in the car, we made it to Las Vegas. These are Nicole's "first time ever seeing the strip" faces. We checked into our hotel room before embarking on a marathon tour up and down the strip.

7-14-2010

This is South Mountain in Phoenix, Arizona. I'm told that these TV and radio towers are iconic to the South Side area we stayed in. The top of the mountain also provides a pretty awesome view of Phoenix and the sprawling areas around it.

After South Mountain, we paid a visit to this gentleman. He keeps an year-round, outdoor display of his collection.

Then, guided by my old friend Brandon and my new friend Alex, it was on to Superstition Mountain and the Lost Dutchman's Mine. Also, I've been saving little bits of fancy slide film for special occasions like this. I was very excited to use it.

So one of my big goals for my Arizona trip was to pan for gold. I consider myself pretty realistic in regard to what I'm good and not good at. I quickly learned that panning for gold is definitely on the list of things that I am not good at. If I were a prospector back in that period, I would end up working in a brothel. I did manage to find the bits of garnet they sprinkle in so you don't feel bad about youself when you've thrown away all your gold.

Continuing my taking-pictures-of-cactus-which-are-really-just-trees trend, here's another one. This one is sensitive to vibration and spits barbed needles in the direction of your motion. More cactus/getting burned by shooting film. Speaking of burn, it was really hot.

I think this picture is saying something political, but I'm not quite sure what. This one isn't.

Then we went to the West-coast exclusive fine dining establishment of In-N-Out Burger for lunch. Nicole seemed to like it. I don't know if she would have liked this or not. I'm guessing not.

Then I got a chance go to Immaculate and get a tattoo of the friend I made in Tucson from the homie Mando Rascon. Then we had our last night in Phoenix.

7-13-2010

This morning, we found that the partridge family had lost some of its younger members in a drainage ditch they couldn't jump out of. We helped catch them and let them back in yard where they could run around. Here's a picture of the place we were staying at. After giving the wildlife of Tucson a kiss goodbye, we headed down the desert highway headed for Phoenix. On the way, I'm pretty sure we saw serial killers.

Once we got into town, I was given the tour of Brandon and my late friend Roy's hood. For some reason I was very drawn to this shop that sells rims.

Then it happened. Thousands of miles, too many hours in planes and airports, and a rental car stuck in traffic jams on the highway all finally brought me to the real goal of my traveling. Authentic almost-in-Mexico Mexican food. If you know me at all, you know that food is very important to me, and this meal was memorable. As a matter of fact, now that I'm back home I think I want to go back again just for this.

7-12-2010

I was awaken from a deep sleep super early in the morning to people telling me that our friend had returned to a different part of the yard. There really is nothing like a paniced adrenaline surge first thing in the morning. It's far better than coffee. On the way back in, I saw the partridge family having breakfast (more on these later).

Then we went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. It's kind of like a zoo but wild things come in too. That lizard was doing pushups. This turns into tequila. Heres's an otter swimming upside down and blowing bubbles, a caterpillar I found roaming around by the water fountain, a humming bird, a prairie dog, a bear, and a mountain lion making fun of tourists. This guy gave an infomative lecture on rattlesnakes and told us one bite can cost as much as $100,000 in medical bills. He was very impressed by the pictures/video of the snake in our yard (which is only about six inches shorter than the largest one on record for that area).

Speaking of snakes, here's another one we found cutting through the one patch of grass in the yard. I introduced it to the one tattooed on my arm. This one doesn't get anywhere near my arm.

7-11-2010

We drove (note crazy guy biking a mountain in 100+ degree weather) up part of Mt. Lemmon to see suarao cactus. Look it's a cactus. I'm fully aware that this is the equivalent of someone coming to the midwest and taking pictures of every leafy tree they see, but I'm alright with that...I've never seen so many cactus. Then we stopped and ate crepes from a truck before riding a ski lift up to the top of Mt. Lemmon (9,157 feet above sea-level according to Wikipedia). We then hiked back down to crepe-level but I was too busy looking around and not falling off the side of a mountain to take any good pictures. Here's Nicole being a bear and a horned toad we found. Nicole's brother and I climbed a huge pile of rocks (Where's Waldo), and these guys looked very Arizona to me.

Then we went to see another sunset. Looking at sunsets really is a worth while activity out here. One more.

After dinner and gelato, we went back to the house to walk around the yard and look for more spiders and scorpions in the back yard. On the way back, I though I saw the flashlight beam pass over something suspicious in the rocks along the path. It ended up being this guy with his head up ready to bite Nicole's dad in the leg. I managed to scream "is that a snake?!" (frightened little girl voice) fast enough for Nicole's dad to jump out of striking distance. Of all the crazy/stupid/scary things I've done, that instance introduced me to a whole new realm of other-worldy teffied.

7-10-2010

We woke up nauseatingly early to go to the airport before the sun was even up. Then we did this for hours and hours for about two thousand miles.

Finally, we arrived in Tucson and got the rental car we would soon be driving all over the place. Our first stop was to get real tacos with authentic toppings (I hate the gross excuse for tacos we have in the midwest, and premeditated breaking my meatless diet for real Mexican food while we were still planning our trip). In addition to the tacos, we decided to try Sonoran hot dogs. These bacon wrapped hotdogs topped with beans, tomatos, jalapeno, onions, cheese, mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard are the cheesesteak/deep dish pizza of Tucson. The local rivalry between BK Carne Asada & Hot Dogs and El Guero Canelo has even been televised on the big food nerd tv shows. We tried both and liked the flavor of the BK one better.

After that, we met up with Nicole's parents at the guest house we would be staying at for the next few days, then went to Tombstone. It was kind of kitschy and touristy but in the very best way possible. I bought a genuine cowboy hat an antique store and Nicole terrorized the streets in it.

Then it was back to Tucson for our first sunset in Arizona. After the sun goes down, all sorts of creatures come out like tarantulas and scorpions (which naturally luminesce under a black light).