Week 25: Visit Sedona

While I’ve never in my life been to the Grand Canyon, living in Arizona is a step closer in that direction. However, it’s still a 3-to-4 hour drive from our house in the Phoenix area. So on Tuesday, we entertained the idea of waking up at the crack of dawn and driving up to the Canyon.

…Instead we got up around 7ish and were able to drive north and make it to Sedona around 10 a.m. (another place I’ve never been).

It turned out to be quite cooler up in Sedona, with temperatures hitting 112 in Phoenix, but only 91 in Sedona. After doing a lot of research on the area, I wanted to start out the day with a hike at Red Rock National Park.

With little to no cell phone service, the step-by-step GPS directions I pulled from websites turned out to be a life saver! The views were beautiful, and there was tons of red sand all around, painting the canyons and mountains.

After 1.81 miles (which turned out to be a 45-minute hike in the beating sun), we decided to call it quits with the hiking and headed back to the car for lunch. We brought an ice chest and it hung out in the trunk during our hike.

Hungry and hot, we found a picnic table in the shade and ate quinoa & black bean salad, coconut water/Powerade, chocolate chip cookie Larabars, apples and carrots. Oh yeah and we had amazing views still!

After lunch, we drove a few miles down a dusty trail to the Palatki Heritage Site – a national preserve with Native American ruins and cave paintings! I don’t think I’ve ever seen preserved cave paintings, or any cave paintings really, before. It was a really neat experience and we learned a great deal about the history of Arizona and its indigenous people.

If you look closely, you can see the ruins up in the cliff above. They have carbon dated it back to the 11th or 12th century, and it was abandoned in the 13th century due to a massive drought in the valley. Apparently that was the transition from nomadic tribes hunting and wandering through the area, to staying permanently as farming developed here.

So it was quite a contrast to see the cave paintings, which have been left by many different nomadic tribes, dating back to the last 100 years. The different colored paints denote the different tribes that have left their mark. The government has declared this an official historical site and will not remove any paintings 50 years or older -- all carbon dated for authenticity.

Apparently these are some of the best preserved ruins and cave paintings in the state! It was really amazing, we spent over two hours at these two sites. If you have something similar near you, I highly recommend that you go and check it out. It was totally mind blowing!

Me in the caves!

And that was only the first half of our day trip. So, while it wasn’t my original intention, this is going to be a two-part post :) I literally took hundreds of pictures and can’t wait to show you the rest.

Stay tuned for Part 2, but until then, I’m going to share with you the song that was stuck in my head during the entire first half of the morning, haha. I love this album and this song, so enjoy!

(Side note: This song is apparently about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which I recently read about in the book Sophie’s World. I read excerpts from that book in high school and have been looking for it ever since. I recently stumbled across it at a used book store and if you’re interested in learning about a general survey of world philosophy, you should certainly look into it! However, it does get quite heavy towards the end and I semi found myself at some form of existential crossroads after reading. It’s stuck with me almost a month after finishing it.)

Week 13: Hiked Camelback with a friend from high school

Every week in 2011, for 52-straight weeks, I hope to try something new and blog about it here. This is the 13th post in the series, when I climbed Camelback Mountain in Scottsdale/Phoenix with my best friend from high school. Here you will find a list of all my weekly adventures thus far.

The month of March was CRAZY (fun) at my house. We had five groups of friends/family visit Arizona which meant something to do and entertaining to be had every single week. This was literally 0-to-60 for me, as I barely know anyone in the entire state of Arizona and being jobless for so long meant hardly ever going out.

Looks like April will be more of the same old story ;) But it was nice to have visitors, see old friends, family and be active and adventurous out here. Most recently, my best friend from high school, Laura, flew out as our final visitor in March. We hadn't seen each other since her wedding in 2009.

Her visit began with this week's new thing on Wednesday at noon. I have never hiked Camelback Mountain in Phoenix before! It's hailed as one of the top urban hiking trails in the country, as a grueling climb just minutes from the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the United States.

(Source)

I'm not lying when I say it's a grueling hike. At some points we were completely vertical, without a trail, jumping from rock-to-rock, using only a handrail or a fence for support. My knee is still a mess from my running injury last summer, so I was smart enough to have to foresight to wear my knee brace. Without it, I don't think I could have made it.

Funny story though, we didn't actually make it... This week has been one of the hottest on record in Phoenix. It actually hit 100° yesterday. I'm sure you can imagine, then, how warm it was at 12 p.m. hiking a 3 mile round trip mountainous trail. In fact, the combination of our lungs, limbs and only two water bottles between us did us in. We made it about a third of the way up the mountain before heading back. It took around 45 minutes to do the mile trek, with a slight glimpse of the summit. I wouldn't change a thing! Catching up with an old friend while laughing at the older men and children (some with dogs) who sprinted past us really made for a fun start to her trip. Clearly I'm not acclimated to the desert yet, and I've only lived here eight months. I do plan to go back to Camelback sometime in the very near future to finish what I started....As long as I'm out by 6 a.m. and NOT the late morning/early afternoon. I think I'll also need to invest in a Camelbak (ha, no pun intended, but that was awesome) for serious hydration with temperatures in the 80s/90s here to stay and get hotter.

(Source)

Laura also took me on another first trip: thrift shopping! I fell in love (as you can imagine on my limited budget) and will definitely do that in favor of mall/department store shopping from here on out. Details to come in a future post :)

In the meantime, I present to you: MONIQUE & LAURA'S AWESOME CAMELBACK ADVENTURE

View from the first tier just to get up to the mountain trail

Smiling because I had no idea what more lay ahead...

Plane to mountain in under 20 minutes, go Laura!

Last part of the hike we were able to do

Uncharted territory. I WILL return to tackle you, Camelback.

Funny how we literally were twins and didn't even plan it! She packed that outfit for the plane and I rolled out of bed and threw on some dry fit clothing :)

We joked about snapping a photo at our most gassed point in the hike, in full sunlight, out of water and peanut butter sandwiches and sweating out of control. Clearly, I've spared you all of such a photo (it doesn't even exist, btw). After, we treated ourselves to some window shopping in Downtown Scottsdale and an old fashioned soda shop treat (the orange raft J.D. and I shared when we first moved here). It was sooooooo awesome to hang out with one of my best childhood friends this week! I'm a little sad to return to an empty house again. But happy for the wonderful month we've had in March. Sooooo, if you're thinking about heading to Arizona, come visit! I love entertaining friends and family!

Also, I just discovered this cover recently and can't wait to share it. It's no secret how much I love Katy Perry. And she looks so cute in this video :) Enjoy the rest of your weekend, xx!

Katy Perry: Hackensack
- Watch more Entertainment Videos at Vodpod.

Things to be thankful for

Now that I'm back in California I've had a lot to be thankful for over the past week! For starters, my parents were in Arizona for the entire week and I was busy busy busy running around and exploring with them :)

We went to the top floor of a resort in Scottsdale and had awesome valley views...

...and then sampled wines, meats and cheeses.

We hiked mountains in Phoenix...

...with Woodstock.

I made my first Thanksgiving dinner spread for four...

...that included pumpkin crème brûlée for dessert!

On Black Friday we went horseback riding...

...where we saw a crapton of cacti (and a coyote that I failed to visibly capture).

Ate at two restaurants featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives...

...one of which was a German beer haus for lunch after riding horsies.

(I couldn't finish mine)

And then drove through SNOW in the mountains back to California!! It was the first snow I've seen in probably years :) It even stuck to my hand!

Now I'm back home and enjoying cool weather, family and more laziness! I hope you all had a great holiday! I am now completely fixated on Christmas -- my favorite holiday of the entire year!

The One That Got Away

Yesterday needed to be an exciting, busy day for me to get my mind off a phone call that started my morning. I received what I imagine would have been the perfect job for me and for where I'm at right now. Except.... it was in Nevada. I'm in Arizona. I interviewed over the phone and then was flown out to Reno to meet all the co-workers and coaches who would be working with this position. It was very enticing. I was sold immediately upon my flight out to Reno.

But the mind can play some gnarly tricks on you when you've steadily been unemployed for the better part of three months. I really wanted the job. I still do. However, it was not practical for me and my situation so I had a long inner struggle trying to figure out whether or not I should take the opportunity. In order to keep my mind from exploding, I tried to keep busy with J.D. and Woodstock, allowing a day to really explore the Phoenix area and what I would be missing if I took that job.

We spent the afternoon picnic-ing and hiking around South Mountain Park, a network of regional mountain trails that overlooks Downtown Phoenix and the entire Valley of the Sun.

Sometimes a girl just needs some time alone with her dog to think.

By the end of the day, I'd talked to enough people who've done the long distance thing in favor of a job, I spoke with former co-workers, friends and family. The results came back split. I needed a break for dinner. Spaghetti squash it was then, with a zucchini asparagus marinara sauce atop. As delicious as it was, I was too nervous to eat.

Eventually I went to bed, tossing and turning and dreading the call I'd have to make in the a.m. With a heavy heart, I decided to turn down the position this morning. But, I freaked out. When the director didn't answer, I left a voicemail. How cowardly was that?!? Who leaves a voicemail??? Either way, I'm still hopelessly unemployed and in search of the right opportunity. It's so hard when companies aren't hiring and the positions I've applied for online keep getting reposted in search of new candidates. I wonder if I'm going to find as good a job in this area as what Reno had promised me...

It's funny because I've up and left so many times in my life for jobs that promised very uncertain futures. I packed up and moved to France with no idea where I'd be living. After living in Europe, I jumped into a job in collegiate athletics, a career that would be extremely demanding, despite not really having any previous experience in the field. I up and left my job in Stockton to move to Arizona with no promise of employment anywhere on the horizon. I've seemed to land on my feet each time. But I decided not to take the leap in this specific situation.

I just hope I made the right call; it takes a lot of courage to say no to a job you really want. Now I'm going to drown my sorrows in an afternoon of baking. Sleeping in late didn't help elevate my confidence level today. Maybe pumpkin banana bread will do the trick.