Camp Verde AZ

Camp Verde is about 95 miles north of Phoenix, on I-17. I had to take a day trip on Saturday for work. To my delight, I received a warm welcome by seeing that they named a street after me! Right next to the turn onto Lacey Lane was a rather rickety looking pedestrian suspension bridge.

I heeded the Keep Off, Private Property sign. I'm not sure if the water it spanned was part of the Verde River or if it was over Beaver Creek. I think this was still Beaver Creek. There were a couple similar bridges as you drove closer into town.

These are pictures of Beaver Creek.

Since I had an hour to kill during lunch, I drove the 3 miles to Montezuma Castle National Monument for a quick visit.
From a distance, it just looks like a dent or cave in the side of the cliff.

As you get closer, you can see the castle.

It's amazing that the Sinagua culture could build something like this into a cliff over 1,000 years ago.

Ruins of another neighboring castle.

On the other side of I-17 just outside of Camp Verde is the Out of Africa Wildlife Park. I didn't visit there during this trip, but did stop by about 3 years ago - right after they moved from the east Phoenix area to Camp Verde.

When I visted, they only had the Serengeti Safari open. You climbed into a cage on top of a Hummer and drove through the big fenced area that had zebras, gnus, ostriches, giraffes, and other African animals (not the big cats). I think they have now changed from Hummers to other types of vehicles.

Below are a few pictures that I took of the animals.

They provided you with giraffe food, so the giraffes would come up and stick their head in the people cage and take food from you. It was pretty fun. You can see more pictures here.

Washington DC (Jan 24-26)

I made a quick trip to Washington DC this week. I left Phoenix on Thursday morning and my plane landed at 4:10 in the afternoon - about 15 minutes early! This gave me just enough time to catch a cab to my hotel, check-in, take my bag to my room and run downstairs to my 5:00 pm meeting. I even had 2 minutes to spare!

Between the working dinner and meetings, my evening lasted until about 9 pm. I was tired, it was cold out, and I hadn't unpacked, so I headed up to the room to watch some tv and relax. Most of Friday was full of meetings, but we were released around 6:00 pm. A colleague and I headed to dinner. The first restaurant had an hour and half wait, and we were hungry, so we walked a bit further from the hotel. We eventually decided on Rosa Mexicano. The chips were a bit too salty, but the guacamole was delicious. Both of us enjoyed our meals.

After dinner, we wandered through Chinatown on the way back to the hotel.

The night was still early, so I met up with a couple more colleagues and we took a walk to the mall and to view the capitol at night, before heading back to the hotel.

U.S. Capitol building at night

Washington monument at night

On Saturday, I had to get up early in the morning for my day of meetings. I had about an hour to spare between the time my meetings ended and I had to head to the airport. I thought about trying to do a bit of sightseeing, but it was cold out and I wasn't particularly motivated. Instead, I picked up a copy of Michael Crichton's book Next and started reading that. By the time my flight back to Phoenix landed, I was done with the book. It was ok, but not one of his best works. I thought State of Fear was better.

San Francisco - October 2007

I made a quick trip to San Francisco during fleet week in October. The weather was perfect and the Blue Angels were putting on an air show.

Bay Bridge

Blue Angels over Bay Bridge

Blue Angels over city

Yerba Buena Gardens

Transamerica Building

City view of SOMA neighborhood

Street shot - Bay Bridge in background

Golden Gate Bridge

I made a return trip in mid December. It was cold, raining, and I was busy working most of the time I was there. There are no pictures from the December trip.

Washington DC (Sept 29-Oct 2)

I had to make a quick trip to Washington DC for work. On one of the nights, there was a reception and dinner for us at the Smithsonian Castle. Since I had never been to the Castle before, it was a welcome change from a convention dinner at the hotel. During the post-dinner presentation, we also learned quite a bit about the history of the Smithsonian Institution.

Inside the castle....

I stayed at the Hamilton Crowne Plaza. For the most part, I was pleased with this hotel. The first night, I was rather grossed out when I pulled the comforter back and discovered this blanket on the bed.
I wasn't certain if this was a set-in stain or fresh (and had no plans to find out). I called housekeeping and asked them to send somebody up to give me new blankets. I guess I should have been more specific, because they just brought a new blanket. I'm sorry, but with something on the bed that looks that disgusting, I expect the entire bed to be stripped and made fresh. The woman from housekeeping had to make a second trip to get everything to completely make the bed from scratch. At least she was very polite about it.


Also, the in-room internet did not work reliably. You can go to the front desk for a signal booster, but they have limited quantities of those (they had already run out when I requested one). So, they got my $9.95 for internet, and I got a whopping 30 minutes (total - across multiple attempts within 24 hours) of connection. It's already a pet peeve of mine when $200+/night hotels charge for internet, but it's inexcusable when they charge and then can't deliver reliable service.

Mount Rainier National Park

I spent a day visiting Mt. Rainier. It was nice coming from 110+ degree weather in Phoenix to see glaciers in the middle of August. Christine Falls

Eagle Peak Overlook


Chipmunk




I didn't expect to see so many snakes. In one area, they were everywhere!
Narada Falls

Paradise Valley



Looking at the glaciers

Because I had limited time, I only went from the Nisqually entrance to the Paradise Valley loop and back down. I didn't have a chance to visit the east side of the park.

See more picture here.