Flagstaff

I had to make a quick trip to Flagstaff on Friday for work. It was raining pretty hard when I left Phoenix, so I anticipated getting caught in the snow on the way up. The weather was actually pretty nice. There were some light flurries near Camp Verde, but otherwise it was clear. It was actually bright and sunny in Flagstaff when I got there.

I have to say - I'm not a fan of snow or cold. Just the little bit that I slipped walked around the NAU campus was enough to remind me why I live in Phoenix. I was quite happy to get back in a heated car to leave.

On the way back home to Phoenix, I took a couple of pictures of the snow. I have to admit the snow and the pines were very pretty together. I took a few whiffs of the cold mountain air, then got back in the warm car to go home.


It was just starting to snow again as I left town, and the weather got much worse as I got closer to Phoenix. The snow flurries quickly turned to fog and sleet/icy rain. Once again, near Camp Verde, it was snowing, but pretty hard this time. I thought about pulling over at "sunset point" rest area to take a few pictures, but I could barely see the exit, much less any scenery.

It was still raining by the time I got back to Phoenix, but at least it wasn't snow.

Picacho Peak

A couple of weeks ago, I had to go to Tucson for work. On the way back to Phoenix, the sun was setting as I approached Picacho Peak. I decided to stop to see if I could get some good pictures. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the exit, the sun was a little too low in the sky to get a good shot from Picacho Peak.




I had hoped to get a few shots of the mountain with pink and red sky behind it, but instead, the sky turned gray and then it got dark. Below are a couple of the pictures I took.

This is the summit, taken during a hike about 2 years ago.

Another view of Picacho Peak, from a distance.

PandaMania

When I visited Washington DC a couple years ago, there was a city wide art display called PandaMania with decorated panda bears. Below are a couple of the pictures I took of them.

I hadn't realized that it was a temporary display at the time, and that the bears would be auctioned off. I thought it was a permanent display - like the New Glarus Painted Cows.

The panda to the right was hanging around at the National Zoo.


This was my favorite panda, because of all the jewels on it. It was in front of the Willard Intercontinental Hotel, which is pretty upscale. Its official name is "Ling Ling in the Sky with Diamonds"











Perennial Panda was found sitting in a flower bed near the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, near the Adams Morgan/Zoo metro station.








Yin-Yang was found standing outside the entrance to the National Zoo.


And of course, you can't forget about the real pandas!

Painted Cows

I've been trying to find some reasonably priced plane tickets to go to Wisconsin for Christmas. In the process, I ran across an article about the Cow Parade of Wisconsin this year.




This is a bit of a rip-off from the New Glarus Painted Cows, which they ripped off from the painted cows in Zurich Switzerland airport. The difference between the New Glarus Painted Cows and those in the Cow Parade is that New Glarus permanently displays them, rather than having them as a temporary display and then auctioned off for charity.




There are about 15 of them in all and scattered around town. At least the cows make sense to me. Some cities have now adopted similar types of gimmicks that may or may not make sense. For instance, Washington DC had PandaMania in 2004 where 150 painted panda statues were scattered throughout the city for several months before being auctioned off. This sort of makes sense since the pandas are still a major attraction at the National Zoo. On the other hand, last winter Phoenix had Guitar Mania -a temporary display of 75 painted 10-ft tall guitars that were auctioned for charity. They are planning to repeat it again this year. I'm still trying to figure out how a guitar is symbolic of Phoenix. I guess some mysteries will remain just that.

Galapagos / Ecuador Trip (Sept 27-Oct 8, 2006)

Day 1 - Quito


The flight to Quito went without problems and I arrived at my hotel about 20 minutes to midnight last night. The room was pretty much as described on La Casa Sol's website, but instead of getting a single, I was put in a loft room. Luckily, there was also a bed on the ground level, so I took that.




I woke up this morning with a bit of a headache, which might be because of the altitude of Quito, or it might be just travel fatigue. After a breakfast of fruit and bread, I caught a taxi to the historic center of Quito. There was some spectacular gothic and colonial architecture. I really wasn't in much of a sightseeing mood, and many of the buildings were too close together to get a good photo, unless I took a close up of just a tiny part of the structure.

I was sitting on a bench in the central plaza when a good looking Ecuadorian man sat next to me. His english was as bad as my spanish, so we really couldn't say anything to each other.

I probably should have tried to learn a bit more spanish before coming here. Trying to communicate around town today was a challenge. With the small amount of Portuguese that I can speak, I could kind of understand what people said to me, but they had no idea what I was trying to say back to them.

Around 3pm, I headed back to my hotel for a siesta.

I'm starting to get a little concerned. I was supposed to get my airline tickets and cruise voucher delivered to my hotel today, but as of 6pm, it still hadn't come. Maybe they plan to deliver it after their office closes for the day. I am trying not to get stressed over it. Maybe I just need a beer.

Actually, a beer and dinner sounds pretty good to me right now. My Galapagos flight leaves at half past seven tomorrow morning so I will probably go to sleep early.