| | Description | Date |
| A prickly pear cactus. There are many types of cactus (cacti?), and Alix got some good shots of several varieties. | 2/20/2008 |
| There was an exhibit of some art at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix. Here's Adam among some giant "Stick Balls". | 2/20/2008 |
| And this is a flock of Barrel Cactus. Yes, I believe flock is the correct term for a clustering of these cactus. | 2/20/2008 |
| Here's an Ocotopus Cactus, obviously well-named. | 2/20/2008 |
| A Palo Verde Tree, with green bark. | 2/20/2008 |
| We didn't think much of it when the name of this path was Quail Run. But sure enough we encountered some quail on the trail. | 2/20/2008 |
| And this one is called an Ocatillo Cactus. | 2/20/2008 |
| Cardinal's are not found in the Portland area, so it was kind of cool to see one here. | 2/20/2008 |
| Adam among some Pipe Organ Cactus. | 2/20/2008 |
| Another shot of Pipe Organ Cactus, with Adam admiring the mountain through the viewfinder. | 2/20/2008 |
| Apparently the idea for sherrif's badges came from cutting open the arm of a cactus. It's pretty cool the star pattern it makes when it's cut open like this. | 2/20/2008 |
| Here was a friendly chipmunk we encountered at the Desert Botanical Gardens. | 2/20/2008 |
| The railing along the path. I believe that's my feet in the upper right hand corner of this shot. | 2/20/2008 |
| A bunny rabbit among the brush and cactus. | 2/20/2008 |
| I believe this variety of cactus is called Cholla. | 2/20/2008 |
| Silhouettes of birds perched on a tree. | 2/20/2008 |
| As we were leaving the gardens, we were delighted to find a hummingbird nest near the exit. Here is a humming bird in the nest. | 2/20/2008 |
| Here's the nest without the hummingbird occupying it. I had always wanted to see a hummingbird nest in the wild. | 2/20/2008 |
| We went to Out of Africa several hours north of Phoenix. Here's a photo of one of their giraffes, named Pilgrim. | 2/21/2008 |
| Another shot of Pilgrim. Unfortunately, we accidentally deleted most of our pictured from this portion of the trip. | 2/21/2008 |
| Pilgrim wanted some more food, so he poked into the bus to say hello to Bonnie and get some treats. | 2/21/2008 |
| "How much is the fare? I'd like to go for a ride." | 2/21/2008 |
| I forget what these horned animals are called. This one looks like he means business. | 2/21/2008 |
| Then again, a treat will calm down almost everyone. | 2/21/2008 |
| For those who don't know, giraffes have very long tongues. A few brave tourists were willing to put a treat in their mouth and let the giraffe take the treat right out of their mouth. | 2/21/2008 |
| Two days before this photo we learned that if you breathe onto a mesquite bushm and then smell it, it will smell "like the desert". Adam then spent the rest of the vacation confirming this theory and smelling every mesquite bush we passed. | 2/22/2008 |
| I would never have guessed that a dead cactus looks like this. It has what appears to be ribs. | 2/22/2008 |
| Some very cool cactus arms on this Saguaro Cactus. "Saguaro" is a fun word to say, but by the end of our vacation I think I had said it enough to drive Alix crazy. | 2/22/2008 |
| Clouds over Saguaro National Park. We had looked forward to some warm weather, but in Phoenix and even here in Tucson it was cold. | 2/22/2008 |
| The first of several pictures of some petroglyphs at Saguaro National Park. | 2/22/2008 |
| Another petroglyph. I know they don't get much precipitation here, but I am amazed that these have lasted hundreds of years without wearing away. | 2/22/2008 |
| In this one you can make out an animal shape. | 2/22/2008 |
| More petroglyphs. | 2/22/2008 |
| And still another shot of the petroglyphs. | 2/22/2008 |
| I think it's safe to say we saw more animals in the petroglyphs on this trip than we did out in the wild. We were disappointed at how little wildlife we encountered during the week. | 2/22/2008 |
| One last photo of a petroglyph. | 2/22/2008 |
| We went to Goldfield Ghost town, a rebuilt Gold town. Here is the water tower. | 2/23/2008 |
| A great view of Superstition Mountain as seen from the Ghost Town. | 2/23/2008 |
| Here's a view of the town looking up the street towards the church. | 2/23/2008 |
| Boots hanging from the ceiling at a restuarant in Goldfield. | 2/23/2008 |
| The bordello that every Ghost town must have. | 2/23/2008 |
| And of course the requisite tourist shot of Adam underneath the bordello sign. | 2/23/2008 |
| Looking out the window of the alcove in the bordello. | 2/23/2008 |
| The mine marker. This was a real mine back then, and adjacent to the property they are still actively mining for gold in a small mine. | 2/23/2008 |
| Another great view of Superstition Mountain. Hard to believe, but I understand it's three miles across. | 2/23/2008 |
| The town of Goldfield with Superstition Mountain in the background, taken from the train ride that circles the park. | 2/23/2008 |
| One last shot of the town and mountain behind it. | 2/23/2008 |
| On the way to the Grand Canyon, we detoured to check out Sedona. We hiked this trail effectively around this large rock. | 2/24/2008 |
| Here we are a little closer to the rock that we hiked around. | 2/24/2008 |
| Another view from the trail we hiked in Sedona. | 2/24/2008 |
| It was another cold and cloudy day in Arizona. But it made for a nice photo here. | 2/24/2008 |
| Here's a close-up of the large red rock we hiked around. | 2/24/2008 |
| A cactus along the trail. | 2/24/2008 |
| This round rock was about half way through our hike. I think this is called Bell Rock. | 2/24/2008 |
| There was a crow that was claiming to be "King of the Mountain". He announced his presence to us well in advance and was quite happy to be perched atop Bell Rock. | 2/24/2008 |
| I'm not usually one to admire churches and cathedrals, but this cathedral built into the rock was pretty spectacular. | 2/24/2008 |
| Looking down from the cathedral there is a huge mansion across the street, with a astronomical observatory. | 2/24/2008 |
| Looking at the cathedral from the top of the driveway up to it. | 2/24/2008 |
| And here's the view looking out from the cathedral. | 2/24/2008 |
| I've always been a big fan of Peanuts, especially Snoopy. So I was looking forward to seeing the famous Snoopy shaped rock you can clearly see here. | 2/24/2008 |
| One of the galleries in Sedona had this very cool dragon sculpture outside their gallery. Notice the dragonfly perched on his left claw. | 2/24/2008 |
| There's a very cool bridge as you leave Sedona to the north. To confirm how cold it was, notice the snow in the mountains in the upper right portion of the photo. | 2/24/2008 |
| And to really show how cold it was, we stopped at this rest stop as we headed north to the Grand Canyon. I was starting to get worried that our car (we rented a sub-compact) would not be able to handle the road conditions if we encountered snow or ice. | 2/24/2008 |
| Not exactly the warm February escape we had been hoping for. Lots of snow in the mountains. | 2/24/2008 |
| We finally made it to the Grand Canyon around 6:00 PM that evening. Here is our first view looking down into the canyon. It had snowed quite a bit a day prior to our arrival, and the road west of the village was still closed. | 2/24/2008 |
| Sunset on our first night at the Grand Canyon. | 2/24/2008 |
| Did I mention how cold it was there? Temperatures dipped into the teens at night, and the highs while we were there were only into the 40's. | 2/24/2008 |
| We got up early our first morning there to get pictures of the sunrise. I think this was the cabins that we were staying in. | 2/25/2008 |
| This is an artist's retreat sticking right out into the canyon. | 2/25/2008 |
| Here's the Bright Angel trail wneding it's way down towards Phantom Ranch in the bottom of the canyon. | 2/25/2008 |
| The sun finally started to come up, but it would be a while before the temperature followed suit. | 2/25/2008 |
| Looking wast from our cabins towards the El Tovar hotel. | 2/25/2008 |
| A deer we saw in the woods a little bit east of Grand Canyon Village. The road west was still closed this morning. | 2/25/2008 |
| If you look closely, I think you can see Phantom Ranch at the bottom of this photo. You can also see part of the muddy Colorado River in the lower right. | 2/25/2008 |
| Looking through the trees at the overlook. | 2/25/2008 |
| One of many overlooks in the Grand Canyon. | 2/25/2008 |
| The trailhead for Bright Angel, and the first switchback. We didn't hike this trail on this trip, but when I was here about 15 years ago Danny and I hiked down a few miles before turning around and hiking back out. | 2/25/2008 |
| Peering down onto the Bright Angel Trail. Look closely and you can see two people hiking down in the center of this shot. | 2/25/2008 |
| More of the switchbacks on the Bright Angel Trail. | 2/25/2008 |
| Clouds at the Grand Canyon. | 2/25/2008 |
| Several people hiking along the trail, and an extreme swithcback. | 2/25/2008 |
| Another shot of the canyon. | 2/25/2008 |
| I had been hoping to see one of the Condors that have been released in the Grand Canyon. But all we kept seeing were these numerous ravens. | 2/25/2008 |
| After a while every cantage of the Grand Canyon starts looking alike. This sign helped a little bit in orienting us, but the only landmark I found easily recognizable was Vishnu Temple. | 2/25/2008 |
| Adam at one of the many overlooks. | 2/25/2008 |
| Another nice shot of the canyon. | 2/25/2008 |
| A sign describing the next couple of shots of the Orphan Mine, an abandoned Uranium Mine in the Grand Canyon. | 2/25/2008 |
| Looking almost straigh down at the abandoned Orphan Mine. | 2/25/2008 |
| The top of the canyon, with the mechanism that lowered people into the Orphan Mine. | 2/25/2008 |
| Icicles and small caves in the walls of the Grand Canyon. | 2/25/2008 |
| Yet another shot of the Grand Canyon. | 2/25/2008 |
| The muddy Colorado River that carved out the huge canyon. | 2/25/2008 |
| Another shot of the canyon. | 2/25/2008 |
| And another canyon photo. | 2/25/2008 |
| A cool shot of clouds over the Grand Canyon, with their shadows. | 2/25/2008 |
| Adam at the Grand Canyon, with a coy expression. I guess I was practicing my pose for modeling. | 2/25/2008 |
| The road west of Grand Canyon Village finally opened around noon that day, and we took a short hike down this trail. | 2/25/2008 |
| On the way back from our hike a small herd of deer were corssing the road. | 2/25/2008 |
| Our car and the car in front of us both stopped to watch the deer for a few minutes. | 2/25/2008 |
| Here's the mother deer with hew fawn, after they went a little ways into the woods. | 2/25/2008 |
| Sunset in the Grand Canyon. | 2/25/2008 |
| I think it's a requirement of all visitors to the canyon to take pictures at sunset. | 2/25/2008 |
| The sunset really looked nice in conjunction with the snow in the canyon. | 2/25/2008 |
| More of the sunset. | 2/25/2008 |
| The sunset lasted quite a long time. | 2/25/2008 |
| Sunset at the Grand Canyon. | 2/25/2008 |
| It was windy and kept getting colder as the sun set. | 2/25/2008 |
| Notice the streaks in the sky. Most were from airplanes, but one of the streaks stayed in place for the whole time we were there - about 30 minutes. I would have thought it was a comet, but I don't think any were visible back then. | 2/25/2008 |
| More of the sunset. | 2/25/2008 |
| Here's the sunset with that comet-like streak in the sky. | 2/25/2008 |
| I had been hoping for the famous green flash, but it was not to be. | 2/25/2008 |
| One last shot of the sunset. | 2/25/2008 |
| Adam trying to stay warm in the Grand Canyon. And still wearing his cool shades from the 80's. | 2/25/2008 |
| Once again we got up early in the morning to watch the sunrise. And once again it was very cold. | 2/26/2008 |
| The moon is still visible while the sunrise is about to happen over the Grand Canyon. | 2/26/2008 |
| A sign describing the Bright Angel Fault, along which the trail follows. | 2/26/2008 |
| Looking back towards Grand Canyon Village. | 2/26/2008 |
| More of the sunrise a few minutes later. | 2/26/2008 |
| the sun is now up, but the canyon remains in shade until it gets higher in the sky. | 2/26/2008 |
| Alix took this reflection shot off the window of the restaurant, with the moon still overhead. | 2/26/2008 |
| A cool shot of some eroded rock, with Vishnu Temple in the distance. | 2/26/2008 |
| Several days after the snowstorm, they were still clearing snow out of the parking lots from the viewpoints. | 2/26/2008 |
| An S-curve in the Colorado River. | 2/26/2008 |
| Our first view of the Watchtower at the eastern end of Grand Canyon National Park. | 2/26/2008 |
| A view from Grand Canyon of what appears to be a extinct volcano. | 2/26/2008 |
| Some recreated native art inside the Watchtower. The walls were covered with drawings like this. | 2/26/2008 |
| More of the artwork, with Adam looking down from the next level inside the Watchtower. | 2/26/2008 |
| The exit from the Watchtower and Grand Canyon NP. | 2/26/2008 |
| More Watchtower art. | 2/26/2008 |
| A description of what to see at the Watchtower. | 2/26/2008 |
| A close-up of the Watchtower. | 2/26/2008 |
| Adam and Alix posing in front of the Grand Canyon (and still trying to stay warm!) | 2/26/2008 |
| A shot from sunset Crater, a bit south of Flagstaff. | 2/26/2008 |
| On the way back to Phoenix we stopped at Sunset Crater. | 2/26/2008 |
| Here's a nice view of Sunset Crater and the lava. It's very reminiscent of the Bend area in Oregon. | 2/26/2008 |
| More lava at Sunset Crater. | 2/26/2008 |
| Some trees at Sunset Crater. | 2/26/2008 |
| Alix lover to take pictures of paths and trails. Here is the path at Sunset Crater. | 2/26/2008 |
| A bridge along the Sunset Crater nature tail. | 2/26/2008 |
| One last photo from our trip to AZ. This was also taken at Sunset Crater. | 2/26/2008 |