Tag Archives: sunset

Phoenix / Tucson 2023

We went to Arizona this year and missed the coldest stretch of weather in Minnesota. Once again, we were super lucky. But it is not about going to Arizona, it is about escaping the cold.

Phoenix is a neat place to visit. We stayed in Tempe near the Salt River and it was a great spot – easy to get anywhere in any direction due to the access to the highways. We ended up hiking quite a bit in and around Phoenix. The Phoenix Mountain Preserve turned out to be a stellar place to hike. It’s amazing to me a place with “make your adventure in difficulty” for hiking exists in a metro area like that – it took all of 15 minutes to drive to the trail head and the place didn’t get old even though we went to the same preserve multiple times. We did three different hikes in three different areas but it’s still the same park. Pretty neat.

The restaurants were fun. There was the very first “Waffle House in the early morning” experience for some of the travelers because our hotel didn’t start breakfast until 9AM our local time. I’ve been to Waffle Houses during my work travels so it was fun to have the Waffle House experience with others. In the search for good Mexican / tamales we ended up going to the same restaurant we visited back in 2018. The place was exactly the same and as delicious as we remembered.

We went to Phoenix last year too. This experience was quite a bit different because the COVID restrictions are nearly gone and the ‘new normal’ is in effect. For example: masks were not required nearly anywhere, restaurants were substantially more expensive, hotel service and hotel services were still extremely limited. What’s wild is the COVID response is pretty much over everywhere and we have just accepted the changes.

We saw many sunrises and sunsets this year – different than last year. For whatever reason, we didn’t really watch the sunrises or sunsets last year. We missed out. They are spectacular in Arizona and especially beautiful in the Tucson area. It’s neat having unobstructed views, mountains to break the scenery, and light clouds to make for some absolutely stellar sunrises and sunsets. We did a few hikes to overlooks in time for sunrise but most sunrises and sunsets were done from a high-ish point we walked or drove to. 100% worth it.

We had a lot of fabulous hikes. There are a ton of easy hikes and there are a ton of hikes where people regularly die due to the difficulty. It’s a ‘make your own adventure’ type of region for hiking. So it worked out very well for us – we had chances to hike in the morning and afternoons and both were great for different reasons. The biggest surprise I had was hiking in the superstitions at the First Water trailhead, walking into a fairly deep canyon, and encountering plants with dewcicles. It was a bit chilly but it was surprising to find plants with dew to begin with and the dewcicles were a lot of fun to look at. We hiked multiple trails where we encountered running water or pools of water and it was a bit baffling – I just don’t expect to see running water in nature in these arid places.

We went to Tucson this year and Tucson is not a place I want to visit again any time soon. It is difficult to get anywhere, the things we can get to aren’t that great, and the city / region itself is a dump.

Driving in Tucson is the worst. I have been to 49 states, 42 countries, numerous cities and Tucson takes the cake:

It’s crap shoot whether I’ll be driving 10-20mph below or above the speed limit.
Turn signals are rarely used. Getting cut off is common. It is common to see vehicles take a hard right from the far left lane and cross a total of three lanes of traffic.
There is a lack of highways and freeways. Instead, there are a bunch of three lane roads going in every direction with a bunch of stoplights since they intersect a bunch of other three lane roads. This arrangement makes it possible to get stuck in traffic on a Sunday morning at 7:45AM. As the day progresses the traffic gets worse and it takes even longer to get anywhere.
It takes forever to get anywhere due to the above. Much like the place I grew, there are many ways to get anywhere I want to go but they all suck because whoever is responsible for urban planning / traffic / stop light timing was either completely absent or straight up suck at their jobs.
We even saw the city busses run red lights because they are sick of the BS.

The city / region itself is a dump. Dilapidated homes, businesses, and trash are everywhere. It’s astonishing. It’s hard to get away from people and enjoy nature. There seems to be a road, a building, octagarians, or, many other people around at all times. That could be due to the trails we picked – it takes forever to drive anywhere so the thought of driving even further and wasting more of my day in the car was motivation to pick closer trails?

There were three positives – the food was great and sunsets and sunrises are stupid beautiful, there’s a distinct lack of things blocking the view of the mountains so catching the sunrise and sunsets is quite the treat, and, the saguaro forest is one of a kind. The donuts there taste different – they aren’t super sugary and they aren’t super filling, it’s great. So far, it’s the best donuts I’ve had ever. From a distance, the saguaro forest is incredible and has an odd beauty. “These sorta look like trees, these should be trees, but these are not trees” was a common thought I had while hiking in the cactus forest. Close up, it was all pretty fugly – it’s a desert after all. We witnessed some amazing sunsets and sunrises; they were stunning and the 1,000s of other upper midwesterners we encountered agreed!

The number of people from Minnesota down here right now is wild. We regularly see Minnesotans. Makes sense considering it’s -15F in Minnesota right now.

Otherwise – I’ll probably never visit Tucson again, or I’ll change HOW I visit Tucson dramatically. It’s not great in Tucson.

I’m not sure if we’re headed back to the Phoenix are next year. We might try to switch it up. I would love to go back simply for the easy access to hiking but I am just one vote 🙂.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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Las Vegas and San Diego 2020

The Cold North 2017 / 2018

Hawaii 2017

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Hawaii is a fantastically weird place.

Hawaii has natural beauty and is very diverse: amazing mountains, lush rain forests, desert plains,fertile farms, barren lava flows, gorgeous beaches, craggy/rocky shorelines, wonderful sunshine, monsoon rains, ridiculous humidity, dry breezes, wonderful smells, and crystal clear air with stunning night skies. The range of climates on those tiny islands was truly astonishing.

All that said, the people and culture of Hawaii is incredibly strange. Jac and I aren’t ocean people, we don’t snorkel, we don’t scuba dive, we don’t fish, we don’t hang out at the beach, we don’t eat much for fish/seafood, we don’t eat much for meat, we don’t really consume much for alcohol, we don’t like big crowds, we don’t do all-inclusive type activities, and we dislike touring with groups. So, we spent time off the beaten trail talking to locals and learning about how Hawaiians make Hawaii, Hawaii. After all of our experiences, I can honestly say that if someone told me Hawaii was an English speaking anglo-centric independent county in the Pacific and I knew nothing else else, I would wholeheartedly agree. Why? Well, it’s complicated but here are my best guesses:

I think most folks fly down to Hawaii to go to their all-inclusive resort to get wasted all day long or go sleep on the beach to get wasted all day longi. I don’t think most people see the side we saw or even look for it given what most visitors want to do in Hawaii.
Few people are from Hawaii. It seemed like 98% of everyone we met are from somewhere else and moved to Hawaii because they fell in love. It’s a lot like California or DC in that regard. When no-one is from the area then it always makes the area seem a bit different.
No one is really in a hurry. As Jac said, “when everyone is on vacation is anyone in a hurry?”
The descendants of the Japanese immigrants from 100 years ago still keep parts of the island feeling like Japan. During one of our Airbnb stays we went to a restaurant called Teshima’s and had a bowl of udon soup very similar to what we had in Japan. Of all the cultures who migrated to Japan, it appears as though the Japanese are the only ones who tried to keep their culture. The Chinese, Africans, SE Asians, etc all assimilated and we couldn’t find authentic restaurants for those cultures.
There is still a very strong Japanese influence in Hawaii since Hawaii was about 40% ethnic Japanese at the time when the US took over Hawaii. We can go to local supermarkets and see a Hello Kitty section that is a non-trivial amount of space in a tiny store.
We only went to Maui and the Big Island. Maui seemed a lot of Vegas where lots of folks are there to party and then there’s the support network while the big island has a lot of agriculture and ranching. Two very different feels.
There aren’t the typical buskers and homeless people commonly found in warmer climates. I’m not sure if busking is illegal but they just aren’t around. I think it’s because folks need to actually fly to Hawaii via an expensive plane ticket and can’t hitchhike or take a cheap grayhound to a place where the cold won’t kill them.
If you’re white you’re a haoli (howly). I guess until the 1950s/1960s or something white people were the extreme minority. Then jets were invented and tourists started flocking to / moving to the islands so all the other immigrants from 100 years ago treat the white people a bit differently and view them as non-local.
We’ve been told by multiple people that moving to Hawaii is hard and there can be difficulties in assimilating. Visiting is fine and welcomed but moving to Hawaii is somehow viewed differently and negatively by the locals.
There are only a handful indigenous Hawaiians, like the people who migrated from Polynesia a long time ago, left. Because the pre-contact Hawaiians were such a warring culture there are a ton of battle sites and grave sites everywhere. This causes construction projects to be cancelled / strung up in court since it’s pretty much a guarantee construction workers will hit piles of bones at some point. Huge developments get abandoned because the developers run out of money fighting the court battles with the indigenous peoples. Even repairs to weather damaged areas get strung up in court – a beautiful valley we tried to hike in had its trail system destroyed by a 100 year flood a couple months back and the indigenous people are claiming ever rock and rock placement is sacred so they are trying to prevent any sort of repair work.

Of all the things we wanted to possibly see in Hawaii it was lava so we were very lucky we visited Hawaii in April. As it turned out, the volcano was somewhat active and it was possible to see lava flowing into the ocean from the 61g flow and see lava bubbling to the top of the Kilauea cauldron. We were fortunate because the volcano generally isn’t this active and we had an opportunity to watch quite the show!

It was so strange to be continually reminded of Japenese culture – from amazingly complicated bidets to amazing meals. We loved our visit to Japan and it was like some parts of the island were ‘Japan lite’; just enough to remind us of Japan but not different enough to feel like we were outside of the US.

So, all-in-all, we enjoyed our time in Hawaii while finding is a very strange place. I made two different photo albums, one of just the highlights in Hawaii and the other with a ton of additional photos or random Hawaii stuff.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris

Highlights:

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Big album:

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Photos from 2016

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It seems like 2016 flew right by and now we’re in 2017. I only have a few updates on the website so I figured I put some of my favorite photos from 2016 up and write a little about the year.

First, the year’s statistics:

1 house purchased, up substantially from 2015
2 of 2 us were employed, up 100% from 2015
1 business trip, up substantially from 2015
10 flights, down 60% from 2015
6 driving trips over 100 miles, down 90% from 2015
50lbs lost, from 2014. Total weight down substantially from 2015
Trace amounts of meat consumed, down 100% from 2015
17,000 photos taken in 2016, down 80% from 2015

So, we’ve obviously had some ups and downs :). Overall, the year was fantastic and things are going well for us. We’re happy to be back in Minnesota and we’re happy to be back in the day to day swing of things. One of the biggest changes, becoming a vegetarian, was quite a bit easier than what I thought it would be simply because we had so much vegetarian food while traveling. We’re fortunate we took a lot of cooking classes from all over the world because we have a ton of recipes and food styles to draw upon for inspiration.

I put some photos in the album below. They are random photos from the year that I really enjoyed, there’s no rhyme or reason to the photos other than I really like how they turned out.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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