Adventures in Phoenix

So Ian and I have been in Phoneix for a week and a couple of days now, and are getting ready to head out shortly. Our first excursion was out to Queen Creek area and we did some rock climbing near the copper mine, but I forgot my camera so we have no pictures from that adventure. We've been to Camelback Mountain in Tempe (suburbia Phoenix) three times now. Our first Ian and I didn't see much, we scouted the climbing, but didn't do anything because it was super windy out and didn't feel like a great plan. Our second day there we hiked the main trail with Jamie, and our third day there we finally got down to some rock climbing.

I should preface this story with there are certain known dangers in the Southwest - I touched on them earlier with the everything pokes and stabs. Cactus, rattle snakes, scorpions, tarantulas, etc. were the dangers that people told us. Most of them are either really rare, or easily avoided - but there are others that I had no idea about. This next threat looks innocent enough, but it was really scary as it buzzed our heads on the top of our climb. I didn't actually get a picture of it (I was too frightened of the pointy protrusion on it's head), so I'm using a stock photo of one Ian took behind the safety of a window on a prior day.
We finished that climb and then next thing we knew "beep beep" this birds running straight at us. Well... the sound effect might be made up, but he looked pretty close to the first and exactly like the second. The road runner was smaller than I thought too.










Yesterday Jamie and James were married in a beautiful ceremony at the Tempe Mission Palms, a resort right in Tempe. I was honoured to be a part of their special day, and enjoyed my time here!








On our way into Phoenix last Friday we did stop in Tombstone, Arizona - the town that never dies. We took pictures, but have temporarily misplaced them on the hard drive - so we'll put those up another time.