Dios mio.
Getting back to the tale... and rattling the Lotto machine to see which topic we get...
Might as well cover the National Parks we hit up, at least in pictorial form, and not necessarily in "mock the other tourists' linguistic ignorance" form.
On Thursday two weeks ago, with iPMM and iPJ in town and my parents not quite yet, Beck, Wrigley and beck's parents headed down to Casa Grande, whose pronunciation is so confusing as to render it a series of grunts (it's as bad as "Guadalupe" in Austin). I did not make it with work to be worked and contentious Ultimate games to be played, but Scott snapped some shots:
But really, that's all I've got on that. Looks like a big house to me. Another stamp added to the passport. Ah... feel the dopamine. Note also that Beck did not get mobbed by GPGDS fans despite the fact that she was wearing a new tour shirt AND sweatshirt. Superstition Mountains one, Casa Grande zero. That evening, the Beck fam minus Wrigley went to Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West in Scottsdale. Here's Scott's photographic capturing of that:
They loved the house; beck and I are sure to return soon. For the record, at the end of the tour, a man walked up to Beck and, because of her GPGDS shirt, asked her if she worked for a zoo. "You know, with the guerrillas and the pandas." So the final score is Superstition Mountains one, Casa Grande zero, Taliesin West negative two. No word on whether Beck frequents ponds and feeds the dubs.
The next fix we got came from the aforementioned Tonto nat'l Monument northeast of Phoenix. Besides the gift shop pleasantries, we got to climb a steep (but paved) trail and hang out in the cliffside dwellings. Just a gorgeous day and with a little manmade river added, a gorgeous place. Highly recommended for the drive and the destination. Check it:
This one ended up being my cheesy-framed favorite:
Ah, so groovy that I dig me.
Our next stop on the Arizonan tour was a swing-by Montezuma's Castle en route to Sedona and Jerome on Sunday. As has been noted by many a sarcastic travel-book writer, Montezuma's Castle is neither a castle nor does it belong to Montezuma. White settlers, 0 for 2. Not doing so well on this trip. It's really another cliff dwelling adjacent to a river that is quite pretty. Montezuma's Castle will also be noted as the place where the iPMM got my mom addicted to the crack / crystal meth combo that is the national passport stamp game. My mom's back in SA now, but word has not returned on whether she has collected the coveted "Basement of the Alamo" stamp yet. Anyways, here's another set of pics from another National Park! (And yes, I can see you rolling your eyes and making 21st century family vacation slideshow comments. Lap it up, fuzzball).
And that last one is real, I promise - because of the sun and Beck being so close and using the landscape setting on the camera, it looks like a terrible photoshop hack job. But it's not. Thanks again to Meghan and Greg - the binoculars are awesome and came in very handy during the recent treks and baseball games. My mom was quite jealous and will probably be buying her own bird-watching binoculars with stabilizer soon.
Now, now: try not to cry, but we actually didn't make it to any other national parks. I know, I know, you wanted more hilarious anecdotes about ignorant tourists and their hatred for the indigenous peoples. Perhaps someone ranting about immigration at a Native American museum? Maybe next time. iPMM has gone on record as threatening to buy an RV and spend her retirement volunteering at these national parks, so something tells me the years to come will bring their share of pics. In the meantime, hope you enjoyed these. Here's a final "monument" pic for ya: Margie and Beck in front of a giant turquoise spearhead courtesy of Howard Roarke. Note that this is not photoshopped either. Also note that Beck is teetering on wearing a GPGDS sandwich placard here:
No comments:
Post a Comment