Peg Leg Meg and Bandana Anna Reunite!

Yeah, so we didn't run into any blizzards or anything. No broken windshields. Just paper thin walls, no vodka, wirelss internet problems (there were people in Megans room with head lights on trying to find the problem), no turndown for Megan, and other misc items. I think Megan and I will be taking another road trip soon. I know ya'll are missing some good stories.

My Naked Man

Well since Megan has been having naked men experiences, I've started to feel left out. That is until recently. Aboot a month ago I was at a meeting located in Florida. The hotel I was staying at had a configuration where every room had a balcony that over looked the ocean. So one night, a friend and I were sitting on the balcony, drinking some wine and playing chatty cathy. All of a sudden, she goes silent and is staring at something directly behind me. I don't really notice until I notice how she's trying to mutter something. She is from Ireland, so you have to picture her saying this with her Irish accent. "Ooh Anna, your neighbor just walked out onto the patio. Nekkid. He wulked to the edge of the patio, loooked out at the ocean, and then loooked right over here at us. OOOh Anna, he was butt naked! And then my doorbell rang. No joke. No one was there, but I definitely locked every lock I could find that night.

Uninvited Guest

So the other night, I am hanging out here with some friends. I walk outside to look for a couple of them, and on my way back I see the BIGGEST most DISGUSTING bug EVER!!! It's like this huge roach looking thing, but it's walking sort of slowly along, and from my vast roach experiences (I lived in New Orleans, dont forget), they don't move very slowly, ever. So I run into the house and start yelling for everyone to come look, while I am trying not to barf b/c the thing turned my stomach. They all go outside and of course, it's gone. I am frantically describing it and imitating it walking along with it's antennae moving around, and they're just laughing at me, thinking I'm exagerating. Suddenly it steps out from behind a friggin boulder or something and everyone screams. Are you ready???

.......scroll down.......

i hope you're not eating


I am warning you!!


------>>>>




OK, these things grow up to 6 inches long!! The one I saw was bigger than a cigarette lighter. AND *gulp* they FLY. Imagine getting hit by one of those while you're riding your bike? Nasty. Check it out:

"Borer Beetle Looks Like Giant Cockroach"

"Newcomers to the Phoenix area are sometimes horrified when they get their first glimpse of a huge bug that, for some, resembles a monstrous cockroach. Yes, this adult bug can be up to six inches long. Even worse--it flies.

It is the Palo Verde Beetle. More specifically, the Palo Verde Root Borer (Derobrachus geminatus). They have long antennae and spiny collars. They come out each July, and are most active in the early evening. The young Palo Verde bugs fed on the roots of distressed trees and shrubs, particularly the Mexican Palo Verde tree. After a few years, they leave the tree roots. You'll be able to see the exit holes around the roots of the tree. It does no good to spray inside the holes after the Palo Verde beetles have already left.

Adult Palo Verde bugs are attracted to light, so turn off outside lights if you don't want them visiting you. They won't try to get into your home, but might end up there if the light attracts them. They don't harm humans, but they do have the ability to bite if they are provoked. The best advice is to leave them alone, or be swift in your own attack."

So it probably like lives outside my door, right? I don't understand why things have to be so much BIGGER in hot places. Why?! What eats these suckers? I will invest in snakes & iguanas to get rid of insects of unusual size!!

Needless to say, I have now locked all my doors & windows and have retreated into air conditioning mode. That thing could open the screen door!

The Desert Museum

Today Brighid (lil sis) and I visited the Tucson Desert Museum, which is a zoo, botanical garden & museum all in one. V.cool place. It was friggin hot, got up to like 104 at least today, but there's lots of shady spots and indoor exhibits mixed in along outside trails, so it was all good. We tried to go early but of course by the time we got there. most of the animals were already sleeping. Except for these crazy Mexican Wolves...


They just ran around & around this loop and panted a lot. They're almost extinct.



White-Tailed Deer loving each other. Or eating bugs off each other, not sure.


Black Bear. He was awake, too, we got to see him scratch himself on the rocks. These animals are all in the mountains around here. The elevation changes so quickly in the mountains that the vegetation and wildlife change rapidly as well. I learned today that in just 200 feet up a mountain you will see climate changes that are represented from Mexico straight up to Canada. Does that make sense? I think I'm not being very clear...why am I talking like Yoda suddenly?




He looks like my mom's dog, Finnegan.


Baby got Back


Mountain Lion. I went hiking one day in a national park and they hand you a warning flyer about encountering Mountain Lions while out on the trail. I didn't see any. Dang.


This really big, loud bug, I think it's a type of locust. Eew.


The valley from the Tucson Mountains. We had to go up over a mountain pass to get to a museum, crazy windy roads going up and down...can't wait to take my bike there.


Sleeping Bobcats


Sleeping Grey Fox. He had a lttle blanky he was sleeping on!


Sleeping something...I think it was an Ocelot or something like that?


Sleeping some other type of mountain cat


Javelina! I have been dying to see one of these dudes b/c they roam around Miraval and I haven't seen any yet!! They're of the Peccary family.


They are like a hairy pig, but they're not at all related to the pig family. They are really rodents with hooves.


More like a giant rat? But they make oinky grunting sounds. And they smell.


So the best way to descibe them would be to say they are truly ROUS, Rodents Of Unusual Size (if you've seen The Princess Bride, you'll know what I mean).


Coyote--we saw one last nite, fo real! I was driving home, it was dark, and as we came around a corner, the coyote had just crossed the road and was trotting towards me. It was littler and scrawnier than I thought it would be. Then later we heard a pack howling again...I had to mute the tv to listen to them, they're so loud. I mean, I could hear them over the tv and then I muted it to listen to them. Maybe I got a little brain-fried today.


Baby Big Horn Sheep!! So cute!


Hiding behind Mama


They roam around a lot of the places I have been hiking, but I haven't seen any.




Hanging with Pops


Female Cardinal


Crazy duck


Hummingbird!!


It's a little blurry, but check out his awesome colors.


We and then everyone who walked past as we were checking this guy out almost stepped on him. He was not even an exhibit!


He blended right into the stones on the ground.


Pretty flowers. They're something like Bird of Paradise, but not at all...I forget what they're called! Drain bead fo real.


Inside the Hummingbird Aviary.


There are tons of different species here, where as there's only the one kind in NE.


Can you find him?


This one is called Black Throated


A nest with an itty bitty egg! No bigger than a navy bean. It said that at the museum, I would never compare anything to a navy bean.

The Shredder

Hi. Let me introduce you to one of my dogs, Odys (aka The Shredder)
As you can see from this picture, he looks very innocent and sweet, I mean look at that face! Trust me, it's a practiced pose. Well, he is 2 years old now and is very good in the house, except on rare occasions. Like when he shredded my Rachel Ray cookbook, but I can't blame him for doing it. I sure didn't have the heart to throw away a book, even though it was full of disgusting recipes. Then he has the nerve to shred my NASCAR magazine. For those of you who know me well, that is a HUGE mistake in my book, but I got over it. So we've gone for months without incident until tonight when I got home from work. I need to add that when he shreds stuff he knows it's bad, but is so proud of his work, he will greet you at the door with it in his mouth. So, anyway, I came home from work today and was greeted by Odys with the box that your checks come in. No biggie I think. Well I was wrong. I found my bank checks (that I just got!) shredded all over the house! There was not a single check book that was salvagable. While I am cleaning up the mess, he grabbed a check book that was shredded and came up to me and was like, "look, aren't you proud??" I told him to go away.


Now I have another dog whom I call a free spriit/granola dog, her real name is Aspen. She doesn't have a mean bone in her body. If only he could learn from her......




The kids...

Watch OPRAH next Monday, May 14!!!

The first of two episodes of OPRAH featuring MIRAVAL will be airing next Monday! You so need to watch. I am really excited to see it, I haven't seen anything on it yet. It's actually pretty cool that Oprah found Miraval a few years back. I guess she came and talked about it on one of her shows, and the phones started ringing at the resort like 5 minutes into her talk. This time is crazy, though. She had a contest and brought 60 women (plus Gail) to the resort for a week in March ( or maybe it was early April, before I started anyway). She filmed the whole thing and I am soooo interested to see how it all comes together on her show. She flew like 20 people from work out there a week and a half ago (yeah they left me behind, "in charge," my second week there!) and they got to sit in the audience and stay in Chicago for 2 nites and they even threw them a special cocktail party, which O and Gail attended. Aside from the fame stuff, from what I understand, I think they are really going to showcase what Miraval is about (aboot). I mean, you can make it about anything you want...but it is a really special place. It's not just a resort for the "spendy" richies to stay at. It's a place where you can learn and heal and chill and get in touch with yourself. It's special. They call it Miraval Magic. I really really hope that the show can get that across to the viewers. AND they decided to make it into 2 episodes when everyone was in Chicago taping! So it's cool. WATCH IT!!

Did I mention that I got cactus needles in my armpit? Ouch. It hurts.

Ventana Canyon

Today was certainly my most adventurous hike yet. The way I've been going about picking my hikes has been to search online, google places I've heard of, read up on several different sites to compare reviews. So I decided to take the Ventana Falls Loop, which takes you off the trail and up the creek bed to the "falls," then you find the trail and take that back down. Some of the notes on this hike intrigued me: "For those who are a more adventurous and would like to skip the crowds, its possible to venture off the trail and do a bit of canyoneering in this wild and scenic place." FUN, right??



So the creek bed was really dry, indicating the "falls" may not be running much at all. The site stated, "As you head up Ventana Canyon, you will have to scramble over some large boulders choking the streambed." Scramble?! I was literally climbing and pulling myself up over these huge boulders. But it was cool.







One thing about hiking out here, and today was the worst yet, is there's these really annoying bugs that swarm you when you hiking. Like little flies of some sort. They stick to your arms & legs & try to go in your ears and it gets really irritating at times. It's good to keep moving. So as I am "scrambling," I finally get to some small pools of stagnant water. Covered in this green mossy stuff. And hundreds of wasps. I was able to climb around the first pool, but the second one gave me no options: I had to literally step over it. A few feet of stinky water and all these wasps!! And when I stop moving to consider if there's any other options, the flies start to land and drive me wild, so I just had to take a deep breath and pretend there were no huge wasps below me and step over them. But I succeeded!

So after I have been climbing up this dry streambed for a long time, I start to wonder if I missed the falls, if they were so low I climbed over where they should have been, and if so, then where the heck's the trail to take me back?! I am supposed to see these Maiden Pools, and I climbed around some pretty good sized pools, but it's not like they're labeled or anything. I finally get to where I decide must be the falls, not much more than a trickle today, but I could see how it could be impressive if the water was flowing more. But now I am at the bottom of this canyon and I need to find the trail. It's just all rock face around me. I remember the review saying, "Getting past Ventana Falls is the final obstacle of the trip. Pancho Doll claims that a rappel is necessary to access the base of the falls, but I disagree." I am AT the base. So I need to figure out how to climb UP.

Bushwacking uphill in the desert is not very fun. I tried several times to climb up the rockface, but seeing as I have never rock climbed before, I have no safety equipment, and it was a damn long way up...I knew I needed to head through the scrub. Which still involved rock climbing and going straight up. Everything in the desert hurts, no matter how soft it may appear to be. I was on all fours, climbing over cactus and dirt and rocks and yeah.....but I finally made it up. Then I had to bushwack more to get up to the highest point and try to see the trail...which I spotted, across another canyon. So down I go, back through the hardscrabble. Needless to say, I finally made it to the trail.



If I could draw on this photo, I would show you that those green things in the center/right are actually full-size trees, and I had to make my way from the bottom all the way up to where those brown rocks are, which were about 15-20 ft. tall. The pic does NOT do it justice.

Anyway, I was so happy to find the trail! Then it takes you up to this ridge and I stopped to take this pic of Tucson:

...and I stuck my butt right into a cactus. Seriously, I was already so scraped up and full of catcus sticky prickles, I didn't need more on my ass. I just dropped trou right on the trail and tried to get the things out of my butt and my shorts, yeah, I was almost a naked girl on the trail. Sheez.

So, needless to say, I made it back down. Every hiking website tells you to bring the necessities: water, food, sunblock, etc. I want to add a few: a bandana, to pull down over your ears and try to keep the flies out. A backpack, to cushion the fall you may take when you're bushwacking downhill (yeah that happened, too). But the best reason to have these extra items is to surround your body with extra layers if you need to climb up rocks through catci and under catci and around catci. I have cactus prickles (there must be a real name for them) in my shoes, socks, legs, BUTT, shorts, shirt, arms, HANDS, backpack, and bandana. I have spent tonite with a pair of tweezers and a needle, trying to dig these things out of my body. So that's the last thing you should also bring with you: tweezers.






Close up of a hummingbird!