back in jolly old england after a glorious three week adventure home in california. the time was really packed full of good friends, delicious food, and some fun adventures stateside to remind me of all the cool things there are to do outside of places where pounds and euros are accepted.
i had to come home for a work conference during which i accomplished two major things - 1.) showing all the londoners what real mexican food tastes like and 2.) proving that it is NOT always sunny in california like everyone here seems to think. the conference was in monterrey, where is was nothing but grey and cold during the entire three days.
thankfully i had plans to skedaddle to warmer climates, heading down to las vegas and the grand canyon. four of us jetted down to the vegas strip for three days, and then rachael and i stayed on for the long journey to the canyon from there. we spent the entire last day in vegas in the lap of luxury at the four seasons pool (will always be grateful for rach's four seasons connections!). they brought us frozen fruit to munch on, spritzed our faces with evian water, and cleaned off our sunglasses. the absolute definition of vacation.
on monday we headed out through the hoover dam and into the arizona deserts, but not before stopping to take in the sites. taken on the hoover dam:
we continued on, dining at a diner on route 66 on the way. finally, after about 5 hours in the desert we arrived at the sleepy little town of carefree, arizona. yes - that's the real name of the town. the speed limit is 5 mph everywhere, and according to the bellhop at the hotel, you get looked at sideways for anything over 10 mph. it seemed to be a place where people go to retire or have a vacation home or something.
we spent the next day at the near by outlet malls scooping up some deals, before driving north to sedona, arizona about 2 hours away. let me say, that it was my fault we were so far away from anything of interest. i saw the good deal on the hotel and thought arizona is pretty small - nothing can be THAT far away. wrong. we wanted to go to sedona and the canyon while we were there which were 2 hours and 3.5 hours away respectively.
if we had it to do again, i would have just stayed in sedona. it was beautiful. not only gorgeous, but a great little sleepy vacation town, with plenty of nice resorts (which i think is one of the best things about arizona - the resorts). full of amazing vistas and delicious food, sedona was my kind of town.
this was taken on the drive into the actual town of arizona. there are all these little vista points you can turn off onto. really just gorgeous. we walked around the town a bit and then iphoned like mad looking for a dinner spot at the previously selected choice was closed on the day we were there. we ended up selecting a highly well reviewed albeit pricey place in the woods. it was AMAZING. again, really expensive but totally worth it. who knew arizona was foody heaven?
the next day we woke up early as i could manage and headed out for the canyon with some to go pancakes for the drive. it took about 3.5 hours but the drive was nice. up through arizona deserts into the flagstaff area which is somewhat mountainous and more like colorado then deserts. and then the canyon is about 45 minutes from flagstaff. we had booked a tour on the way since we were only there for a day and wanted to see as much as possible. with our tour we got a free ticket to the grand canyon imax experience, though both rach and i dozed off after the early start. oppsies. shortly after we met our guide and headed into the canyon.
two words - holy crap. this was the FIRST picture i snapped right after i saw the thing -
the thing just takes your breath away. our guide was saying how most people say "it doesn't look real" when they see it. he then went on to explain that it's because your brain has no point of reference to compare it to - there is nothing in our memory we have previously seen that can compare to it's size and depth. pretty nuts. here's a picture of our guide. he was such a misplaced california hippy, though he was saying flagstaff is pretty liberal. hard to believe based on current laws passed there.
we went around to a few different viewing points, all the while snapping pictures that just looked like rocks and really didn't do it justice at all. here's one from the watch tower where you can see the colorado river.
the canyon was fantastically amazing. well worth the 3.5 hour drive and all. there really aren't any words to describe it or anything to compare it to - it's just awesome. and big. really big.
we drove back to vegas the next day before catching a (three hour delayed) flight home. safe to say the vegas airport bar never saw better customers. :) friday i hung out in the city with friends still having the time off, and then went out to dinner at farmer brown before seeing 'in the heights' (which was awesome - definitely see it if you can. i downloaded the album after, which is a sign i REALLY loved a musical.) saturday i went to the a's game with lauren and sabine, before meeting up with marie for dinner in burlingame. and then sunday brunch was held at the tipsy pig in my old stomping grounds - the marina. highly recommend strawberry fields there - perhaps my favorite cocktail of all time. spent the next few days seeing as many friends as possible and enjoying more delicious dinners at range and flour + water - really liked flour + water - definitely go for the pasta if you go, and range was delicious too. yum.
after my dining adventures in the city, i headed home-home to courtland to celebrate the high school graduation of the infamous jacob harris, followed by some fun time on the waters of the california delta before boarding an overnight flight back to my new home. there will always only be one home-home though.
