the merriest Christmas.

I had lofty aspirations of spending four hours every morning studying for the MCAT during my Christmas break. However, the postal system failed me and, 14 days after shipping, my study materials still haven’t arrived. So like any great best friend should, Bee gave me a creative assignment to keep me occupied: create a holiday film in her honor to be unveiled on Christmas eve.

I hope you have as much fun watching it as we had making it.

A special thanks to the whole Turner clan for contributing their top notch acting abilities.
[The soundtrack is “Christmas in the Room” by Sufjan Stevens.]
(For an explanation of the Megabus cameo at the end see this.)

Merry Christmas, one and all.

The Arizona adventure: a moving picture

On this trip, I experimented with the video setting on my camera for the first time. I filled up my memory cards with tiny little videos, smashed them all together, added music, and voilá: I’m a big time movie maker. I’ve concluded there’s something lovely about documenting a trip using video. The way it preserves a memory is more organic. And it’s way fun to experiment in a new medium with your best friend. Who knows, maybe it’ll become a thing.

Without further ado:

 

[Music is “Orphaned” by K.S. Rhodes.]

Happy Friday.

The Arizona adventure: all the other things

And here is where my explanation of my trip to Arizona ceases to be organized and chronological and instead becomes a splendid jumble of adventure and friendship. Those who keep up will be rewarded with a virtual high five. We’ll both believe in our hearts that it happened.

The day after our trip to the Grand Canyon, we ventured into downtown Flagstaff and spent the morning exploring the town. It was quaint in the most perfect sense of the word: whimsical boutiques, a thrift shop where I found a cutting board covered in song birds for a 75 cents and a garlic keeper for a quarter, a discount outdoor outfitter, plenty of shops with a phenomenal selection of native American jewelry, and tons of quirky eateries. Like our breakfast spot pictured above, Biff’s Bagels. Literally all the locals we talked to directed us to Biff’s. And once we got there, the reason why was obvious. They had a great selection of bagel flavors and an even greater cream cheese menu (when Nutella is a flavor option, the only logical conclusion is that this is your luckiest day). Perhaps we would have left the joint just satisfied or mildly enthused except that the walls are covered in pictures of dead dogs.
Yeah. All those are photos of customers’ deceased pets. This is actually a beloved-dog memorial masquerading as a bagel shop. And only dogs can be enshrined—the employee we talked to spoke with derision about patrons who came in asking to post pictures of their cats. Those fools. Obviously cats are only to be immortalized in biscotti bakeries. Sheesh.
Pictured here is what I’ve been told is referred to as a “pizookie”. I was skeptical despite the quality of my information source until a Google search recovered this. I found the second comment to be particularly helpful. I think this may be a Western term. Your people call it “pizookie”. My people call it a cookie with ice cream. A pile of warm cookie and creamy vanilla mush by any name is always delicious. We ate these every night of our stay in Flagstaff. Obviously it was a week of excellent decisions.
The rest of the week was spent exploring Phoenix. Per the suggestion of “The Hipster Travel Guide to Phoenix”, we stopped by The Lost Leaf for a concert and FilmBar for a movie. Approximately 50 percent of these ventures were successful: the band never showed at The Lost Leaf (so we hit up the Uptown Alley for an evening of arcade games, the spoils of which included two Tootsie Rolls and a glow stick) and we saw an excellent documentary at FilmBar about back-up singers. Seriously fantastic. I plan on buying it if it ever comes out on DVD. It made us want to listen to nothing but Motown and classic rock for the rest of the week.

We had dinner together at Bee’s very favorite Mexican restaurant, La Perla. We left with happy bellies full of chips and salsa and Mexican-style omelets. Apparently this fiesta banner is always up. Which is perfect because it’s always a fiesta when Bee and I are together.
We made a stop by the New York West Bakery for some tasty pastries that allowed us to relive that time we ate our way through Europe together. As per usual, I couldn’t make up my mind and was forced to try the raspberry cigar and the almond puff pastry. Tragically, they had sold out of their famous Danishes by the time we arrived. It was 11am. Apparently though their sign says they open at 5am, they usually open the doors at 4:30 since there’s already a line forming. With a selection like theirs, I’m not surprised. I’ve never seen anything like it in the US. Definitely worth a visit if you’re ever in the area and awake at four in the morning.

On my last day in town, Bee and I went to Lake Pleasant with some of her friends from church. We spent the day tubing and wakeboarding. If you had asked me to make a list of things I never though would happen during my trip to Arizona, this probably would have made the list. I’m a Michigan girl—I’m no stranger to lakes or boats or tubing. But tubing while watching cacti speed by? Apparently there’s a first time for everything.

Though there’s no photographic evidence of this event, it’s worth noting that one of my nights in town was spent on a date with a Mormon guy. This date included a performance of Oliver! the musical at a theater in an unmarked store front of a strip mall. Oh, unmarked except for the 8.5 x 11 sheet of printer paper taped to the window with “Don Bluth’s Front Row Theatre” written on it in permanent marker. The plot of said performance was censored, presumably to increase its family-friendliness: Nancy lives, Bill is shot, end show. Anyone familiar with the musical will understand the befuddled look on my face when the lights came up.

The evening ended with a hike up a hill at a resort in a maxi dress and sandals to get a view of the city at night. Though the three persons accompanying me on this trek were all Phoenix residents, I don’t think we ever came to a conclusion about what exactly we were looking at. I tried to be helpful and pointed out the North star. My “North star” was actually an airplane. I may never know what I saw from the top of that hill.
In conclusion, I’d like to pay tribute to dear friend I never had the pleasure of meeting while the zest of life still grew on his branches. This is the lemon tree in Bee’s backyard. For my birthday, she sent me the finest of packages which included three lemons from her very own lemon tree. I used them to make the most wonderful lemonade. I remember telling my dad I was excited to meet the tree whose fruit I had so greatly enjoyed from 2,000 miles away. Upon my arrival, I found out that the tree had died literally overnight about a week after she sent me those lemons, as if it couldn’t bear the thought of its children being that far from home. It’s bizarrely poetic. But mostly just bizarre.

Here ends my exposition of the events of the Arizona adventure. I couldn’t have dreamt up a better way to end the summer. Bee, as always, you have my heart and you da best. Can’t wait to adventure with you again. Great Lakes tour next summer?

And in the spirit of celebrating adventures, explore something new today. It’ll be exciting, I promise.

Happy Monday.

The Arizona adventure: the Grand Canyon

It’s hardly a secret I fancy myself a citizen of the world. I think I’ve envisioned my future self living life abroad since I was 14. The reasons for this have evolved over the years, beginning as a fascination with the foreign, becoming a disdain for a nation I saw as narcissistic and arrogant, and, thankfully, eventually maturing into a tensioned appreciation for the absolute gift it is to grow up in this country and the responsibility my citizenship bestows upon me. Still, the closest I come to buying into that “we’re-all-in-this-together” kind of kinship that makes people chant “U-S-A” at length is when I watch the American Olympic swim team out-touch the French in the final relay and I still cringe reflexively when I see “God bless America” bumper stickers plastered all over town. But this summer I had two of those all-American, make-sure-you-packed-a-slice-of-apple-pie experiences and it made me want to wave my flag and tie a yellow ribbon ‘round the old oak tree. The first was a visit to the World Trade Center memorial. The second was a trip to the most magnificent hole in the ground I’ve ever seen: the Grand Canyon.

We spent the day slowly walking the south rim of the canyon. We stopped at every scenic overlook. We stood on the edge. We climbed out on precipices. We absorbed the silence that emanates from the depths. We read the ubiquitous warning signs about how even marathoners die of dehydration and nervously drank copious amounts of water. We hiked a mile and a half down into the canyon and were awed by the extent of its profundity. We heard less English than we ever expected to hear in a day in America. We saw people with bags on their heads. We met a family from Michigan. We took a ridiculous number of pictures. And I somehow managed to pick 19 to show to you. Enjoy one of the seven wonders of the natural world as I saw it.

You’d look weird too if you spent the day getting hit in the face with more natural beauty and friendship than you ever deserved.

Happy Sunday.

The Arizona adventure: Sedona

On the regular, I’m guilty of wounding myself with my own ambition. Like when I decide I can finish all my work for the following week in a single Saturday. Or when I decide my body can in fact run six miles after spending four months doing nothing but sitting in a classroom. Or when I decide my stomach can indeed hold three chocolate chip waffles the size of dinner plates. Or that time I decided I could edit six gigs of photos and videos and compose them into eloquently written blog posts while packing all of my earthly belongings into boxes and suitcases, serving up tacos til close every night of the week, saying good bye to all of my favorites, moving across the state to a new house, and attending orientation at a brand new school. I was obtusely surprised by the difficulty of this task.

But now find myself all moved in and oriented and excited to slather you in Southwestern joy. I promise it won’t be as gross as my verb choice makes it sound (I realize I have full editing control. But sometimes the word your hands blurt out is too silly to take back.).

Are you ready?

A lot of people like to travel. More people like to say they like to travel. Some people love to travel. And a handful of people are obsessed with being on the move.

I thought I liked to travel. Then I did it a bit and realized I loved it. Then I did it a lot and now I’m one of those obsessed people.

I was forced to admit that my infatuation had become extreme when I found myself searching for plane tickets at least once a week. To where? Anywhere. Literally anywhere. In the “from” field in the Sky Scanner search engine I’d put my current city and set the destination to “everywhere” (the inclusion of this option enables the continuation of my preoccupation and is also the best thing in the entire world).

In my free time, I plan trips I never take. You know, because I’m a student and when I’m not a student I’m a waitress and it takes the sale of many fajitas to add up to a plane ticket. But every once in a while, the stars align (read: my bank account is full, I don’t have class, and my shoes are on) and off I go.

Which is what happened in June and led to me flying to Phoenix, Arizona in August.

Phoenix was, until recently, the home of my very best friend, Bee. We met in our sophomore year of college, lived together in the fall of our junior year, went to Denmark that spring, lugged a 50-pound suitcase named Andy through Spain and Italy that April, and spent our senior year basking in the other’s glory. I think she’s the greatest. Also, I’d never seen a saguaro. So a trip to Arizona just made sense.

Since I spent a week there and now have an absolutely ridiculous number of pictures and tried my hand at making a short film of our adventures, I’m splitting the trip up into a few posts. Welcome to the first installment: our excursion to Sedona.

I got into Phoenix on Sunday afternoon and next morning, we hit the road to Northern Arizona. We drove through miles of beautiful desert, stopped off at Montezuma Well, met a wonderful old man named Norm who tried to convince me a rattlesnake statue was real, saw all kinds of red rocks, hiked through the wilderness, stood at the edge of one of the largest sinkholes in North America, walked over Devil’s Bridge, slid down a 50-foot natural water slide, and made more than our fair share of tiny lizard-friends. It was glorious. See for yourself.

Up next: the Grand Canyon. Get pumped.

Happy Friday.

The drought is over. Drink freely of this creative cover.

This might be enough to soften the hearts of even the coldest remaining tablet skeptics.

I apologize for the recent dry spell in this fountain of titillating information and exorbitant amounts of photos. I left you all in a metaphorical desert while I was gallivanting about in the actual desert with my very best friend. It was an artistic choice, really.

But I have returned, riding high on a bounty of adventures and no worse for wear if one disregards the full-body sunburned I acquired, which one finds difficult to do when the burn is concentrated on the back of one’s legs and one is about to embark on a 25-mile bicycle journey with one’s mother and sister. Here’s hoping they mistake my cries of pain for cries of the pleasure that results from being in their company.

In the next couple days, I will attempt to successfully divide my time between editing gobs of pictures, gathering my belongings for transport to Ann Arbor come Monday, and guiding the hungry masses through their burrito ingestion experiences. Look forward to lots of photos of rocks, lizards, and the most grand of all the holes in the ground.

Happy Monday.

P.S. Enjoy a sneak peek of the happiest of all the hikers.
Just kidding. There they are.