Part III: Phoenix

Oh!  We reach the end of the trip recap today.  It is not far short of a miracle that I crammed five full days' worth of Arizona into three posts.  Well, I guess I shouldn't toot that horn too loudly, considering I posted small but important details (grapefruit! baseball!) every day I was away, hmm?

We move on.

As mentioned, the last part of my trip was spent in Phoenix with Nathalia and her husband.  His parents live there, and as soon as I began mumbling on this very blog about a spring break destination, Nat and her husband (M, as he is known on her blog!) said they would fly to Arizona for the weekend to coincide with my trip (and some birthdays in the family!).  I worried initially that I would be horning in on their family time, and their response was of the "don't you dare get a hotel room" variety.  I should've known then - but it was shown to me over and over through the weekend that they were the most gracious hosts possible and welcomed me into their home so kindly.

On Saturday morning, the ladies went to hummingbird class at the Desert Botanical Gardens!  Truth be told, I knew very little about hummingbirds before my trip, but it turns out that Arizona is a major birding mecca, with tons of both native species and bird migration routes that crisscross the state. I had figured that this class would be a fun way to putter around the garden for the morning and, yes, see some more cacti up close.

It turned out to be way more intense and way cooler than that.  The first two hours were filled (rapidly!) by a lecture given by this enthusiastic, passionate guy who knew everything in the world, I think, about hummingbirds.  I loved it.  I used to talk about a great professor I had by saying he was an expert on one country in the world and loved that country so much that by the time you finished a semester in that class, you couldn't help but love it, too.  Is that the mark of a great teacher?  If so, this hummingbird expert totally fit the bill.  (Ha!  A hummingbird bill!)

Nat, her mother-in-law and I spent the rest of the weekend sprinkling facts about hummingbirds into our conversations with the rest of the family.  (I'm sure they loved it.)  Did you know, for example, that hummingbirds' hearts beat around 1,000 times per minute during the day, but at night, they enter a state in which their heart rate drops to as low as 50 beats per minute.  (It's called torpor!)  It would be like if your resting heart rate was 80 beats per minute and at night it slowed to three or four beats per minute.  Crazy, right?  I could go on and on.  And did you know that the hummingbird's only natural predator is a roadrunner?

Then we all went into the gardens and practiced identifying the hummingbirds cruising around in their U-shaped flight pattern.  Natty and I got a little distracted by the flora.  There were lots of cacti.  Even heart-shaped cacti!!

And then here's a quick summary of the rest of our time in the garden.  We got to walk through the butterfly garden exhibit (the top left photo below) which was cool and misty and jam-packed full of butterflies fluttering around.  The whole experience was so much fun and I am super grateful to Nat's mother-in-law for arranging the morning!

The other activity I really want to mention from my weekend in Phoenix was the trip Nat and I took on Sunday morning to hike at Saguaro Lake, maybe 45 minutes outside the city.  Even the drive itself was gorgeous and gave me a teeny hint of what it might be like to see the red rocks of the Grand Canyon.

And then we got there, and it was a full-fledged recreation area - with a real lake!

Our hike was pretty low-key.  We stopped often to examine the trail's flora.  Like this time, when Nat picked up a prickly pear cactus paddle.  (Did you know you can cut them up and saute them, and they taste like a regular old green vegetable?)

In many aspects, Natty and I are cut from the same cloth.  We both love, for example, to poke around and explore.  We were apparently checking out this prickly pear bloom for so long that a passerby asked us if we had dropped our rings in the cactus. (?)

But really!  Can you blame us?  So pretty!

And here is my photo collage from our hike.  I should pause here to thank Picasa for this magnificent feature, which is saving you from scrolling through 600,000 huge photos because I can't choose which ones to include.

Then we had a birthday party with their extended family, and then I hopped on a (very full) red-eye flight back to Minneapolis.  I was so tuckered out that I managed to sleep the whole way, which is unheard-of plane conduct for me.

I can't say enough how special the time we spent together was.  It was my first time seeing Nat and her husband since my two trips to California this summer (the latter for their wedding!).  I feel so fortunate that we have been able to share new experiences like hummingbird class and shaved ice at Bahama Buck's and going down a slide intended primarily for use by youths at a steak restaurant.  (No photos exist of that!)  She - and her families, old and new - are just great. I don't think we will have the luxury of living in the same time zone any time soon, but I look forward to many future adventures together.