Greetings from the Desert!

Tuesday, Feb 5th: Flight from Omaha to Phoenix
I must say that traveling can be stressful at times. The worst part is packing because no matter how much preperation I put into it, I always think I forget something. Yesterday, I got off work alittle later than I wanted. I was suppose to get off around 4pm so I could go home and finish up some packing. Well, I didn't get out of the office until close to 5pm and it had been snowing pretty hard all day long. I was alittle worried that my flight was going to get delayed or cancelled but more on that alittle later in this post. I arrived to the Omaha airport around 6:30pm to check in and check one of my bags. I did the normal routine and put my bag up on the scale to see how much it weighed. I knew it was heavy and close to the 50lbs limit (Southwest Airlines Policy) but I soon found out that I was 3lbs over the limit. Shoot!!! So, now I had to take something out to get it down to 50lbs. To make a long story short, I took out my hiking boots and WALLA, it was 3lbs worth of luggage. Ok, now my bag that I checked was good to go and I received my boarding pass so I'm all clear to get on my flight. Before I passed thru security I got myself a small personal pan pizza from Godfathers for dinner. The weather forecast said that more snow was coming after 8pm which so happens to be around the time my flight takes off. But the airline crew worked hard to get us out of Omaha before the storm picked up. This flight was pretty bare because I noticed that only 50 passengers boarded the plane which is only 1/3 of what the plane could hold (137 passengers is the planes capacity). So needless to say I had a whole row of seats to myself. I met a guy on the plane who was from the Omaha area and he was going to Phoenix to visit his brother. He was a nice guy and we talked quite a bit. We had alot in common and I found out he banks with Wells Fargo. Don't worry I didn't try to sell him anything but maybe a credit card. haha! I even gave him my business card. :) It was good to meet someone on my first of several flights and I'm sure I will meet more people as my trip goes on. During the flight the attendant came around and asked if I would like something to drink and I ordered a Bud Light. It was $4, what a rip but how often do you get to drink a beer on a plane. After awhile I drank my entire beer and turned on the call light to get her attention so I could get another one. Without even asking she came straight to my seat with another full beer. I was impressed! As I started to give her the money she insisted that this one was on her. That was really nice of her. I also brought along my friends, Mike and Cathi's, Portable DVD player to watch a few movies during my flights. I watched "1408" during this flight. It was a pretty good movie and this was my first time watching a movie on the airplane. And just when I thought my flight was going pretty good, I noticed my beer was empty. The flight attendant came by again and asked if I wanted another one? I said, Sure why not? I mean I'm on vacation, right? When she came back with the full can of Bub Light I held out my money and once again she instisted that I didn't have to pay. So, since she was being so nice, I at least gave her a tip to show my apprecation. I had a total of 3 beers on this flight. By this time we were approaching Phoenix so we had to prepare for landing. The flight into PHX was beautiful with all the city lights at night. Once I landed I met my Uncle and then we headed to his house. To end the night him and I sat in his jacuzzi for alittle bit and talked about anything and everything. I really enjoyed the conversations. After the hot tub action, it was time for bed since I was so tired from traveling and stressing about what to bring. Overall it was a good day.

Wednesday, Feb 6th: Quading in the Desert/Dinner with Lindy
This day my uncle and I were going to go riding his quads in the desert. We got up around 7:30am to start getting everything loaded up. I had been looking forward to this day for several months because the last time I was down here we took the quads out and it was so much fun. Once we were done getting everything loaded up we headed for the place we were going to ride at. It was a quick 1 hour trip to get to the offroading park which was a National Park. Once we got there it was on! We started them up and away we went. Some parts were muddy and some were really dry but nothing could stop us. There was no one out there so it was nice to have the whole park to ourselves. We rode pretty far into the trails and it was beautiful. We stopped for lunch about an hour into the ride. My Uncle had packed a lunch with a sandwich, gronola bar, cheese stick, and almonds for both of us. After lunch we went to what he called, "The Indy Trails". Basically this trail is like a race track but with sand. The sand curves up on turns just like a real race track has turns. It was really fun and the trails in this area get alittle narrow because the rocks are so close to each other but its just the right size for Quads to fit thru. We rode on these trails for awhile and then decided to head back to the truck to go home. But first I wanted to climb up this rock that I had climbed when I was down here before. Supposely PHX has been getting alot of rain this winter and that has caused the rivers to flood. The Salt River that runs next to this place had risen so much that it covered trails to where we once were able to climb up this rock that I want to get up to. So, we started pushing ourselves thru the weeds and trees. It smelled like a rain forest or swamp because of all the moisture and muddy waters. Finally, we made our way to the top of this rock, which really isn't that tall of a climb, probably 400 feet in the air. The view was incredible up there and I took some pics of it too. There are these set of rocks next to this rock that we were on which are called, Needle Point, basically they look like Needles sticking out of the water. Pretty neat! When we climbed back down we rode to the truck to load up and then headed back.

On our way home we stopped at an A&W fast food place to get a root beer float. They told us they ran out of ice cream but it will be about 10 mins til its ready to serve. And then they tell us they are out of Root Beer but we could substitute Pepsi with it. At this point, we said screw it and left. Isn't that their signature item for their buisness....come on now, you can't run out of a Root Beer when you're called A&W. So we went next door to Starbucks and had a few latte's.

Later, we went over to Lindy's house for dinner. Lindy is my uncle's girlfriend. My uncle cooked up some steaks and we had a very nice dinner. After dinner we sat outside around the fire pit. It was a rather chilly night for PHX. The temp was around 40 degrees but the fire made up for it. It has been unseasonally cool down here the past couple weeks but its in the 60's during the day. It was around 8pm when my uncle and I left her house and decided to hit up a show at the casino in town. Lindy had to get up for work the next day so she decided to get some sleep. The show was called "Showstoppers Live" and it had impersonators for Elvis, Tim McGraw, The Temptations, The Blues Brothers, and a comedian put on a skit. It was actually pretty good, I'm glad I went.

The show got over and I wanted to met up with my friend from college who lived down here. Her name is Jen. The bar she was at was on the way home from the casino so I had my uncle drop me off. The bar looked like a dive on the outside but was just your typical average bar on the inside. I asked Jen if its a possible that I might get shot? She laughed and said, "You don't have anything to worry about". The bar is called, "Big Fish Pub". They had live music and a dance floor for people to show their moves. My friend's sister was painting pictures at this bar which is something I've never seen at bars back home. So that was neat to see. Jen and I haven't seen each other in almost two years so it was nice to catch up with her. We talked about a lot of different things but mostly about our Australia trip coming up. Keep in mind we didn't plan to go over there together at the same time but it just happened to work out that way. This is what's so cool about my trip. It really shows you that its a small world. The live band was really good and the lead singer was a girl who was born and raised in Omaha. Her name is Meredith. I talked to her for alittle while and she was a really cool down to earth chick with dreadlocks, yep she had some major dreadlocks. The bars in PHX close a 2am so when the bar closed, Jen and I went out to get into her car to start getting it warmed up. It was so cold out that night. I couldn't believe how cold it got but there is no snow which is good. Before we left the bar we decided we were going to hit up IHOP for an early breakfast and we were going to meet up with Jen's sister and her friends. But before we went to IHOP, we stopped at a gas station to get some hot chocolate to warm ourselves up. It sure helped a ton. We finally got to IHOP and it's about 3am but it doesn't matter because we are all having a good time. (Just alittle side note: there was no drinking and driving because Jen only had two drinks at the bar and she was ok to drive, just wanted to make that clear) Jen and I ordered some breakfast special they had and we split it. Her sisters friends were a fun group and we had some laughs. After we ate our breakfast and paid the bill, I ran out to start the car to start getting it warm. We then headed towards my Uncles house so Jen could drop me off. Let me say it wasn't an easy task. I really didn't know where I was going other than we had to get off on "Ray Rd" from the interstate. We got lost several times and finally after so many wrong turns I finally recognized some familar places near my uncles house. At this point we were both exhausted and just ready for bed. So, we found the house and Jen dropped me off and then she drove home. This was around 4:30am. This night was fun and I'm glad I got to see what the night life was like here in Phoenix. Once I got in bed I fell asleep right away.

That's all for now!