Author: laurie

We are safely out near Pasadena, California. We are part of the Escapees HOP (Head Out Program) for the Rose Bowl parade. We have a week of fun and activities planned with the group. Today was the first big event and we were up early on the bug and headed to AES in Pasadena to help decorate some floats. We had no idea what was in store for us. We got the introduction and then were taken in groups to our assigned stations. We would be working on the AgPHD float for the morning. Everyone rolled up their sleeves and got ready for some STICKEE fun. We would be working with silver leaf. It is a leaf that had a silver appearance not he floats. We had to trim the leaves to take out the bulky stem and then put a first layer of a glue called STICKEE! It was very sticky!Bucket and buckets of these leaves created us at our station! We got to work and had a nice system going with our little family.
We got pulled off the line and were put to work at the next station, glueing the silver leaf on the actual float! We were excited. The task was cumbersome. Breighton got fired fairly quickly but it wasn’t his fault. He went back with Grandma and Grandpa and cut and glued more leaf. Mom, Dad and Emmerson stuck it out and stuck stuff on the float. We had to put it on a specific way. It was very well orchestrated. Except the part we had to start with required that we were tiny, limber and didn’t mind being STICKEE! Thankfully Emmerson was small enough to get the hard to reach places. Soon we got the pace and skills down. We were asked to train the next group! Oh wow, promoted already! We got to take a break and then go tour the workshop. We got to see some other projects that they were working on at AES. We also got to see the floats for the parade. They had several they were working on. I wish we had the putting the seeds on task but the leaf was a great memory. The silver leaf process finally kicked into high gear and it started flying up the silo. E made a buddy, Mr. Joe! Mr Joe and E had a system for decorating and became friends quickly!Back on the bus and everyone was exhausted! One out of place photo from Grandma! Someone actually got a photo of Mom working in the small spaces.Back at the campground for the afternoon. Some down time whittling with our new pocket knives while mom does…. LAUNDRY!

We earned our Jr. Ranger badges for the park and took another oath. We spent he day with Grandma and Grandpa too. We drove the 4×4 road and got to climb on rocks all over the park. It was a super bumpy road and Grandpa drove it very well! Can you find me in the photo below!? I am a monkey and part goat Mom thinks! I bet you can see us now!?More spot the children games. It was so peaceful out not he road. No-one was out there. It was just the 5 of us and nature. You could hear the wind blow. It was awesome! Back to the main part of the park and to Barker’s Dam. We saw a few big horn sheep. Breighton’s filmed some Indian Jones type videos. Mom just took photos and climbed rocks. Mom did discover some canterberry bells tucked between some rocks. It was so strange to see such blue color in the winter. The park staff said it is very unusual to see them!  Grandma and Grandpa with a Joshua Tree. Well it is time to move on in the morning towards Pasadena, California. We cracked our Christmas crackers a bit late but enjoyed the crowns and silly prizes!

We saw lots of these funny road messages on the way from Tucson to Joshua Tree national Park.

Ho-Ho-Hold Down Your Speed

Santa’s Watching!I killed time by making the back all tidy and neat. Mom said I make too much of a mess when we are driving. This time I kept it neat. We arrived and headed into the park for some exploring with Dad. We loved the rocks. These ones looked like monkeys. We climbed and climbed and got stuck a few times. It took me a while to figure out how to get up there. I would a beautiful juniper tree tucked into the rocks. I made it my fort. The Joshua trees are amazing. They grow in really weird ways and look like little tufts of trees. Almost out of a Dr. Seuss book! Christmas came as usual. Amazing how Santa found us on the road. The elves toilet papered the tree, like normal. We didn’t have a big Christmas but we did get some really fun things. A few lego sets, arts and crafts and nerf guns!

We spent one afternoon and evening at Kitt Peak Observatory. It was extremely cold out on the mountain and just kept getting chillier. The birds didn’t seem to mind. They were very friendly. We went with out tour group to watch the sunset from the peak. It was an amazing sunset but the winds picked up and the temperatures dropped fast. We spent the evening learning about the stars. We got to participate in a night time viewing. The winds whipped every time the dome moved. We all were shivering and freezing. We had a lot of fun seeing the heavens above. We even got hot cocoa and a nice dinner with out evening tickets. It was really neat to see the amount of research that is preformed at the observatory. 

We slept in a little since we didn’t get home until super late from he observatory. Mom took us to Sabino Canyon for the day. We loved hiking the trails at the visitors center. They had an amazing cristate cactus. We earned a National Forest Services Sabino Canyon badge for doing a very hard scavenged hunt on the trails. They we bought tickets for the canyon tram. We opted for just riding the tram instead of doing more hiking. We enjoyed some prickly pear cactus lollipops while we learned about the area. I really wish we had more jackets with us. It was cold when the tram got rolling. It was weird to see hardwoods in the desert. They grew along the base on the canyon. We learned about a 15 yea old boy that got lost int he canyon and the police came to rescue him. Deputy Anderson died trying to rescue the boy. The photographer and journalist covering the story was Mr. Sabino, who the canyon is now named after.

The next day we visited University of Arizona. We wandered the campus, which was on break, and checked out the bookstore. We made our way to the Mirror Lab on campus for a tour to see the construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope lenses. There will be 7 lenses when they are done. The telescope will be constructed in South America. We watched part of the polishing process on the concave mirrors. It was quite a process! It was neat to see all the parts of the telescope lenses and how they are built. After our tour we drove up Mt. Lemon Scenic Byway. The views were amazing! We enjoyed hiking out on some of the trails to find snow to play in.

Tomorrow we say goodbye to Tucson! A place we will come back to someday! The campground was tiny but perfect for us. We had a game room to play in while Dad worked. Mom could do laundry and shoot pool and hang out with us too.

We arrived in Tucson and headed out to explore Saguaro National Park. We found a short hike not he way into the park to get familiar with the local flora and fauna. It was cold, so no real animals were around. I INSISTED when we got out of the car the I was fine without my jacket. I quickly changed my mind and made Mom give up hear sweatshirt.

We learned about all the different cactus in the area. We really loved the Teddy Bear Cholla. I’d hate to bump into this at night! We learned about the cactus wren and how it makes it’s home in the saguaros. This is one of the nests after the cactus died. It was really like a scab in the tree. We earned out Jr. Ranger badges and also saw a kid who walked backwards into a cactus! Boy was he in pain and full of pokey things. We explored the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. It was more of a botanical and animal place but they still called it a museum. I loved all he states as always. My favorite place was the hummingbird aviary. There were SO many different kinds of cactus! The roadrunners were super cute! The cougar was upset that some people were banging on his window and he lunged and scared them all away. We went back later after he was calmed back down and said hello. We say petroglymps in the eastern side of Saguaro National Park. It was near how both sides of the park were so different.

The next day we went to the International Wildlife Museum. We knew the word museum meant nothing would be alive. They boasted hundreds of animals. We were optimistic. We started with a great introduction to Theodore Roosevelt and then rooms learning about taxidermy. Everything was stuffed and mounted. Some were really neat like the birds of paradise. Other were frighteningly realistic.

Then came the hall of heads. There were hundreds of mounted animal heads!!! It was terrifying! The room was HUGE! We survived the room and then the mountain of goats and sheep. It was a bit weird that one room had laser Christmas lights and was all decorated. How strange. It was a lot of fun but a bit on the creepy side.