Arizona is damn hot

There are a lot of things that are so much different here than at home. For starters, the lanes in road are wider. You don't actually turn in at the business you want, you drive past it an look for the entrance to turn in to the whole strip, that's if you're allowed to turn that direction. There are no suburbs south of Phoenix. The next city is at least 20 minutes away, not just the next town over. It's wierd, but I am getting used to it.

Last weekend Dustin and I drove up Phoenix to see the Diamondbacks play, and to visit his buddy Cervantez. It was great, we left early Saturday, and it didn't take nearly as long as we thought it would, only about 2 1/2 hours. We got there, met Cervantez, who is also know as Alex, and Matt... we went downtown, got some Hooters, got our tickets, and drove over to the capitol building.

A few things about that, we took a picture with a cactus, and Matt looked at us wierd. We forget that these people have been looking at cactus their entire lives. Then we went to the capitol building, which isn't really where any of the work happens. The building on the left is the state senate building, the one on the right is the state HOR building, and the one behind it is the executive building. The capitol building itself is actually just a museum. We were going to go in and check it out, but it was 106 degrees, and we just wanted to go get some water. But before we did that, we stumbled into a sweet military memorial park across the street. It had monuments for each war, for different kinds of servicemen; jewish, catholic, purple heart etc... It was a sweet park that if it weren't nine million degrees we would have spent a lot more time at, it was really a take a picture and read it later kind of thing. But well worth sweating through an entire shirt... heh, it felt like it anyway.

Then we got A LOT of fluids, threw them back and went into the DBacks game. It was a very nice stadium. It reminded me a lot of Houston. It had a retractable roof, thank God. It was 104 outside, but a cool 78 inside, which was especially good since it was a late afternoon game. Ubaldo Jimenez was pitching for Colorado, which means I have now seen all the pitchers who have thrown a no-hitter this season; Dallas Braden, Armando Gallaraga, Edwin Jackson, Roy Halladay, and now Jimenez. We also got some good seats, since they weren't that expensive, and we got free mini stadiums of their spring training stadium opening next spring. It was a good game, the DBacks won 3-1, and it's another cap on the wall. We were going to go to Cooperstown after to get a beer, so walked past the Suns' stadium, and up to Cooperstown. It was quite a letdown. Kinda dirty, small, and not very cool at all. We waited about 5 minutes for a beer before I looked at D and Matt and said, "Bail?" They agreed quickly, and we headed back to Matt's house for some boozing.

We drank all night with Matt, his girlfriend Milly, his sister Kari (who we later found out isn't his sister at all), Koda, Wonky, and Jose. It was awesome, we drank a lot, played some pool, ate a whole box of Cheezits, and just had fun. We woke up in the morning, and hung out for a while before heading back to Sierra Vista, but not before stopping at Whataburger, of course. Another awesome weekend in Arizona.

Good goes to Great.

Last weekend Dustin and I went out drinking on Friday. We went to the bar we bounce at, Dillon's, then we went to the local strip bar, Dusk Till Dawn.

Saturday we went out to Bisbee, which was awesome. We had a tour scheduled at the Queen Mine. It's really involved. You have to put on a hard hat and rain coat and they give you a flashlight. then you get on a little train, and go into the mine. It's one of the world's most successful copper mines, producing over 8 billion pounds of copper until it closed in 1975. So in we go, and at 1400 feet inside, you go into the Southwest mine, and they show you how everything works, from drilling, to blasting to hauling. Interestingly, when they brought mules down to haul the stuff out, the mules stayed in underground stables, but they all died blind. Then they bring you into a large room where you can see all the ore deposits. Then you come back out. It's really an awesome tour, and we both really enjoyed it.

We left the tour and went to the Old Bisbee Brewing Company. They had some really good beers. A belgian whitbier, a good pale ale, and their signature Copper City Ale. They also sell a 64 ounce jug that you can fill with beer to go. Dustin got one, we drank it that night. While we were at the brewery, we met some locals who told us a little about the city, including a water fall that only flows during this time of year just outside of downtown. So, naturally, we went to check that out.

We got there, and it was beautiful. We decided to head up the "trail" to the top. Well, the trail lasts about 100 feet, then you are basically rock climbing. But we did it anyway. We got higher and higher until we reached a point where shoes were doing us no good. So we took them off. There was a point that was not as easy to climb. I lost my footing, and fell about 25 feet. But I caught myself, and kept going. We got to a point where we couldn't go much higher, and enjoyed the view until Dustin realized the sun has started going down, and it was going to be a bitch to get back down. So we found our shoes, and started back down. The rocks were loose in spots, I missed one, and feel into the rock and into the water. That one gave me a mean bruise on my knee. But I made it back down. Everything on both of us was wet. We were, um, not at all prepared to climb it, but we made the best of it. So went back into the city to find the people that told us about it, and were unsuccessful, but we did notice a neat little nightlife in Bisbee. And that's how a random trip to Bisbee for a mine tour turned into an awesome adventure.