Life in Phoenix

 The summer in Phoenix was exceedingly hot for us. It almost always rose above 100F, but it was common to be above 110 and on many occasions it was greater than 115. And at night it often didn't dip below 100, and certainly not below 90F. But we managed to get through it. In fact, I continued running on days that weren't "too" hot, and I found I could mtn bike okay as long as I was finished before it got above 103 or so. So I actually did quite a lot of mountain biking in the area. Besides all the mountain biking that I did and a fair amount of cheap Mexico style taco eating, here is a random assortment of the fun things we did.

-Climbed Piestawa Peak for Sunset
-Peralta Trail to Fremont Saddle with views of Weaver's Needle
-Tubing down the Salt River
-Visit to the Arizona Museum of Natural History
-Elisha's mom visited (though I was mostly working in the field)
-Hike to the Wave Cave
-Summited Shaw Butte for sunset
-Putt Putt at Castles and Coasters
-Got both of our Pfizer Covid vaccines at the ASU basketball arena
-Summited Lookout Mountain for Sunset
-House sitting for Dan and Kendra with their cute cats, pool, and great access to mt bike trails
-Watched some amazing lightning shows
-Wake surfing with Dan and Kendra
-Mom treated us to some very fancy dinner nights out to Scottsdale for our birthdays

We also did a bit of traveling around the state.

We visited Tucson 3 times

May 7-9
where we celebrated cinco de mayo, hung out with Grandma, Buddy, Mom, and Mary, and visited to Sonoran Desert Museum. I also biked the RailX Ranch/Honeybee mtn bike loop.

Aug 13-15
More visiting with the family, but also visited with Zach and Cody (friends from UF) and played spikeball with them and went to a Queen Laser show at the University of Arizona Planetarium. The monsoon had really been strong so the desert was incredibly green and the rivers were really flowing. We did a great hike in Catalina State Park to a waterfall. It involved several river crossings and with the green Catalina mountains in the background, we felt as though we could have been in Hawaii. Another highlight were the 2 baby hummingbirds in the nest on grandma's patio, right next to where we all sit. The food and partying is also always A+ when with the halbachs

Aug 20-22
We couldn't get enough of the green desert so we came back for more. We drove up to the summit of refreshing Mount Lemmon, and we each ate one of the famous and large cookies from the cookie hut up there. We even saw some columbines. We hiked to 7 falls, to swim in the pools beneath the falls. Again it was so beautiful with the green desert and all the river crossings we had to navigate. We watched a shark show at the UA planetarium and walked a bit around the campus.

We also spent a quick camping weekend in Flagstaff. 

9/18
We visited Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, where we did a short hike around the pretty volcanic area. We also visited Wupatki National Monument which is home to ancient dwellings from the Pueblo people. They were definitely cool to see

9/19
We climbed the highest mountain in Arizona, Humphreys Peak. It's a giant volcano that sits at 12,635 feet, which is quite the elevation change from the 1,086 feet of Phoenix. It was a fun climb, but incredibly, incredibly windy at the top. On the way home we drove through the towns of Strawberry and Payson to check them out.

Elisha also stayed with me on a couple of my research trips, one to Yuma and one to Flagstaff.

We also were lucky and spent a couple of weekends in Boise

May 28-31 for my Birthday where I got to hang out with Sherman and Yosh, and we started to get into Spikeball

Sept 24-26th again to visit Sherman.  On both trips Sherman and Emily treated us like royalty.