A few highlights from the long weekend! This is part 3 of 4 parts.

Saturday

• Seeing a beautiful sunrise. I was up so early I decided to go out the front door and watch the sunrise, then ended up walking about a mile away from the house to try to see it. I never got a good photo because there was always a highway or buildings blocking it, but it was enjoyable to see it change. The colors are so vivid here.
• Visiting two little free libraries to hide rocks.
• Dropping off postcards.
• Hiding our friend Danny’s rock at a place called Danny’s Downtown Barber Shop.

• Picking up and eating our vegan donuts at Donut Bar! We got an apple fritter, a strawberry one (see photo above! I cannot even describe it), and chocolate sprinkles. They were all delicious and strawberry was my favorite.
• Talking to Mary, at Donut Bar. She was such a sweet lady! When we went in to order the day before she had her grandkids and son there and it was was just… so sweet and endearing. We asked her how they started the business – it was actually a franchise when they opened before the pandemic and is now just family owned – the franchise went away. It turns out Mary is ALSO from Iowa (Sioux City) so I thought that was really fun! She said she is a Hawkeyes fan and I made a joke about getting up to leave since I went to the rival school (but actually don’t care but think the rivalry is funny to play in to). I left her a painted rock and she loved it then gave us all stickers. I put mine in my water bottle. And also added one from the national park the day before, and a rock painting one Tiff gave me, so now it has five on it! I feel so hip!
• Getting chais at Dutch Bros. It was my first time going! And it was quite windy and cool out and a warm chai totally hit the spot!
• Driving on Mt Lemmon Scenic Byway through Coronado National Forest and up to the top of the mountain!

• Seeing all the different vegetation! We knew it was going to change from cacti at the bottom to pine and fir trees at top but it was still amazing to drive through that all, in under an hour! Anytime I see a mountain or big hill I am used to it having trees, not cacti, so that was really interested. And they are all spread out just so since water is scarce. It looks so neat!

• Stopping at the beautiful vista and admiring the rock formations. Ahh! it was still so windy and cool though! And people were out climbing! Nutso!

• Seeing snow at the top! Tiff lives in LA an hadn’t seen snow in years so we made her take a photo standing on it, ha!
• Trying Noodies for lunch. They make fresh pasta! I had a tomato basil bucatini (I think?) and an arugula salad and it was good and fresh. Not life changing or anything, but good!
• Hiding a rock a the University of Arizona and someone telling me that night that they found it!
• Painting and doing an Instagram Live. We did this when we were all together in April and enjoyed it, and did again!
• Eating part of that donut and some leftover fried pickles after our Live. So good.

• Filming a pretend informercial (reel) about neck lamps. Val gave me one of these neck lamps this summer and it’s so useful for night painting, so she also brought one for Tiff and we though it would be pretty funny to make a pretend reel about it. There were so many funny bloopers – like Val throwing a rock (on purpose) then hitting the paper light pendant (not on purpose – it was fine!) but thinking she hit one of us, because I was on the floor laughing so hard I was crying. Good times.

• Taking rock photos outside and seeing a beautiful sunset!
• Going to Historic Fourth Avenue for dinner. We ended up at Magpies and I had one of the best pizzas of my life. It had oil and garlic, basil, tomato, spinach, and vegan cheese. It sounds simple but it was just that – so simple and fresh and the crust was AMAZING! I could not stop talking about how good it was! We had a lovely time chatting at dinner too (and, well, the entire trip, ha).
• Finishing that amazing strawberry donut when I got back to the Airbnb.
• Packing when we got back. It always feels good to get that started I just spread my stuff everywhere and was feeling a bit chaotic! And because the rooms in this house are connected we could open all the doors and chat while we packed.

Lowlights

• Being tired and out of it since I got so little sleep! I was just running a bit on E and could not form sentences or think of words (wait, is that unusual?!).
• Having to throw a pair of jeans away – but also a highlight because it made more room in my luggage! The jeans had a small hole in the crotch when I flew here but doing my leg exercises on the plane stretched it out! So I was happy to throw them out. Maybe they would be too big for me in a few months anyway. (Also random and related to clothes – I threw an extra pair of shorts in my bag at the last minute and used neither pair!)
• Feeling sad it was our last day! I tried really hard not to feel this way! I will see Tiff in LA next month and we are all already planning out summer get together. And I might be in Denver in August and get to see Val then.