Going to the field...

Nothing exciting to post. I'm going "to the field" today and will be there until Friday, Oct. 3. Basically, all the Marines are practicing the things they to day-to-day, so we just get to hang out and take care of any medical issues that arise.

I may smell quite ripe after it's all said and done, but that's OK, because next weekend will be fun, as Tally's cousin Amber is coming to visit.

In the meantime, I can only hope the Twins hold on for the playoffs and that 96-year-old Gus Frerotte's body holds up enough to give the Vikings a win over the Texans this weekend.

Potpourri

First of all, way to go Vikings. I don't get their game as the usual "noon" game out here in Cali, which is probably a good thing, considering they should now be 2-0 and atop the NFC Central, but instead are 0-2.

We went to see Jason Mraz in concert last night. Pretty good show. He only played about half the songs of his that I know, but that was OK. He and his band are excellent, and he is a wonderful singer live, which is something many acts cannot claim. Overall, Tally and I gave it 6.5 out of 10 cacti.

We decided it was time to get new dining room furniture. I have never had my own dining room furniture, so we have always used the set that Tally originally picked up at KMart when she got her first apartment. It was fine, but the chairs were pretty flimsy, and most of them had cracked. So, I got up early one morning, hooked up the mules, and went up to the great conifer forests of Northern California. The result was new dining room furniture by the end of the day.

Finally, I want to pass along a website that Tally discovered. I saved this for the end because I didn't want its pure and unabashed ridiculousness to envelop the prior sections of this post. The website is: http://www.yearbookyourself.com/. I have not played around on here yet, but basically, you insert your face into the "classic" yearbook looks from various decades. It's pretty funny.

Sedona and Grand Canyon

So...we actually did a little more travelling over the holiday weekend, since Tally hasn't started her teaching job yet, and I was off until Wednesday and noon. For those of you outraged at my five-day weekend, let me explain: You can thank the United States Marine Corps. On holiday weekends, they are very adept at turning nice breaks into huge breaks. All of the holiday weekends are either referred to as a "72" or a "96", meaning the number of hours the "liberty" is. Liberty in the military is time that you just have off--you don't have to burn any of your leave. Labor day weekend is a "96". I knew we were getting off at noon on Friday, so adding four days (96 hours) to that, I thought we'd be back at work at noon on Tuesday. However, apparently that was not enough of a break. The "96" must refer to the number of full days off, because we didn't have to be back until Wednesday at noon. Pretty cool, huh?

Anyhoo, after the Wienerschnitzel fiasco (see previous posts), we decided to go through Phoenix to stay in scenic Sedona and visit the Grand Canyon. I always pictured Arizona as pure desert, but that's not even close to the case. Much of Arizona is desert, but much of central Arizona is mountainous, with a lot of trees, and, of course, the northern part contains the Grand Canyon.

As I mentioned, we decided to stay in Sedona (http://www.visitsedona.com/). I had driven through it on my way out here. It is very scenic because of its mountainous terrain and because much of the terrain is very pretty red rock. I'll attach some pictures of the Grand Canyon and one I tried to take at Sedona (they may not show up that well).

If you've never been to the Grand Canyon, it's amazing. We only went for a little while, as we had the dogs and it was kind of chilly. I'd love to go back for a more extended period of time in the future to do some hiking, camping, and rafting. I'm not sure if I can talk Tally into all that, though. Hmmm....maybe if I tell her there's a Gap at the bottom with a good sale. Just kidding, honey.

On the way back from the Grand Canyon, winding down into the valley where Sedona is, we came across tons of people parking their cars along the narrow road. Many had their swimsuits on. There was a small creek winding through the canyon, but it was very shallow, and we couldn't figure out what was going on. I asked someone back in town, and they told me that they were going to Slide Rock State Park (http://azstateparks.com/Parks/SLRO/index.html). Apparently, there is a natural waterslide carved into the red rock.

On the way home, we wound up a mountainside and stopped in this cool small town called Jerome, AZ (http://www.azjerome.com/). It used to be a mining town, but has been reborn with a lot of cool shops, restaurants, etc. Very touristy, but cool.