One thing I love about living in Arizona is the opportunity for a great road trip.  Phoenix may sit in the middle of the desert surrounded by a whole lot of nothing, but that nothing can look  beautiful in the passenger-side window, driving to one of the many destinations within a day’s reach.
Last weekend, our friends flew into Phoenix from Jackson, Mississippi and we hopped in the Prius and headed to Vegas!  I love driving a route I’ve never traveled, seeing all of the beauty this country has to offer, and indulging in any spontaneous side-trip.  We drove through Joshua Trees, enormous red rocks and plateaus, and stopped at the Hoover Dam to take a full tour.  Our tour came complete with an eccentric guide who didn’t fall short when it came to inserting some dam jokes into every opportunity.  Neither did I.

Then, we arrived at our destination… Las Vegas!  And, well, I guess that’s all the detail I’ll divulge, because you know what they say.
I will note that Drew and I did not lose as much as we had last September during our first trip, mostly because I did far less gambling.  Just call me the cooler.

Our road back was just as eventful, as we stopped on the side of the road for an overlook and saw a river at the bottom.  We decided to drive down to the water, and on the way we encountered a herd of big-horn sheep by the side of the winding road.  When everyone in the car started gasping, I was the last to notice.  They stood and stared at us as we parked and stared at them.  I’d never seen anything like it outside of a zoo.  Then, they went on their way up a hill and we continued down to the water to catch the sunset.  That’s why I love road trips.  It’s those unexpected moments when you follow a trail or climb a rock or chase a river, only to see something you may have never seen before in your life.  I’ll end with one final photo we took after getting back to Phoenix, taken at Papago Park overlooking the city.

Okay, it’s that time of year when we thin-blooded Arizonans get laughed at by our Northern counter-parts.  Because IT. IS. COLD.

I know this may not seem like a wintery high temp to most people, but look at those lows! It still amazes me that the temperature can change nearly 30 degrees from sun up to sun down.  Despite my D.C upbringing the sundowns are killing me.  But, if I think I’m unmotivated to get out from underneath my covers in the morning and brave the crisp, cold air of day, I need only look to my poor, Florida-born husband, who has been sleeping in long sleeves and a hoodie for the past week.

We have packed our outdoor pipes with towels so they won’t burst (which they often do around here because the desert just doesn’t have the infastructure for freezing weather) and our neighbors have bundled up their cacti for the season.

 It may be easy to laugh.  I know 25 degrees is nothing compared to the negative-somethings that so many other people must bear.  It may be easy to call us wimps, to tell us to toughen up, and in times like these it’s all we hear from the rest of the country, but to that I respond:

I go running in triple digits.

Give me 75 degrees and I’ll wear jeans and drink a hot latte.  When it’s 106 we’re outside hiking and playing sports when most would pass out.  Yes, we wear camel-backs and drink 2 liters to most people’s 12 ounces of water, and lather on SPF 80, but I’ll take all of that any day over this. Brr!

I am now 4 months into my new job and even though I left the news business, I can’t seem to stay out of the media.  Our communications department is a unique one, with positions new to the government workforce, but I foresee others following quickly.  It’s exciting not only for those of us on the digital communications team, but the local media and other municipalities are showing interest too.  Last month, we got an article in the Gilbert Republic.
This week, we had another article in Go Gilbert Magazine, with a spotlight on my position.  It’s weird to be on the other side of the interview.  You can read the full article in their online edition of the magazine here.

Originally, I thought life in the government sector would be far slower than it was working in news, but I’m actually finding it very exciting.  I’m about to embark on my first business trip to Chicago to shoot a video on an economic development project, and I just wrapped up an extensive project on the town’s new Mission, Vision, and Values where our department created a video, posters, logos, and re-branded the town’s appearance.  This is the first long video I’ve created so far, (by long I mean 7 minutes, which in news time is a century) and I learned how to create all of the graphics to go with it.  I know it’s not Spielberg or anything, but it’s a start, right?

Our stomachs are stuffed and we’re getting ready for our first holiday season in Gilbert.  We spent Thanksgiving with friends and family, and a TON of food.  I was glad to be able to take home just as many leftovers too! 
I was also glad to be able to say Happy Thanksgiving to my family back East, with the help of facetime.  Now, according to the rules of society and strict rules of my husband, I can officially start thinking about Christmas.

Living in Arizona, I do find it a little hard to get into the holiday spirit.  It just doesn’t feel right to sing “Let it Snow” when you’re 99.9% sure that it will not.  Sure, we’re all wearing scarves and boots, but the weather is still at least 75 degrees when the sun is out.  Believe it or not, year three in the desert has thinned my blood so much that I’m wearing jeans and boots right now.  The other day I even wore a sweater.  At night, it’s been dipping down to the high 40’s, giving us just a glimpse of that crisp, Fall feeling.  

During this time of year, I compensate for the lack of cold weather with Christmas decor.  This year, for the first time, I’m very excited to have a whole house to decorate!  I went through our Christmas box today and quickly informed Drew that we will have to purchase more decorations soon.  I hit up a Black Friday lights sale and came right home to put them up.  I was surprised to find out how much effort, persistence, and Griswald-level frustration it took to hang just a few strands from the roof.  Maybe we’ll put up more lights next year.  For now, Drew and I are hoping the 4-foot-tall inflatable penguin we ordered will convince people that we are indeed in the holiday spirit. 

Drew’s leg is healing nicely, and we’re officially settled into our new home.  It took several craigslist calls and a few cans of paint, but I’m very happy with what we were able to do with our furniture and some slightly used items.  It took us a lot longer to unpack here than it did when we moved to Tucson, but then again, we’ve got a lot more space to fill.

Here’s the view of the living room, kitchen and dining area from the front hallway.

Here is the living room by itself.  I made those pillows to match the painting, courtesy of Heather Clements.

This is our kitchen table and pantry area. 

This kitchen is bigger than our previous one, so I’ve made it my new personal goal to do more cooking!

This is your room.  That’s right, you.
Come visit us.

This is our hobby room.  Not shown in this picture is my craft table with scrapbooking, beading stuff, and sewing machine.

This is the guest bathroom.  I got a special corner shelf for the rest of my duck collection!  They’re finally all together!

This is our master bathroom.  We got almost everything in here as wedding gifts.  Thanks!

This is our master bedroom.  I’d like to add a new bedspread and curtains.

This is the other half of our bedroom.  That dresser cost $35 on craigslist and I painted it and gave it new handles.  Good as new!

Wow, what a whirlwind of change in the past few weeks!  We have officially become residents of Gilbert, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix.  It’s a few degrees hotter in the Valley of the Sun, but we’re happy to be together again, and living in a house! 

Drew started a new job as a video editor at KPHO, the Phoenix CBS affiliate.  I’m still staying busy at my new job with the Town of Gilbert.  It took a lot of hectic lunch breaks and weekends, but we found this lovely 3-bedroom rental home right next to a park in a nice neighborhood in Gilbert.  It even has a yard.  No grass, but the park has grass and it’s just a few steps away.  (It’s common for homes to have decorative rocks instead of grass in Arizona.)

We loaded most of our U-Haul last Friday and were prepared for a smooth trip.  Unfortunately, a trip was what we got, and it wasn’t so smooth.  While loading the last of the boxes right before leaving Saturday morning, Drew tripped on piece of a bed frame, and we took a trip to urgent care.   He had to get nine stitches, but we got some help moving, so it all worked out.  His leg is feeling much better now.  I’ll spare you the photo.

Now, we have our work cut out for us, unpacking and arranging all the furniture and decorating.  Sometimes it’s still hard to believe we have a mailbox and a garage.  And a yard.  Even though there’s no grass.

My new job with the Town of Gilbert is going very well, and the best part is I get 3-day weekends!  Though the days are 10 hours long instead of eight, I still find myself wishing there were more hours in a day.  My new co-workers are very friendly and encouraging.  Just last week, I walked back to my desk from a shoot, and I found this on my chair:

One of our assistant town managers made it for me after I finished a video about our Town Manager’s Year in Review.  At first, I was reluctant to voice my own stories like I did as a reporter, but it turns out everyone loves it!  So, I’ll probably be doing it more often.

As far as project go, I’m working on several at the same time.  Some of my favorites so far have been the opening of a new environmentally-friendly fire station, and the town’s 9-11 ceremony, which got more than 300 views on youtube in just a couple of days.

Our communications team is still building up our fan base on facebook and twitter where I post stories, as well as the local newspaper’s neighborhood page and our public access channel.  We’re growing our readership quickly!

Drew and I still live on I-10 between Gilbert and Tucson for now, but not for long!

For the past three weeks, when people have asked where I live, I tell them I-10.  Half of my week I spend with my in-laws in Gilbert, and the other half I travel back to Tucson to live with my husband.  The road between, is interstate 10.  Which means that for the past three weeks I’ve spent more time than ever before, living here:

It’s not bad at all.  I happen to think the dust, cacti and mountains in the distance during the two-hour drive between Tucson and Phoenix make for a much better experience compared to the bumper-to-bumper commute of tolls, smog and stress that many people in the country face during their daily commutes.  Earlier this Summer when Drew and I drove to Los Angeles for our 1-year-anniversary trip, I calculated that in the past 5 years I’ve actually driven every stretch of this road.  Clear across the country from coast to coast.  🙂
Other than living on the interstate, my new and unique living situation has had some pretty cool advantages, one of which being the time that I get to spend with my niece and nephew, neither of which are ever at a loss for a moment of entertainment.  I took a few videos on my phone the past couple of weeks.  One during dinner:

In addition to the little peewees, I get to spend some time with the world’s most docile cat:

Life on the road in Arizona can be desolate and dangerous with a whole lot of nothing in between cities and civilization.  But when it comes to living on a road, I think I’ve got it pretty good.

In the newsroom we used to joke about how dangerous the desert can be.  My producer and I agreed, Arizona’s slogan should be, “Welcome to Arizona.  Here’s your gun, and your sunscreen.”

Yes, the people here have more guns than they know what to do with and the sun kills a handful of out-of-state hikers every year.  But, perhaps the most dangerous encounters I’ve had have been with the wildlife.  It sometimes seems everything in the desert is built for defense.  The plants are pointy and the animals poisonous.  It only took a couple of weeks for Drew and I to run into one of these….

There are a few tarantulas that frequent our apartment complex.  Often times it’s late at night when we’re coming home from the bar or a movie.  I grab my camera while Drew makes a run for it.  I also had the honor of standing up to a brown recluse with one of Drew’s golf clubs, and Wes, our brother-in-law, is still trying to track down the black widow I found near the door of his garage this week.  I know most tarantulas are harmless to humans but it’s tough to rival the creepiness of a giant hairy spider. Only one animal has succeeded in beating the creepiness of a tarantula, right on our doorstep.

This little rattlesnake visited last winter.  I guess he was trying to stay warm by our door and I had the nerve to come home from work to disturb him.  I barely had enough time to snap this picture before he rattled and lurched back, preparing to pounce.  I will never forget that sound.  I haven’t heard it since, but I came close last week on one of my runs.  Except the rattlesnake sunning right in the middle of my running path must have been this guy’s dad.  He was at least twice the size!  I didn’t have time to snap a picture, as I immediately sprinted in the other direction.

People ride their horses through the riverbed because it’s only an actual flowing river about once a year.  I’ve also seen coyotes and roadrunners, leading me to believe I’m really running in a cartoon.  Every now and then, I come across some of the state’s more friendly species.  I brought my iphone on one of my runs recently, and snapped these:

A family of quails, my friendly prairie dog who lives next to the parking lot, and a lizard with some pretty convincing camo. 

Fortunately, in my two years living in the desert, I still have yet to come face to face with the species I most fear:  the scorpion.

I hope it stays that way.