Weekend Recap

I had a FANTASTIC time in Scottsdale. It was so relaxing to just do nothing on Saturday but be massaged and read a book. It's amazing what downtime can do for the soul. The only planned events with our group from work had were dinner Friday and Saturday night, so the rest of the time was ours.

The resort had lots of wildlife running around as part of it's charm. They had a couple of these birds pictured below milling about the grounds and flying around, little bunny rabbits hopping about (tried to chase one down for a photo but to no avail), and huge beautiful fish in their ponds.

After the dinners, a few of us took in South Scottsdale which apparently is where all the college party crowd goes. I'm talking "18 & up" kind of crowd. Wow, I felt pretty old even though I know I'm not! But, our group still found a way to have some fun entertaining each other. We were the obnoxious "old farts" dancing in the center of the room. What's funny is that we didn't care, but all knew these kids were thinking what we use to think when we saw people our age at the clubs when we were young, arrogant college partyers - "Please kill me if I'm that old and still at clubs!" Hahaha! You know we all thought that about people in their late 20's/early 30's, so you can relate!!! We made the best of our surroundings though and have great pictures to prove it.

~*~

Sunday, a few of us decided to get up early and climb Camelback Mountain's Cholla Trail. We found out the hard way (since none of us did any REAL research about the trails) that the specific trail we chose was considered "Difficult Strenuous" and "recommended for experienced hikers." Could explain why we were absolutely dying going up the rocky mountainside. I thought we were all just being weenies because we were up late drinking the night before...lol. I'm a lot more proud of us now! Here are some photos on the way to the trail, and then along the trail up the mountain.

Cacti on our walk to the Cholla Trail up Camelback Mountain

Beautiful lush trees on our walk to the mountain trail

Spectacular view of Scottsdale from the mountain

Me all hot, sweaty, and practically out of breath thinking, "Wow, this hike is pretty hard!"

Beautiful view of Phoenix on the other side of Camelback Mountain