We crammed a bunch of cool stuff into our life since the last post!

It snowed in the desert last weekend. It's not unheard of, but it is unusual for it to snow at such low elevations. Here are a few photos of the mountains on the north and east end of Mesa. We took a drive after church on Sunday but ultimately couldn't get up there to throw a few snowballs. There is only one road heading north from Mesa because of those mountains and canyons. It was closed because of a traffic accident further up- perhaps caused by the snow.

I wish I was a better photographer to have captured the grand-ness that we saw with our eyes. It was just a stunningly beautiful day.

We turned and headed across the desert in a different direction to see this next view. The snow was already melting by now but you can still see the dusting of white at the top of Superstition Mountain out east of our house.

Lesa, Queen of all she surveys. Just off of her left temple, in the distance, you can see a pointy rock... see if you can make it out and then let me zoom the camera in on that and get Lesa out of the way.
This is Weavers Needle in the Superstition mountain range. From the far side, we have hiked to the flat ridge that you see to the right and behind it. I (Curtis) have hiked all the way around it a couple of times and across it a couple of times. It's a 25-30 mile expedition. Remember, we are looking at this from more than 30 miles away... it's a substantial bit of geology! It is so nestled into that mountain range that you can't see it from the outside of the range except from a couple of spots and then you are 30 miles away or you can only see the tip of it sticking up. If you were to travel a mile or two in either direction on this road, it would disappear behind other mountains.

One of the many mysteries of the Superstition mountains is their ability to make people spontaneously dance the Mamushka. There's supposed to be a portal to another universe in there somewhere too.
Went for a family hike just outside of town a few days later.

It was difficult to get a picture of this hawk on patrol. In all of my hundreds of miles of hiking and biking, I've only seen two or three snakes, but these birds can find an updraft against a mountain and hover several hundred feet up and spot a desert rat or a snake and swoop down and help themselves to some lunch. About 1 minute after this was taken, he took a very deliberate dive out of our sight but I'm sure he spotted some prey. I did witness a hawk capturing a snake once when I was out on a mountain bike ride. It was absolutely thrilling to watch.
There's an abandoned mine up at the top of this trail and even though it's big enough to walk in, I have no idea what kind of wild life has taken up residence in there since it was abandoned by the miner who dug it 100 years ago and I'm not curious enough to find out.

I really love that this is just 5 minutes from our home!

I played at a wedding that had a bunch of sparklers for the bride and groom send-off at the end of the night. I brought home a couple of the leftovers for Shaw.

Fun stuff eh?