Rail in the Desert

My dad is planning on selling his rail, so we took it out on Powerline Road to get some photos, but we also got some thrills! Wooweeeee! He drives so fast over the bumps, hills, and dips!

Enjoy the ride,
Dawn

Indiana Jones and Mars

Today will always stick out in my head for two reasons:


One, today my papa went to the movie theater! He hasn't been to one in so long because, while he loves movies, he prefers to watch them in the comfort of his own living room in his recliner, with his feet up and with his surround sound. I've been hyped up about the fourth Indian Jones movie for weeks now and he said that he and my mama would go with Kurtis and me to see it. We originally thought we'd see it at an Imax theater, but it turns out that it wasn't playing at one. Oops! But my parents still said they go see it with us. Woohoo! Tower Theaters seems to have the most comfortable seats, so that's where we decided to go.

The film was great fun - exciting, fast-paced and full of humor, wit, and adventure! It was in the tradition of the original three films, too, which was awesome! The most unexpected feature was that it had to do with aliens - yep, that's what I said: aliens. (I guess that's not surprising when you consider who the director is!)

The other reason today was for the books is because today the University of Arizona and NASA's spacecraft, named Phoenix, landed safely on Mars! Kurtis and I went down to the U of A to see the excitement and find out all we could. The photo above is one that the Phoenix took of the landscape after it took pictures of itself to ensure it's still correctly put together, and we were at the U of A when they were first shown. Everybody clapped and cheered! We feel like we were there for a bit of history. Click the above links to read stories about the event.

It was interesting to have my head in a University all day and interweaved through my two experiences was the unlikely link of the idea that there's life outside of Earth.

Indiana Jones teaches for a university and he studies the past through archeology, and then he discovers ancient relics leading him to aliens. One of the quotes from the movie that was great was when Indiana and Mutt fell off a motorcycle in the university's library and as he gets back on after a student asks him a question he says, "If you want to be a good archaeologist, you should get out of the library!"

Then, the U of A's Phoenix robot lands (far away from a library) on our closest planetary neighbor to dig up samples of top soil and hopefully ice in the north pole of Mars, which is believed to be not 10 cm below the red surface. The scientists at NASA and at the U of A are trying to find out if there are tiny micronisms in the ice - samples of life. I sort of hope they don't find anything, but at the same time I wish the Phoenix mission well. It's just that I like Earth; I have no desire to personally go to Mars.

One very young audience member asked the NASA scientist innocently, "Why are you looking for life on Mars?" What a good question! The scientist was very kind. His answer was, "Because we're lonely and curious." Everyone giggled at his answer because it was so simple and how could us earthlings ever be lonely?

It's amazing to think that some of us earthlings created a devise to fly through outer space to Mars in order to test another planet's attributes. Could that be called an invasion? If there was intelligent life there, would that be okay? I don't think that we would be okay with another planet's devise coming to test our ice or soil. Or at least Hollywood tells us so through movies. We would instantly see it as a threat. But we don't see our "invasion" as a threat to anyone else. We seem to see it as an opportunity to learn, which is true, but it's almost as if we assume it's there for the taking. And even more interesting is that the Phoenix only has about 90 days of sunlight before it will not get any more solar power and it will be left there, and as the NASA scientist told us, it will freeze and quietly go to sleep. But that seems a bit like littering to me. Little traces of earth left on Mars. Something for an archaeologist in another time to go dig up and make sense of.

from earth,

Dawn

A New Needle

This morning I got up early to go find SOMETHING to photograph because it was just so irresistibly enticing outside. I found myself at Quail Run Elementary School because there was a saguaro there that was all abloom with the lovely, white, trumpet-like flowers and, like a cactus wren, I was attracted. But what I have to share is the peculiar new needle in the ribs of this saguaro.

That's right- it's a sharp, pointy, number 2 pencil growing out of the side of the cactus! Makes sense, I suppose, to find this at a school.

Wondering if a finger was pricked,

Dawn

Jen & Kelly: 6 months pregnant

Here is Jen, my sister-in-law, who is married to my husband's twin, Kelly. Besides being my sister-in-law, she is also a friend with whom I meet once a week over a Starbucks drink and a visit. Many of our visits have been consumed with talk of babies. You see, this is one of Jen's great dreams, and it has come to fruition! Jen and Kelly are anxiously expecting their first baby, a son to be named Liam Patrick Durfey on September 1st! What a great Irish name! I couldn't be more happy for them and I'm excited for the day when another sweet nephew enters the world.

Love,

Dawn

Braids!

We were in Puerto Penasco over Cinco de Mayo weekend for a triathlon that my brother-in-law, Karl, was racing. He did great and won first in his age group! Woohoo!!!

But before any of that, his wife and my friend, Tracy, was determined that WE would have braids.

*look at those hands fly!*


So, she asked a woman sitting out side of the Mexican restaurant that we ate at "downtown" if she braided and when she replied, "manana," Tracy wouldn't take no for an answer. She asked again and the woman ended up sending for her daughter to help, and soon we were sitting in a chair on the cobbled street with a tray of colorful beads in our laps handing the beads and bands to the two women behind us who braid at lightning speed!

I felt a bit Jamaican by the end of the hair-do, but it was the perfect uncharacteristic thing to do and it kept all those wispy henries out of the way during our weekend stay in Mexico! Don't worry - we didn't get burnt scalps either because Tracy and I finger-painted each other's little braid pathways with dabs of sunscreen. I am glad Tracy talked me in to it; I am.


I actually wore it one day to work (gasp, I know!), despite extreme embarrassment, but the shocked reactions were worth it! Plus, they make the coolest clinking noise when you twist your head back and forth. I definitely recommend it.

My mother-in-law, June, helped me to take all of the little bands out that Monday night and my hair was huge and crimped. Hello, 1989! I don't think I'll share that photo here, but would I do it again? Yeah, mon.

Diggin' it,

Dawn