Darren’s Birthday

Back before my cancer diagnosis – during the week immediately preceding my cancer diagnosis – when I had absolutely no indication or expectation that routine tests would generate a cancer diagnosis – I had a very relaxing week vacationing with Darren.

I wrote this post back then, two days before everything suddenly changed. I wrote it, but I never posted it, because I wrote while we were driving home, and I didn’t have internet. So now I am posting it, even though it seems like it happened a very long time ago.

We met in Arizona for Darren’s 30th birthday.

The weather started out nice, although we had a horrible camping spot. It was more like the edge of a parking lot than a camping spot.

But the company was good 🙂

It was close to an excellent trail.

John only had the weekend, and he had to fly back to work on Monday, while Darren and I planned to stay the week. We spent John’s last night at a hotel near the airport because he had an early flight.

I was determined to use the hotel pool, but we didn’t arrive until it was already evening and too cold. The next morning was cold and windy. But right around check-out time the wind died down and the sun came out. But it was time to check out! We had two hours to kill before check-in time at our vacation rental. Suddenly I had an idea. Why not go ahead and check out on time, and then use the pool for two hours?

We had the camper van, so we could easily change afterwards. I was a little worried because I’m sensitive to chlorine and the camper van doesn’t have a shower, so I wouldn’t be able to shower off until it was time to check in at the vacation rental. But that was only a couple of hours later.

I also felt a bit like I was breaking the rules. I mean, logically, I was sure the hotel just needed us out of our room on time so they could get it cleaned and ready for the next guest. Surely they wouldn’t care if departing guests used the pool on their way out. Still, I half expected some uniformed person to come questioning!

We had the pool to ourselves and we really enjoyed it.

Next stop – vacation rental! We originally planned on camping the whole trip, but then I decided to get a vacation rental for two nights, to give us time to get cleaned up mid-trip. Turns out we were very lucky to have the vacation rental, because it rained that night and all the next day. It would have been miserable camping.

As it was, I was annoyed to be cooped up indoors on my vacation. But at least it was a nice place. And luckily the rain let up slightly that afternoon, so we were able to do a little bit of biking around. We brought our bikes all the way to Arizona and I was determined to use them! So we biked in the drizzle.

One thing I did manage to do was convince Darren to shave some of the beard. I’ve been chasing Darren around with a razor for years. It’s not as short as I’d hoped (which would have been no beard at all), but it was a big improvement. It looks great!

This is my new favorite picture of Darren:

The next morning we checked out of the vacation rental and went to the Desert Museum in Tucson. I had originally been somewhat reluctant, because I had imagined a boring indoor museum and I didn’t want to be stuck inside. I came to Arizona for the sunshine!

It turns out the Tucson Desert Museum is mostly outdoors, although it has some indoor exhibits. It’s sort of like a botanical garden plus a small zoo, a very small aquarium, and even a cave.

For some reason I thought this sign was hilarious.

These are eels. I’ve decided I’m not fond of eels. They seemed creepy.

Seahorses don’t seem real. I keep waiting for that moment when I realize it’s all a hoax, like Santa Claus.

This cave didn’t seem real either, but maybe it was.

I didn’t take any photos of the animals. People were the most excited about one, lone, bored bobcat. But we used to regularly see wild bobcats wandering around in our yard in Placitas. So I was underwhelmed. There was a coyote too, which was remarkable only in how well fed he was! I’ve seen tons of coyotes, but I don’t remember ever seeing a fat one before.

The javelina were sleeping and didn’t smell nearly as bad as the wild one who visited us last time we went to Tucson. A javelina (pronounced ha-va-LEE-na) is a peccary. It looks sort of like a black pig.

Oh, fun fact! Apparently groups of javelina all go poop in the same place. I mention this because last time we were staying in a vacation rental in Tucson, a wild javelina positioned its butt right up against the fence in order to poop in the dog pen! We thought it was crazy but apparently javelina go where the others go! Poor John had to clean up after the javelina as well as our dogs (or else risk looking like we left our own dog poo for the rental manager to deal with).

My favorite parts of the museum were the agave garden and the cactus garden.

I was excited to hear there was a hummingbird aviary, but we only saw two humming birds. And there were mostly mourning doves in the bird aviary. I honestly can’t tell the difference between a mourning dove and a pigeon. And there was one lone bee in the bee area.

I guess that’s what we get for going in January. At least it wasn’t hot! We had our jackets on and it was threatening to rain. Overall I would definitely recommend it though. It was nice to walk around and look at everything. After the desert museum, we fortified ourselves by going out for Indian food in preparation for going back to the campground and “roughing it”. This time we had a vastly better campsite.

The weather was still threatening, but looking somewhat more hopeful.

The next morning was entirely sunny and we went on a relaxing hike. It was an easy trail – much less elevation than the first hike.

And we even got one last bike ride in before it was time to head home. I really love Tucson’s loop trail for bike riding. We never go to Tucson without our bikes!