Bergie's Birthday Blowout

Last Thursday night kicked off Bergie's 29th birthday celebration - a three-day tour of Arizona that took us through an amazing variety of landscapes and climates and included some wonderful dining experiences (and one very odd one). This entry contains some of the images from the weekend, but click the Flickr link on the left to check out all the pics from our week-end getaway.


The festivities started off with a succulent lobster dinner courtesy of Bergie's rents. They express shipped live Lobsters from Boston. It was delicious. I felt a little bad about dropping the little monsters in the boiling water, but one bite of that lobster tail slathered in lemony garlic-butter helped me get over my guilt. Thanks Yves and Lynn!


My gift for Bergie was a secret weekend escape to cooler weather. We've both been missing the crisp fall weather we've become accustomed to, so I found us a nice little bed and breakfast in Northern Arizona, where it averages about 20-25 degrees less than Tucson. The drive up north was amazing. We wound our way around mountains and went through this beautiful canyon seen on the right. And the more north we got, the cooler it became. So nice.

We stayed at the Osmer D. Heritage Inn in Snowflake, Arizona. The inn was very nice, with fantastic breakfasts each morning. The town of Snowflake, however, left a little to be desired. There really isn't much there, except an enormous Mormon church, but it served as a good jumping off point for our adventures of the weekend.

We got into Snowflake at around five, and after drinking a little wine on our patio, we decided to get something to eat. The Mexican place across the street, Eva's, was recommended by the innkeeper, so we decided to check that out. This place was quite the experience. As soon as you enter the place, you realize you aren't in your typical Mexican cantina. A large sign stands in the middle of the room, with the following handwritten greeting displayed for all customers to view upon entry: "You are commanded to serve God. Jesus was unmistakable. 'Your attitude must be like my own. For I, the messiah, did not come to be served, but to serve and to give my life.' For Christians, service is not optional, something to be tacked onto our schedules if we can spare the time..." And it went on like that. Big sign. And next to that was another sign that read. "Prayer may not be allowed in our schools, but it is welcome at our tables." And yet another sign, my favorite, that said, "Get right, or get left." And next to the word left was an arrow pointing down (to hell, I presume.) The place didn't serve alcohol, which is basically unheard of in Mexican joints. Instead of the typical happy hour menu you find on most tables, they had a list of bible verses. It was by far the preachiest dinner I've ever had. Thankfully, the rest of our meals were much improved.
On Saturday, we headed out to the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park. It was unbelievable. My description won't really do it justice, so be sure to check out those pics. You wind through this park on a 22 mile road that takes you through several different natural and prehistoric man-made phenomena. We spent about four hours touring the park, checking out the rock formations, petrified trees, and the petroglyphs.

After that, we drove over to the meteor crater, which turned out to be a rip off. The crater was huge and all, it is rather amazing that a rock fell from space to create it, but they charged 15 bucks a person just so you could look at a giant hole. We paid it because we drove all that way, but I recommend against it future visitors to Tucson.

After the crater, we made our way to Winslow. You may remember the Eagle's song, Take It Easy, where the guy was standin' on the corner in Winslow, Arizona when a girl in a flat bed Ford slowed down to take a look at him. Winslow has attempted to capitalize on that fame by erecting a statue of a man with a guitar on one of its corners. That's basically what this town has to offer. That, and one of the best restaurants we've ever been to. The Turquoise room is inside this very cool hotel called La Posada. Both hotel and restaurant don't fit at all with the rest of it's rundown surroundings, but it was fantastic. I had an Elk and Bison plate. Bergie had the salmon. And for dessert, we had a chocolate souflet. Effing delicious.

Sunday, we got up and got back on the road to head back. I took the long way so we could check out Lake Roosevelt. Along the way, we drove via this gorgeous road that wound its way through a mountain forest. And the lake itself was amazing - surrounded on all sides by moutains. Near the lake, we came across the Tonto National Monument, which was a rather large cave dwelling that was still fairly much intact. It was very neat

We're back in Tucson, now. Boo. I want to stay on vacation.

Hope you are well.

Hugs,

Godfrey

Free Bird!!!

Why is it that every effing concert you go to, at some point in the show, usually while the lead is re-tuning his guitar, some dickweed has to yell "Freebird!"? This is done as if it's some hi-lariously clever quip that he or she just dreamed up on the spot. It isn't too uncommon to see this turd looking around for high-fives after pulling off this feat comedic genius. And the sad thing is, he's friends are usually equally retarded, so they reward the douche with praise. "Ha. Good one, Bry."

I'm pretty sure these Freebirders are the same idiots that say "You shouldn't have," when you're carrying flowers. And you can ask anyone. I'm the king of corny, semi-retarded jokes. Like, I can almost never pass up a chance to say "it's all pink on the inside." And I laugh at almost anything. Like, what do you get if your cross an elephant with a rhinoceros? El-if-I-no! That's some funny shit. But what I can't laugh at is dumbasses using the same tired ass jokes over and over when the jokes weren't ever funny in the first place.

So, this little tirade all stems from our outing this weekend. We went to the Josh Rouse concert here in Tucson. He played the Hotel Congress - a great little venue, by the way. And the show was pretty good. He can sometimes be a pretty mellow singer, and some of his songs venture into wussville, but for the most part, he rocks, and he's great live. At one point, someone from the crowd yelled Freebird. I muttered "dipshit" under my breath, and the show went on. But then we started to notice this other weirdo at the show. Bergie and I had gotten there early, so we we standing right up at the front, and this tool was standing next to us. During every song, he listened with his eyes closed, smiling widely, and swaying to the music, and then after each song, he'd lean forward to get as close to Josh Rouse as possible, which was relatively close in this venue, and he'd say "Thank you sir. We really appreciate you visiting Tucson, sir. Play His Majesty Rides, please." (That's one of his songs - one I don't really care for, actually.) And he did that after every song. Always emphasizing the "SIR." I'm sure I'm not doing it justice, but the guy was just creepy. They way he listened to the music with his eyes closed, and his persistence - it just seemed way too much. The funny thing is that I could see the set list from where I was standing, and His Majesty Rides was on it, but Rousey skipped it - I think just to stick it to that creepy mofo.

We also had our first visitor since moving down here. Madge McInerny was in town for a conference, so we took her out to the Desert Museum. It was great to see a familiar face. Thanks for coming down, Margaret.

That's about all of interest. Friday is Bergie's birthday. I've got top secret plans. We'll come back with all sorts of pics, though, so I'll update the blog on Sunday or Monday.

We miss you all tons!

Hugs,

Godfrey

P.S. Why don't bears eat clowns? Because they taste funny!

Vegas!!!

I just bought tickets to Vegas, where I'm meeting my friends Ron and Michael. I'm going from November 7-9. My room has space for 2 more! Who's in? Austin? Juggy? Lake? Cout? C'mon!!!

I seriously can't wait. Vegas is one of those weird places that I can keep going back to. I can only take about 2 nights at a time, but those 2 nights - friggin' sweet. The last time I went was for my friend Lake's bachelor party. I was losing my ass at the tables, and then, in one pull of the slot machine, I won $600, and I was back to even. Thank effing God!

I want to go back to Shadow in Caesar's palace. Strippers dance behind a backlit screen so all you can see is their sillhouettes. It's all tasteful-like. It may not sound all that great, but believe me - it is way cool.

My goal is to win enough money to pay for our honeymoon. We're looking at going to the Yucatan Peninsula around New Year's. Thanks to some tips from my friend Angela, I think we're going to stay in Xcalak. It's 5 hours from Cancun, so away from all the jerky tourists. It's supposed to be great for snorkeling, and kayaking, and chilling on the beach. Can't wait.

Hope all is well with you! And happy birthday Courtney!

Hugs,
Godfrey

P.S. Arizona is a state of mind. (Screw off, Austin).

Confucious Say

Man who jumps off cliff, jumps to conclusion.

So, sometimes we feel like we jumped off a big cliff moving to Arizona. It's neat and all - beautiful mountains. Cool cacti. Interesting wildlife. Warm weather. But coming from a place full of friends, with a comfortable house, with somewhat of a routine and going to a place that has none of that can sort of wear you down every once in a while. Bergie and I both feel it from time to time.

We're working on it, though. And I'm still glad we came. On Sunday, we started our first weekly training ride with the Greater Arizona Bicycling Association. We and about 30 other people went on a 30 mile ride at 6:00 AM. We're going to do that weekly, gaining in mileage each week until the 109 mile El Tour de Tucson on November 17. We didn't make any new friends on Sunday, but we did lots of smiling and chatting and stuff - the kinds of things that lead to friends. I'll bring cookies this Sunday. That's bound to work.

Anyway - confucious also say - he who drops watch in toilet have shitty time.

There's no watch in my toilet just yet. Hope the same for all of you.

Hugs,
Godfrey

P.S. Arizona is a State of Mind

Date Weekend

Hello everyone,

Bergie and I decided that we'd celebrate the Labor Day holiday this year by declaring it Date Weekend, which meant that we went on a different date event every day. Friday night, I made it my goal to get Bergie drunk, so I picked her up from school and took her to a swank little pizza place called Enoteca for happy hour. The happy hour wasn't especially cheap, but it 3 wines later, it was getting pretty happy. And that was just the start. After that, we drove over to a Spanish place called Vicente's. The tapas were half-assed, but the live music made up for it. After that, we topped the night off with more wine and some dessert at this fau-French bistro called Pastiche. Again - the food wasn't all that impressive, but it was still fun.

Day 2 started off with an early morning bike ride. Then we came home and cleaned our sty of a pad. That night, however, we decided to use one of our wedding gifts - a gift card to an upscale tex-mex place called Terra-Cotta. (Thanks Elise and Jamie!). And check out the fox in the picture on the right. Oh, and the fake animal behind her is pretty cool, too.

This time they got the food right. We ate and drank and ate some more. Damned good stuff. We definitely found a place we'll bring visitors.

After dinner, we went downtown to the HOCO Festival to check out Okkerville River. Turns out they have a new album, and it effin rocks. You can check it out at MySpace. The concert was fantastic. Unfortunately, they aren't going through Minneapolis on this tour, but if you have a chance to see them, do it. That did it for date night #2.

On Sunday, we got up and hopped in the car to head out to Mount Lemmon. It is about a 25 mile drive Northeast of Tucson. The drive is gorgeous. And you end up about 9000 feet above sea level, which drops the temperature about 20 degrees - a fantastic escape from the heat of Tucson. We hiked through the woods for a couple of hours. Then, we took a ski lift to the top of the mountain where we had a picnic lunch. That night, we just chilled at home. We were pretty shot from all the hiking.

On Monday, Bergie had a ton of school work to do, but to make sure we kept our commitment to Date Weekend, we did take in a movie that night. We saw Once - a pretty deece movie about a singer songwriter in Ireland who meets this Czech girl, and together they sing songs. It's almost a musical (and as you all know, I like musicals), but it's not they typical break-out-in-song-for-no-apparent-reason kind of musical. In this case, the singing makes sense, and it's pretty good to-boot.

So, that's it for Date Weekend. Good times. Good times.

I hope you all had as much fun.

Big hugs,
Godfrey

P.S. Arizona is a state of mind.

My secret addiction

My work day gets done at 3:00, and that's pretty much the worst time to go out and do anything around here. So, I'm ashamed to admit it, but I've totally become addicted to TV Judge Shows. I especially like Cristina's Court (right) and Judge Maria Lopez.

And Today's episode of Judge Hatchett was especially good - about some fat beyotch who tricked some good hearted idiot into believing her baby, named Johntaysa by the way, was his so he'd take care of it, which he did. But the truth is that she had cheated on him, and the baby was from the affair. Oh no you di-int!

Of course, it's sad and all for Johntaysa, but damn that's good television.

Hope everyone is well.

Godfrey

P.S. Arizona is a state of mind.

Il fait chaud

That's French for it's effing hot. Today I decided to pretend 100 degrees isn't all that bad, and I went for a bike ride. That was dumb. 100 degrees is that bad. And they say it'll be like this for another month. God I can't wait for October.

Anyway, since I last posted, not too much has happened. LeeAnne is absolutely swamped with school. Between teaching 2 French courses and taking 2 PhD classes and an intro to Arabic course, she's pretty much buried in books from the moment she gets up to the moment she goes to bed. So, for those of you thinking, "Hmm, getting a PhD sounds sounds like a larf," think again.

I enrolled in a French class at the local community college. That has been pretty fun. And I'm thinking about taking a ping pong class at the Chinese community center. Also, Bergie and I both signed up for El Tour de Tucson, or simply El Tour for the locals. It's a 109 mile bike ride around Tucson. The ride is in November, so we have a little time to train. Leave it to Bergie sign up for a century ride after only 3 weeks of road biking. My ass is sore just thinking about it.

This coming weekend is Labor Day, which normally would mean the Beach Resort with my pals. So, I'm totally getting all nostalgic feeling for boozing down at the camp fire, smoking an entire pack of cigarettes in one night, making breakfast for my friends, working on crossword puzzles, biking to Bayfield, playing rock baseball, making fun of Mooshoo, Tom, Alice (and her retarded sister), and doing that Beach Resort thing. Lock us in for Memorial Day.
I've only got one picture to share. We bought some cacti to spruce up our patio. The one on the left is a Funny Bunny. The one on the right is called an Eve's Pen. Pretty cool, eh?

Hope everyone is well.

Godfrey

P.S. Arizona is a State of Mind

The master baker

I've finally made the perfect loaf of bread. Well, the crust could have been crustier, but still, this loaf turned out marvelously. I made a garlic sourdough bread by using a slight variation on a reciped contained in my bread baking bible, The Bread Baker's Apprentice, by Peter Reinhart. I'm not sure that you can tell from the picture, but this loaf is about 2 feet long, and four inches thick. The garlic flavor is fantastic. It smells friggin awesome. And man, is the texture right on! Look at those holes in the picture on the left. I've been trying to get a crumb like that forever. The secret - high protein flour and a super wet dough - almost too wet to handle. The flour can be hard to find - I got mine at a Whole Foods-like grocery store, and I paid probably more than necessary. I'm told you can also go to your local bakery or Pizza Restaurants and they might sell you a bag. I tried that at a bakery here, though, and they thought I was nuts. "Um, this is not a grocery store," is basically what they said. Jerks! To avoid going back to that hippie grocery store, I ended up just purchasing a 50 lb sack online through Honeyville. This weekend, I'm going to use a similar recipe, and I'm going to try to make some traditional baguettes. I'm not too good at getting them shaped right. I'll let you know how it goes.

Big Hugs,
Godfrey

P.S. Arizona is a State of Mind

My Doctor-to-be

This is Bergie heading out the door for her first day of school. Isn't she adorable?

A message to all frat boys: She's taken!

That cactus is a total prick.

Hi everyone. Another week down in hot and sunny Tucson. And I do mean hot. It has exceeded 100 degrees every day this week. But, we haven't let that stop us. We've managed to find all sorts of cool things to get into.

The highlight of the week was definitely our journey out to the Saguaro National Park West and the fantastic Sonoran Desert Museum. It's about a half hour drive from town, and the route is very scenic. Especially Grants Pass - this wicked windy road up one side of a mountain and down another. A picture of it is on the right.

We went hiking first. We figured we'd get that part over with before it got too hot. Too late, unfortunately. When we showed up at the visitor center to buy our pass, the ranger said, "I don't really recommend too much walking out there today. It's already 97 degrees in the shade." It was only 9:30. But we had a ton of water with us, so we hit the trails. I had a run-in with a chain fruit cholla. I was just walking through the desert, minding my own business, when I looked at my hand, and a GD cactus was attached to it. Apparently, this particular cactus latches itself onto you even if you just slightly brush it. And it does not want to let go. It imbedded itself deep into my skin, and I had to use pliers to get it out. Ouch!!! Click the picture to the left to see a little series of images documenting this painful ordeal.

After that, we continued our hiking trip, taking pics of all sorts of desert life. I've discovered a new species of cactus, and I just can't stop taking their pictures. Click the image to the right to check out my new photo series - Sonoran Desert Dongs. Also on our hike, we saw saw a bunch of Hohokum petroglyphs. The Hohokum were the prehistoric inhabitants of the Sonoran desert.

Next, we ventured on to the Sonoran Desert Museum, which is the absolute coolest museum we've ever been to. It's actually a combination of a museum, garden, and zoo. The exhibits are very cool. We saw over 10 types of rattle snakes, a variety of tarantulas and other spiders, scorpions, lizards, frogs, and a lot more. And we learned a ton, too. Like, did you know that a saguaro grows only one foot in it's first 15 years, and it doesn't grow its arms for 75 years? And nobody really knows their age, but they estimate the tallest saguaro are around 200. Isn't that amazing? Science is cool!!!

Bergie starts school next week. She had orientation for her Teaching Assistanship all last week. She's quickly finding that the U of A doesn't run their French program quite like she did when she was French coordinator at the U of MN, and that's been a little difficult to get used to. She's looking forward to being a student again. She's taking three courses - so that load with the 2 classes she's teaching will keep her pretty booked up.

For me, working from home is going well, but it is pretty quiet. I'm thinking about taking some classes at the local community college - not sure what just yet, but I need to get out so we can actually meet people. We did go to a little party with some of Bergie's classmates. It was deece - perhaps some potential friends in that bunch, but as of yet, we've met nobody that even resembles our great group of friends back home. We miss you guys.

Big Hugs,
The Godfrey

P.S. Arizona is a state of mind.

35 Pounds of Peaches

Peach pie, peach cobbler, peach ice cream, peach sauce, peach jam, peach salsa, peach smoothies, peach gumbo - with 35 plus pounds of peaches sitting on our kitchen counter, we've pretty much committed ourselves to learning to make just about everything one can make with peaches. So - any peach recipes are welcome.

We ended up with more peaches than we could possibly need because we got ourselves caught up in the peach mania of Orchard Annie's Annual Peach festival in Willcox, Arizona. It was a ton of fun. Once you get there, they outfit you with empty buckets and a peach picker, which is basically a broomstick that has a wire basket attached to the end, allowing you to reach the highest, juiciest peaches. Then, they pile a ton of people in a little wagon and a tractor takes you out to the peach grove, where the picking begins. In a matter of 20 minutes, we managed to load up two 5 gallon buckets with peaches. In the pic to the right, you can see me reaching for a real fatty. We shelled out just over 40 bucks for 35 pounds of peaches - a pretty good deal I'd say. We've just got to hurry up and do something with them. Don't be surprised if you find a jar of jam in the mail.

After picking our own produce, we moved on to another event in the same town - we visited the Coronado Vineyards for their grape stomp festival. We tasted their wines, and Bergie stomped the hell out of some grapes. Their wines were pretty crappy, but it turned out to be a good stop. We sat out on their patio and had a picnic - some bread, cheese, and of course, peaches. It was a beautiful spot.

That was basically our Saturday. Today, we got up early and went for a bike ride. Riding bikes around here is super cool, because as you roll, little desert critters are constantly scurrying across the path in front of you. The quail are my favorite - they look hilarious as they scoot across the path. And all the little lizards are fun, too. We've yet to actually see the scorpions, snakes, and tarantulas we've been warned about, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

It is 104 degrees outside today, so we're giong to spend the remainder of the day indoors. Everyone says, "but it's a dry heat." And while it's true that less humidity helps, when it's 104, it's just damned hot.

That's it for today. Hope you all are well.

The Godfreys

P.S. Arizona is a state of mind.

The coolest bike path

Yesterday we rode the coolest bike path at the Saguaro (pronounced "sah wah row") National Park - it's actually a one way road, but we saw no cars on it, so it may as well have been a bike trail. It is a super curvy path with fantastic rolling hills, one killer climb, and awesome decents. For the first 10 minutes, you are basically flying at almost 30 mph going up and down and whipping around curves - it's so fun. And it's in the middle of about a million different types of cacti - especially a ton of saguaro. We're going back this weekend.

Check out Bergie as she cruises by our favorite new plant on her sweet looking new bike - you can click the pic to see more Tucson photos. We decided that since I'm too old and crippled to run any more, she needed to get a bike, and she's already proving to be a good biking buddy - always making me go further than I had initially planned for every ride.


Of course, it hasn't been all bike rides and play time for the Godfreys. We've spent the majority of our first almost two weeks just getting unpacked and moved into our new place. We really lucked out with our apartment. While it's a lot more cramped than our old house in Minneapolis, it's still pretty sweet. Here's my new office. And for those of you thinking of coming down - yes, we have a pool. And it's pretty sweet.

It's been mostly smooth sailing since we got here - people have been great, we've got nice neighbors (old people mostly), the scenery is fantastic, and the food is pretty deece. The electric company screwed us one day and cut our power. (Damn you Tucson Electric!!!) In a matter of hours, our house turned into an oven, but that got resolved within a day, and we're back to sucking energy and chilling in the comfort of our air-conditioned condo.

Oh, and we have officially been married for one month. I got LeeAnne flowers. She got me - nothing. Hmmf! Anyway - marriage is bliss. I recommend it.

I'm back to work, and working from home is going pretty well. LeeAnne starts school next week, so it is going to get wicked quiet around here. This weekend, we're going to the Peach Festival in Willcox, AZ for some serious Peach Mania. Hopefully, it's not the pits.

By the by, a trip to Tucson makes a fabulous weekend get-away.

See you around!
The Godfreys

P.S. Arizona is a state of mind!

Tucson Is HOT and COOL

Just a note to update y'all on our life so far in Tucson. We got into town Sunday evening after about 30hrs of driving over 2 days and checked into the cutest bed and breakfast (we're taking notes for when we open ours someday!!). It's a little adobe condo with patios, fountains, flowers and shade, which is quite hard to come by in these parts!

Monday we drove around Tucson a bit to get our bearings and we have to say that while it's very different from Minneapolis, it's quite charming - with hues of pinks and browns replacing the greens and blues that we have become so accustomed to in the Midwest. Leave it to us to have already successfully located great grocery stores, bakeries, wine stores and restaurants, as well as running and biking shops.

Yesterday, we looked at about 3-4 apartments and picked one and signed on it this morning. It's a 2 bedroom/2 bath (we're hoping for lots of visitors) with vaulted ceilings in the living room, 2 balconies, and a great community pool. It's next to a horse race track, some soccer fields and the Rollito River biking and running trails. It's at the beginning of the Catalina Foothills, north of downtown and the university. Our street address is East River Road (full address below), which does slightly remind us of home, but once you take a look down at the river or rather, the dry river bed, and up at the Saguaro covered mountains, we are quickly reminded that this is nothing like Minnesota. The apartment is near all sorts of great restaurants, grocery stores, shopping and is only a 20/30 minute bike ride to the U of A. (We did also notice some condos nearby that rent by the day, week and month - for those of you who'd like a bit more space/privacy when you visit the Godfreys!)

We've been warned of the insanely HOT weather, which we no doubt will experience, but since we've been here, it's been quite bearable nothing worse than Minneapolis last week - 90s and humid. It's monsoon season, which means it's humid (for AZ) and it rains at least once a day for a little while - at the moment a pretty awesome storm is passing through - the Rollito River bed is sure to fill with this amazing downpour where the skies have seriously opened up.

One thing that has surprised us a little bit is that Arizona does no do daylight savings so, right now we're on Pacific time and this fall it'll switch to Mountain time. It gets light out around 5am and dark by 8pm so it's early to bed and early to rise, which works out pretty
well for the early bird in us. And will be great when Tom's work day will be from 6am-3pm to coincide with Capella's work day in Minneapolis.

I think it's safe to say that though we'll miss home and all of you a TON, life in Tucson is going to be good. We're going to start a blog with pictures soon, for those of you who would like to do some chair traveling to this part of the world and stay posted on the ups and downs, the funny and sad, the weird or exciting and normal of our life here in the Southwest - where the sun is said to shine over 300 days a
year – except for right now!