Follow-Up

Okay so this Morning, I realized, that It's hard to follow up an incredibly unique day. Like, we've all had good days, those are fine, when you realize this hot member of the opposite sex is into you, or you get to eat at Olive Garden, but crazy days are just hard to follow up with.

Let me explain.

Yesterday, I had nothing to do, I stayed in Phoenix a day longer than planned to get to spend some time with a family I had gotten close to when I was a missionary, but that wasn't until nine o'clock that night. My buddy,who I was staying with that day, had to go to work at 7 in the morning. Thus I hopped in my car and started driving, looking for something, anything really, to do.

I spotted a mountain right in the middle of Phoenix. I decided I needed to be on top of that mountain. So I drove around, I figured that here in the 5th largest city in the US that this mountain would have a marked trail and Park Service station to go with it. It turned out later I was correct but I could not find it for the life of me. So I just started driving up hill in this really nice neighborhood. As is usually the case, the higher on the mountain I got, the bigger the houses got. Big stucco homes, Arizona style, complete with palm trees, cacti, and rock lawns. But the last house on the mansion, towering over the rest, was a castle. Seriously, a castle, complete with bridge, huge door, stone masonry, gothic windows, battlements, everything. I parked under its shadow in an empty lot and started walking up the side of the mountain. Soon walking was climbing and I had an amazing view of the entire valley. It was a pretty hard climb, kind of dangerous considering I was by myself, and especially at one point where I had to balance between not falling off the side of the mountain, and not sitting on a cactus, while shimmying sideways on a ledge. But I reached the top, and saw the trail, with about 20 people on it. They were all staring at me, and I just explained, "I'm not from here, I didn't know where to start hiking so I just climbed up over there."

Turns out that's illegal. Oh well. I'm from Idaho, what do I know?

So I went down the proper side of the mountain, and ended up about 10 miles away from my car, with a mountain in between us. I had NO idea where I was, I don't know that part of Phoenix at all, and so I just started walking around. Eventually I ran into two kids spray painting some cinderblock wall in a pretty old neighborhood. It was actually really good, they had their deseigns looking almost shiny and three-dimensional. They didn't seem worried by me so I just walked up and started talking to them about it. I'm a total sucker for street art and graffiti, I think it is so cool, so I was just thrilled to learn from these criminal da-vinci's. They told me to just buy a lot of spraypaint, build some stencils and practice practice practice. They had both taught themselves and were seriously good.

These gentleman have posted some of their work on Flickr. Check it out...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/janettowbin/sets/72157603845269957/with/2238729439/

So after talking with them for awhile I went to where my buddy Brent said he'd pick me up and take me back to my car.  It was on 44th and Camelback, I waited at a Circle K that was on the bottom floor of a convention center. Classiest Circle K ever. It still had a tough looking lady working there and a dirty bathroom, so rest assured, it was still Circle K.

So to make a long story short, when we got back to my car, Brent knew who lived in that Castle I was parked beneath. Alice Cooper. No seriously, it was, he was born in Phoenix, now he has a castle on top of a mountain. That seems to work well for a scary rock star from the 80's.

So now, I'm in Tucson, with two very cool girls, but I just don't think I'll be able to top castles, and grafitti, getting lost, and climbing mountains. But it is sunny, and we do have a pool.