As written on August 18^th:

So I’m back at school in Prescott now and the majority of my time has been spent putting together the special edition orientation issue of the paper.  This basically entails sitting in front of a computer working on my newest design, not too unlike an engineering job.  Last night I took a break from the newspaper to check out a concert in Phoenix.

I left newspaper, filled up my gas tank, picked up my boyfriend, and head south towards Phoenix.  Two hours later we were 5 miles from the concert center parking lot.  An hour after that we parked our car.

I didn’t think about the fact that the concert was in an outdoor pavilion in Phoenix, in the middle of August, until after my boyfriend bought the tickets.  It was pretty rough on my Coloradan boyfriend, but I’ve been hardened to the heat from spending the last six months of my summer in Houston, so to me, it was a fairly mild summer evening.

I would summarize the concert as skirting off to the side of my expectations.  The music was great, and the light shows were pretty cool.  What I wasn’t really prepared for were the band members themselves.

I’m not really a person who follows bands.  If I like someone’s music, I’ll look for more of their stuff, and add it to my newest music playlist, but I’m not really into looking them up and actually learning about the musicians themselves.

Owl City on Stage at the Crickett Wireless Pavilion from my seat

Owl City opened for John Mayer, and I was more excited to see them as I know many of their songs by heart. My favorite of their songs is West Coast Friendship because it reminds me of the fun parts of my engineering internship in California.  I wasn’t really prepared for the band. They looked like pretty normal…slightly nerdy…okay, pretty nerdy people.  After watching a couple of the songs, I’m convinced the lead singer was a drama nerd in high school.

It was awesome to see them live, but the atmosphere of the concert wasn’t at all what I expected.  It was the only professional concert that I’d been to (outside of a symphony orchestra concert) that featured string instruments on stage while almost the entire crowd sat.

When John Mayer took the stage, the crowd exploded, so I figure they were all there to see him.  Now, my favorite of John Mayer’s music is “Heart of Life,” and most of the other songs that I listen to are pretty chill.  When John Mayer walked onto stage in a black sleeveless shirt with a toned muscular physique covered in tattoos, and playing a guitar solo that could have been influenced by Jimmy Hendricks, I was a bit shocked.

What really made me laugh was the rest of his band, and their stark contrast to him.  His band was comprised of pretty nerdy looking guys in jeans and button down shirts.  They really wouldn’t have looked out of place in an engineering firm.  During one of the songs, the background lights and graphics looked like clips of electrical schematics.  I looked at my boyfriend and he said “I know.  I have no idea what they are singing, I’m just ‘nerding out’ on the schematics.”

We had so much fun at the concert between the listening to silly, crazy, and sometimes sentimental things that John Mayer said to introduce his songs, people watching the fanatic fans, to jamming out to the music.

White Horse Lake is a beautiful campground in the National Forest outside of Williams, Arizona.  Within a few hours from school, it provides a beautiful place to escape for a wimpy camper like me who likes the basic luxury of a hole in the ground toilet facility and a faucet for running water.  Heck, I was proud of myself for going somewhere overnight with no electricity.

I love campground food.  Smores, hotdogs cooked over open flames, and meals cooked all in one pot over a campfire.  And you can’t forget dinner by citronella candle…

Dinner by Citronella Candlelight

Just off of the campground is an easy hike to Sycamore Canyon.  If you don’t want to camp over night, you can also park at the day trip lot and hike from there.  The hike was very peaceful as it wound around the lake and into the pine forest.

Sycamore Canyon

Me at Sycamore Canyon

One of the things that surprised me about the forests of Northern Arizona was the general lack of underbrush.  Back in Southeast Texas, it’s almost impossible to walk through the forest unless there is some kind of path or white tail deer run because of the very thick underbrush.  In Northern Arizona, the space between the towering pine trees is relatively vacant.

Camping in Arizona and camping in Texas is also fairly different.  The biggest surprise for me was the sharp drop in temperature at night.  In my part of Texas, the difference between the high and the low is usually less than 20 degrees, and sometimes less than 10 degrees.  I knew that the drier desert regions of Arizona could experience huge temperature drops after sundown, and that I’d seen 40 degree drops in Prescott (though not always that drastic), but we were camping up near Flagstaff, in the National Forest.  The temperature there wouldn’t drop that much, right? Wrong.

The temperature was about 70 degrees when we reached the campsite at midday. Beautifully perfect for camping, right? That night, the temperature plummeted to 25 degrees. Needless to say, my 40 degree rated sleeping bag (which was always more than enough in Texas) suddenly provided nothing less than a cocoon of ice.  I couldn’t get warm all night and could only doze on and off.

When the hint of sunlight began to illuminate the walls of the tent, I bolted out and began to build a fire in our fire pit.  As I waited for it to really get going, I went to watch the sun rise over the lake. At around 5 a.m. steam rose off the lake in plumes that created a scene that looked like something out of a dream. I took the opportunity to practice some amateur photography.

Steam rising over White Horse Lake in the early hours of the morning

It took me a few hours to warm up next to the fire.  I thoroughly enjoyed my breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon cooked in a cast iron pan over a campfire. When the temperatures reached over 40 degrees and I had warmed by the fire, I returned to the tent to take a nice long nap.

We then enjoyed hiking and a couple more meals before we packed up to return to Prescott. I learned a lot about outdoor adventuring through my camping and hiking trips this summer, and I gained a greater appreciation for the power and beauty of Mother Nature.

Now that summer classes are over, I’m taking a chance to catch up on blogging about all of my weekend activities during Embry-Riddle’s Summer A.

There was a full week between the end of Spring semester finals and the beginning of Summer A classes, and I used this opportunity to take a little break by getting out and seeing some of the outdoor attractions near Prescott.  The first of these events was returning Granite Mountain.

One view from the trail, through the trees, near the summit of Granite Mountain

My first attempt to hike to the top of Granite Mountain back on Valentine ’s Day was a bit of a failure, as I started hiking too late in the day.  The hike takes a beginner to moderate hiker like me about 6 hours to complete.  The hike itself is about 8.5 miles roundtrip and starts ascends about 2000ft to the 7,185ft summit.

Granite Mountain is an awesome hike for a few reasons. First, Granite Mountain is such a dominant feature seen from so many parts of campus that after you make it to the top of the Mountain you can look at it from campus in awe thinking, “hey, I was all the way at the top of that.”  I know that may sound corny, but there is a sense of pride in accomplishing a hike like that.

The second best thing is that the trail itself is gorgeous.  The trail starts at the base of the mountain in a relatively thick pine forest.  During the hike you pass several streams and a small, peaceful pond.  I’ve never seen the trail very crowded, so it’s a good place to get away from people.  As you climb higher up the mountain, the terrain becomes a little more rugged, the winds become a little stronger, and you can’t help but admire the hardy trees that have been growing out of the harsh mountainside for hundreds of years.  There are several pretty places along the path to stop, rest under a tree and enjoy a light snack.   The views from the top of the mountain are spectacular and you can see so much of Prescott that you feel like you’re on top of the world.

Granite Mountain is definitely one of the “places to hike (successfully) before you graduate.”