We made it to Phoenix after a beautiful drive out of Vegas. We met up with our friend, Matt Cangemi, from Cranberry PA. He moved out to Scotsdale a couple years ago for a job. We went camping out in Tonto National Forest under some beautiful stars, watched the sunset that looked like the sky was on fire, and hung out around the fire surrounded by caucuses. Annie learned the hard way not to mess with them though. One jumped out and clung to her leg during one of our mountain bike adventures. We checked out some Indian cliff dwellings and learned a lot of the history about the natives that lived in the area and speculated on why they moved on. The park ranger said probably as they became comfortable in the area and populations grew the resources were abused and all used and they had to move on. Then we drove on to Apache reservations which was a pretty sad place to visit. They don't have much going on for them. We climbed Camelback mountain which overlooks all of the Phoenix area (which is huge). It was sunny and hot. Probably in the 80s. This is what we imagined Arizona would be like.
We met up with our 2
nd cousin Brent, he's first cousins with the family in California. He's really into canyoneering and we got introduced to this amazing activity and fell in love with it. We got up early Saturday morning after an amazing dinner the night before at 4 Peaks Brewery (where I randomly ran into Jess Kausits, one of my friends from Westminster, who works there). So we drove out to the canyon, parked and started hiking. We had to hike up to the top and around to the drainage which was about 4 miles before we were able to start the fun part. Climbing and repelling down the rocks. Crazy thing was it was rainy and cold on us that morning! We were really hoping that we wouldn't have to go swimming in any pools of water. There was only one drop that Brent had to drop into the water and then he set up an assisted repel where Annie and I got to zipline over the water. It was so exhilarating. The highest repel was 60 feet, we did 8 all together. Each one had it's own obstacles to get around certain rocks and drops without swinging around and hitting the rocks. Plus you are trusting your life with this rope and just leaning over the edge. It was an amazing 8 hour day of exploring. Then we topped off the amazing day with some prickly pear ice cream! We had a nice dinner with the rest of our Phoenix family, Barb & Steve (Brent's parents), Colleen and her husband, John. We are pretty darn lucky to have such cool family all over the place. We've got to have some good blood going through us or something. We did some gnarly bike riding a couple times while we were there too. Desert trails are pretty fun, some really technical parts and rocky areas too.
We made it to Phoenix after a beautiful drive out of Vegas. We met up with our friend, Matt Cangemi, from Cranberry PA. He moved out to Scotsdale a couple years ago for a job. We went camping out in Tonto National Forest under some beautiful stars, watched the sunset that looked like the sky was on fire, and hung out around the fire surrounded by caucuses. Annie learned the hard way not to mess with them though. One jumped out and clung to her leg during one of our mountain bike adventures. We checked out some Indian cliff dwellings and learned a lot of the history about the natives that lived in the area and speculated on why they moved on. The park ranger said probably as they became comfortable in the area and populations grew the resources were abused and all used and they had to move on. Then we drove on to Apache reservations which was a pretty sad place to visit. They don't have much going on for them. We climbed Camelback mountain which overlooks all of the Phoenix area (which is huge). It was sunny and hot. Probably in the 80s. This is what we imagined Arizona would be like.
We met up with our 2nd cousin Brent, he's first cousins with the family in California. He's really into canyoneering and we got introduced to this amazing activity and fell in love with it. We got up early Saturday morning after an amazing dinner the night before at 4 Peaks Brewery (where I randomly ran into Jess Kausits, one of my friends from Westminster, who works there). So we drove out to the canyon, parked and started hiking. We had to hike up to the top and around to the drainage which was about 4 miles before we were able to start the fun part. Climbing and repelling down the rocks. Crazy thing was it was rainy and cold on us that morning! We were really hoping that we wouldn't have to go swimming in any pools of water. There was only one drop that Brent had to drop into the water and then he set up an assisted repel where Annie and I got to zipline over the water. It was so exhilarating. The highest repel was 60 feet, we did 8 all together. Each one had it's own obstacles to get around certain rocks and drops without swinging around and hitting the rocks. Plus you are trusting your life with this rope and just leaning over the edge. It was an amazing 8 hour day of exploring. Then we topped off the amazing day with some prickly pear ice cream! We had a nice dinner with the rest of our Phoenix family, Barb & Steve (Brent's parents), Colleen and her husband, John. We are pretty darn lucky to have such cool family all over the place. We've got to have some good blood going through us or something. We did some gnarly bike riding a couple times while we were there too. Desert trails are pretty fun, some really technical parts and rocky areas too. 
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