Desert Snow Storm

Well, we finally got rain in Phoenix. As you can see from the photo, we also had snow in some of the mountains around the city. It was beautiful. We are now back in the 70's and sunny so much of the snow has melted around the area except at higher elevations.

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There were reports of up to 4' of snow in the higher elevations. Most of the mountains around Phoenix just had a dusting but as you headed north and east, there was a lot of snow. The Grand Canyon which I was just at a few weeks ago and hiked in shorts had around 20" of snow with temperatures around 5 degrees. Brrr!

Grand Canyon

My friends from Maine Charlie and Donna came to visit. We spent the week taking a bunch of different hikes around Phoenix (South Mountain) and then visited Sedona and Grand Canyon. This photo is of me checking out the view at the Grand Canyon February 27 2006.

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We had a great time and Charlie and Donna found a new favorite restaurant called Chipotle. The word chipotle became a common verb used during the remainder of their trip being used every time someone ate too much and felt like they would puke if we did too much physical activity like, hike out of the Grand Canyon. The use of chipotle as a verb stemmed from a lunch time visit to our local Chipotle restaurant where we scarfed down some giant burrito's gorging ourselves to the point of ... puking! I told them, don't order the chips and salsa as the burrito's were big enough, but they didn't believe me. ;-)

We also did two hikes into the canyon which were awesome. We hiked part way down the South Kaibab trail and the Bright Angel trail. Both hikes were incredible and I'm ready to go back for another visit soon. Perhaps in a few weeks.