Rocks and ruins

Taking advantage of the Thanksgiving break, we planned a 2-day trip up to Sedona, AZ to enjoy two things that I found fascinating: natural wonders and ancient civilizations.

On our way up, we first stopped by the Montezuma Castle National Monument, which is a 20-room high-rise apartment built into a cliff by the Sinagua people around 1,000 years ago:



After enjoying a short hike there, we got back on the car and took AZ SR 179 to enter the Red Rock Country. The various rock formations along the way are spectacular (even more so with the fabulous lights provided by the setting sun):





Our original plan for the next morning was to see the Devil's Bridge (the largest natural sandstone arch in the area). Unfortunately, the unpaved road to the trailhead is too much for our minivan to handle and I decided to turn back before it's too late.


As an alternative, we took another trail next to the Midgely Bridge on US Alt 89A to get down to the Oak Creek:





We are all very happy to see a creek with water in it again (you don't see that very often in AZ) and the kids had a lot of fun play with the water:



On our way back, we took a detour to see the Tuzigoot National Monument, which is a huge pueblo on a hill top with 110 rooms:






Before we head back home, we stopped by the downtown of Cottonwood to enjoy the atmosphere there. The kids are thrilled to find a rock shop and each got away with a pretty crystal to hold the sweet memory of this wonderful trip.

Apples, grapes, pecans, and more

We took the kids to Apple Annie's Orchard in Wilcox (http://www.appleannies.com/) this afternoon. We all had a great time picking apples/pears in the orchard. Because some of the fruits are hanging so low, even David can do it without help:







On the way back, we stop at the Crop Circle Winery and I got to have a bit of fun tasting wines. I know that there are some wineries in AZ, I was just surprised to see one that is not that far away from Tucson and we happened to see it on our way home.



The nice lady at the winery told us that there's a pecan farm right down the road, so of course we made one more stop to pick up some nuts before heading home. All in all, everyone had a great day and we now have lots of farm-fresh fruits at home. :)

Mexico!

We had a day-trip to Nogales (a boarder town between Arizona and Mexico). Here are some pictures from the trip.

Getting close to the boarder:


Interesting contrast of the development on the two sides of the boarder. Mexicans build all the way up to the fence.


The gate from the US side:


A welcome sign right after we cross the gate:


Some random pictures of the street views in Mexico:




It is always an interesting experience to see a foreign country, although we know this is not representative of what most parts of Mexico really looks like. Being a boarder town that thrives on tourism, people there are very friendly and always eager to sell us all kinds of souvenirs. It gets a bit annoying after we stayed for about an hour, but we did have a good time during our stay.

Pens, inks, and rocks

While still feeling bummed about missing the LA pen show this year, I saw on the FPN that the PenWorks in Carefree is having a pen show today. I was so excited about the fact that one can find a pen show even in AZ, I planned a family trip without hesitation.

The show turned out to be much bigger than I've expected. In addition to the usual suspects (Visconti, Lamy, Bexley, etc), the Penchetta line of pens (hand-turned by Anthony, the shop owner) really caught my eye. Some of the designs and materials are very interesting and good looking. Alas, I'm in my saving mode now and have to resist the temptation of buying new pens. In the end I came home with only a bottle of ink, Noodler's Zhivago, which turned out to be great (reviewed here).

After a short stop at the shop, we took the kids to the Deer Valley Rock Art Center to see the petroglyphs left by the Indians. Luckily, it happened to be their annual Rock Art Expo and there are a lot more than the regular exhibit to see. Everyone was pretty happy about this wonderful Saturday.

M+O Lab retreat

When you spend lots of time staring at strings of ATCG in the lab, it makes you want to scream AAAAAAAAAAHHH!!! (wait, I see a homonucleotide run here)



To prevent us from going mad in the lab, the bosses took us out to the Santa Rita Experimental Range to have a lab retreat over the weekend. I took this opportunity to have my first long ride in AZ.

Getting ready to go:


The ride down on I-19 was uneventful, although seeing all the km signs in the US for the first time got me a bit confused. However, after getting off the main road, I was surprised to find that there are a couple miles of unpaved road ahead:



It was definitely not fun to play motocross on a Ninja. Nonetheless, my bike handled the road okay and I got to the station without any incident.





After having a light lunch, we went out for a hike along the trail up to Mt. Wrightson:



We only spent about 3 hrs on the trail and did not make it all the way up, but we did enjoyed some really nice views along the way:















After the hike, we sat down and chatted about our ongoing and future research projects. I talked about my gene fossil hunt in bacterial genomes and the frustration with some bad gene annotations on some sequences that was done using 454 (homonucleotide runs are indeed a headache).

The dinner was incredible and I can't remember when was the last time I ate so much. Zakee's steaks are the best that I had in recent years and Gaelen's chocolate cake is simply delicious.

I am pleasantly surprised to find that Gaelen and Kevin are fellow boardgames nuts (we are a rare breed). We enjoyed a couple rounds of games (including For Sale and Bohnanza) well late into the night and had a lot of fun.

On Sunday morning, we all put on the lab T-shirt to have a group picture before we go.



Instead of going for another hike, I decided to go home early. On my way back I stopped by the San Xavier Mission:



When I get home the bike was really dirty after all the riding on unpaved road.



I don't mind riding a dirty bike and usually wouldn't spend time on washing my bike. However, the chain and brake looks really bad this time and I decided to give them a good cleaning. Fortunately that didn't take too long.

Running a desert resort

It looks like our home is becoming a popular resort among our old friends from college; three weeks after Ho-Yi's visit, Yung-Yao came from Cambridge, UK for a short visit.



We are very happy to see another old friend here; there are just so many things we can talk about, from our old days in college to our current life as a postdoc in biology.

The weekend was extremely busy and fun. Together, we went to:

Saguaro National Park


Rillito River Path


Halloween trick-or-trick at Tucson Electric Park


Artist's market at Plaza Palomino


Kartchner Caverns State Park


Sabino Canyon


Biosphere 2


And of course, we ended the wonderful weekend with our long-running tradition since college, a dumpling feast:


Also because YY received the great news that one of his papers got accepted while he was here (you lucky bastard, how come I never had such good luck when I was taking a vacation), we had a good excuse to enjoy a bottle of nice wine.



So that's pretty much what we have done over the weekend. Now, who's the next? :)