Yes...

It's midnight here... and pretty much midnight back home. 

As per sign!

I have survived the drive, the cold is doing great, me not quite so.  The lights are on, food is in the fridge, the girls have come... and gone.  It's been quite the 10 days.  Maybe not those that 'shook the World' but perhaps MY World.

Not sure, but this could be that fabled "Uncle Franks cabin"

 Now that I have a HI SPEED Internet connection from Qwest... I can log on here with relative security and pay bills, surf the net, map directions and generally behave like a lunatic in the privacy of my own (Phoenix) home.

Yup... this is a desert!  Aha, sure is, righty then!

Here's the bad news... after nearly a year of sitting around doing nothing, my Dr 200 has a doa battery.  Didn't matter much that I'd paid 30 bucks for a battery tender and faithfully plugged the little 7 amp guy in, if there is no one around for a year to turn the power on... the excercise beings rather pointless.  So, after attempting to bring it back to life (Dr. Frankenstein had more luck) I called the local bike store on Bell and yes, they did have one in stock for 45.95. 

Bobtailed cat focused on Liz!  Or, is it a fake?

The goils and I drove up the next day, me barely coherant from this miserable friggin cold, only to find that they have moved to parts unknown and that oh so nice shop is now the temporary home of auto hail repairers.  For those of you that didn't get to see the 'you tube' presentation on a massive October hail storm, you missed out on the event of the decade.  For Phoenix was blasted with hail storms the size of basketballs. 

Who knew, road runners could even get up there!

                                                  Well maybe baseballs, but dam hard ones.

Waaaay too cute burrowing owl.

 So after retreating back to the launch pad at Golden Lane, 85302... I drifted off to Golden fitful slumber once again while the newly arrived neices fended for themselves.  The next day, we GPS'd our way to the new shop, amazing as it was, and picked up some stored electrons in a plastic box, otherwise known as a battery!

Vegetarian prairie Dog.

During the 8 days their World stood anything but still for we as a group, gathered very little moss and proceeded to...

"That'll be a buck please..."

Shop, climb mountains, take hundreds, nay... thousands of digital images, went to an empty movie house to view RED, had numerous cafes, ate at Sonic, Taco Bell, Chipotles, and my favorite, the GOLDEN CORRAL, held weapons of several types in our little Canadian hands, including a 50 cal snipers rifle.  (everyone should own at least one) while at Cabela's and went generally NUTS.

This is Phoenix after all...

                                             Like I'd said, the Rolling Stones gather no moss...

Spotted rhino (as in saw) called him and over he plodded.  Really!

Of the many highlights of the week without sleep, was the final day spent at the Phoenix Zoo.  Hard to believe that the place does a pretty good impression of an African savannah.

Once I'd found my way to the Sky Harbour Airport from the other side, and after a quick and suitably short farewell, the ladies were winging their way back to the Great White North.



The "other" Zoo on the drive home.  Interstate 10 west.



While I fretted about downtown with very little petrol in the fuel tank

I just love them kitties!

, frantically searching for a gas station, in that other Zoo.