Phoenix Retreat

I've had about 10 days off since last project since they're rotating me back onto the Canyon schedule. Most of that time has been dedicated to the leadership group I'm involved with, planning events for a national celebration of community service in Flag and service projects for a conference in July. We had a retreat in Phoenix to make plans for these events, and as always it was a great chance to carouse with friends. In between meetings etc. we got to tour the Arizona capital, eat for free in the government employee cafeteria (it's about what you would imagine), relax poolside at our comp'd hotel and catch an opening week Diamondbacks game. Our contact in the governor's office (by day) is the t-shirt cannon guy for the D-backs (by night), so he got us free tickets and hit us with a bunch of free shirts too. We made some sweet signs at the poster station located inside the stadium...probably the best idea in baseball since they started letting us take food in.

(Leadership team at the D-Backs game with handmade signs designed to get us free shirts)

After the Diamondbacks slaughtered the Pirates 8-1 (including a grand slam) there was a big fireworks show and a couple of us drove north of Phoenix to Cave Creek Recreation Area to camp for the night. The next day we made it up to Camp Verde and just scratched the surface of all the amazing wilderness there on the edge of the Mogollon Rim.

(Looking off the Mogollon Rim near Rd. 216)

(Backcountry "BALT" Bacon, Avocado, Lettuce & Tomato)

Future trips to that area will hopefully include the Crawdad Festival in June and canoeing down the Verde River. Off to the canyon tomorrow for a 9 day hitch. I've talked with our director about staying on to become a crew leader and got a good response, so hopefully I'll be in Arizona for a while yet!