Buck Thornton's World of Jerky

I got back from Sedona, AZ yesterday night.  Next week I'll write a longer post about all the various hikes I went on while there, but as I don't have much time this weekend, today you will get to read about Buck Thornton's World of Jerky!

As you can see, Buck Thornton wasn't messing around.  I had a maple duck flavored jerky while in Sedona, but I still have elk, buffalo, venison, wild boar, kangaroo, honey ham, ostrich, and alligator jerky to try.  I wonder what I will discover in the world of jerky??

I have divided the jerky into roughly three categories.  There's the normal jerky:

The John Locke jerky:

And the weird jerky:

What part of Buck Thornton's world should I explore first?  Personally, I'm most curious about the kangaroo.  I wonder if the alligator tastes fishy.

The moral of the story is that there's a whole wide world of jerky out there, waiting for you to discover it!  Go forth!  I will report back with my findings.

Trip Report: Oak Creek Canyon, Arizona

On Saturday, I arrived with my parents in Sedona, AZ.  We're here visiting family, Grandpa and Lorraine. The scenery here is almost unbelievably phenomenal.  I know those words sound like overstatements, but... just look at the photos. :) 

From the deck of the house, we have panoramic views of red rock formations.  Our house is also right next to one of the four mystical "energy vortices" of Sedona (Sedona attracts new-age spiritual types), and people can be seen at the vortex from dawn to dusk.  I may take some photos of the view from the house and post them later.

It's been getting up past 100 degrees in the afternoon, so this morning, to beat the heat, we left at 7am for a hike through Oak Creek Canyon.  We took West Fork Trail, which follows the creek into a deep canyon of red rocks.  Just to get an idea of the scenery, here are some photos from earlier today:

 

Seriously, all of Sedona has rock formations like this.  Hence my earlier phrase, "unbelievably phenomenal."  Here's the most-photographed part of the West Fork Trail:

We found part of the creek with a natural water slide:

We took a break to enjoy the scenery next to the water slide.  Here are Grandpa and Dad:

Here are Mom and Grandma Lorraine:

And me, on a rock.

After the break, we continued deeper into the canyon.  We passed some greenery:

But mostly we were looking up at the rocks:

We also passed some piles of little rocks.  While there always seem to be rock piles along rocky hikes, in Sedona there's a chance that the piles are made by people who feel a special spiritual energy in the area.  In the past, I've seen circles of rocks here, forming new-age shrines.

Another interesting feature of the hike was a little room we found built into one of the cliffs near the trailhead.  The skeleton of an old, three-room house was nearby, so it's possible this room was once used for storage.

Overall, the hike was beautiful.  I occasionally got a strange impression, though... a strange impression that I was in a screensaver.  So I took a photo, and I now present a Sedona desktop background for you!  Click to get full resolution and enjoy. :)

Tomorrow we're heading out early again, this time to Cathedral Rock and Bell Rock, which are isolated formations as opposed to canyons.  We may also see some Native American ruins.  More to come!

Photos of the outdoor climb

A couple weeks ago, I posted about my experience rock climbing.  I finally got some photos from one of the guys I went climbing with, so I thought I'd share them here.  Photos of the climb are courtesy of Michael Collins.

Here are a couple pictures of me climbing the easy 5.4 or 5.5 climb.

And a bit further in the climb:

The thing on my back is my chalk bag!  It keeps me from slipping off the rock due to sweaty hands.

This is the chimney that I was talking about climbing.  It was rated a 5.7.  I love to climb chimneys:

The manly leg in the photos is, of course, not mine.  The cool thing about the chimney climb is that you could brace yourself on the back wall from time to time, giving you something to push off of as a counterbalance.

Finally, here is a photo of me climbing my Great Nemesis of the day, the difficult 5.8:

You can see me as the tiny little person at the top of the wall.  (Proof I got up there!)  This photo does a good job of illustrating one of the things I love about rock climbing.  That wall does not look like a natural thing for humans to be climbing -- humans are not supposed to climb up walls like geckos!  It's really cool to do something that is just not quite normal for bipedal mammals.

The rope on the left of that photo was the rope for the chimney climb.

Finally, here is a photo of Angela, our trip leader, trying to work past a tough move with a crazy undercling:

This is where we climbed.  Pretty. :)

Lots and Lots of Legos

Since this is technically a blog about the outdoors "and the other great things in life," today I present you with lots and lots and lots and lots of legos, the Ultimate Millenium Falcon lego set:

Ken had wanted to get this lego set for a while, and I started getting excited about it as well.  It is the world's biggest lego set, which got discontinued somewhat recently.  It contains over 5000 legos and will be about 3 feet long when completed.  It was a mutual birthday present from me and Ken to each other because, well, let's not talk about how much it cost.

Here is a video of the set being put together:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-57KFpR9kuc

It will be coming to the first floor of Grey 17 in the fall!  Stop on by and see the building!