Arizona

My husband and I were in Arizona (and California and Mexico). We visited Yuma, Scottsdale, Los Algodones (Mexico), and Niland, CA. Arizona was never on my list of places to visit, but my parents like it there, so we went. It was my first vacation with my parents since I was 16.5 years old and it was great. I'm not exactly a cactus, mountain, sand, or desert kind of gal, but seeing things outside of my aesthetic comfort zone stretched me as an artist (a good thing). I didn't expect to see palm trees and Bougainvillea (only in red). They helped to soften the landscape.

The vacation disrupted our lifestyle. For one week we didn't listen to the radio or any kind of music, we didn't watch movies or surf the internet, we didn't work. I didn't write any blog posts. I did feed my sketchbook and take lots of pictures.

The Arizona landscape challenged me. Beyond my dislike of desert, cacti, and mountains, I also don't like sprawl. Yuma and Scottsdale were mostly suburban sprawl places and finding nice places to walk was challenging. Both places had Old Towns which were pleasantly walkable. The difficult landscape forced me to look hard and deep for inspiration. Thankfully I found it. The most important part of our time away was that my husband and I had a very good vacation with my parents. Life is short.