mistressofmuses

Sunday was our last full day in Arizona. It was a "do what you want" day. Someone's brother-in-law owns a brewery that a handful of people were going to go visit, and a bunch of people planned to either lounge by the pool or go play in the casino, but none of the above sounded great to us.

So we went to the Desert Botanical Garden.

It was a perfect day for it - low 70s, which felt pretty heavenly on comparison to the weather in Colorado! The gardens were a little on the crowded side, I'm sure because of the beautiful weather, but it was still a very nice time.

I really do find the desert beautiful. I spent a lot of time in New Mexico as a kid and as a teen, mixed between desert and mountain areas. I love it.

This is the post with the most pictures, though only narrowly, haha.


I was so excited to see saguaros! (We saw plenty ever since we arrived in AZ, of course, but these were the better pictures.)


A particularly dramatic saguaro! With an interesting growth pattern at the top.


A bee on a fairy duster. :)


Saguaros up the mountain, a quail on the stairs, and a roadrunner in the plaza! (I love roadrunners.)

( 22 more below the cut: )

Bonus inappropriate cactus:

...Ahem. (Jokes crowdsourced from Taylor's post about this specimen: "What a prick." "The Cocktus." "Desert girls make do.")

After Butterfly Wonderland, we did sit outside for maybe twenty minutes or half an hour, hoping Taylor would start to feel better. Luckily they did! So after that, we headed toward the OdySea Aquarium.


There were a ton of rays, which I really loved.


Seahorses!!


I was extremely charmed by the variety of clownfish! I don't think I've ever seen this many kinds before.

( Twenty three more below the cut: )

The big plan for Saturday was a group hike with most of the party.

Originally we had signed up to go with, but my mom had us bail. Her foot is still barely healed from the melanoma surgery back in December, and she was very worried that a serious hike would be painful and potentially damaging. So instead, we decided to do our own thing!

We got tickets to two local attractions: Butterfly Wonderland and The OdySea Aquarium. Both are located along a sort of walkable mall/city center/tourism center called The Arizona Boardwalk.

I took a bunch of pictures at both the butterfly house and the aquarium, so those will get their own posts. This one is just for the other stuff we saw on the boardwalk.

We were able to take a shuttle from the hotel over, which was nice.

Right at the entrance is a really cool carousel, with all kinds of interesting animals!


We were most excited initially to see an okapi! I love okapis, and they're definitely not a common animal to see represented anywhere. I was then very charmed by the little poison dart frog right next to it. <3 When the carousel was in motion, the frog looked like it was hopping.

3 more pictures from the carousel:

A lovely hummingbird. The butterfly on its saddle is the logo for Butterfly Wonderland.


My absolute favorite was this sort of classic dragon.


Another angle on the dragon (the tail!), plus the nice rainbow seahorse.

I'm sad I did not apparently get a picture of the manatee, which had a lily pad saddle, and was super cute.

There was also a bunch of art, some of which just seemed to be public art, some of which was advertising things you could do on the boardwalk.


I liked this delightfully unsettling statue. :)

5 more pictures:

A flying saucer. (There was an alien encounter/UFO museum, but having been to the UFO museum in Roswell, NM, I fear all other UFO tourist traps will pale in comparison.)


I WANT TO BELIEVE


Not art, just an advertisement. We did not go eat at the Pangaea Dinosaur Grill, but I loved the dinosaurs that were in only some of the product photos. Both the model dino in the top photo, and the weird photoshopped glowing raptor, ha.


A T-rex made of old tires.


And a scrap-metal Predator. :)

*screaming into a pillow*

It's been a hectic week.

Monday the apartments were doing random inspections, supposedly of only ten units. We drew the short straw, again.

They inspected part of the unit, but did not go to the bedroom/bathroom part of the unit. Then they gave us a "failure to comply with lease" warning, saying that we have two weeks to make the rest of the unit accessible or face eviction.

( It isn't inaccessible! )

Then we had to replace our TV. 

( Annoying. )

I ordered a gift for Alex for Valentine's day, and it made it to Denver last week... before mysteriously being sent to Pueblo, where it's now been stuck for days and days. So... I probably need to get him something else while I start a postal claim for the lost item. But since I didn't get paid until today, I wasn't able to do that in advance...

Further limiting... I am flying out of town today.

The company that Taylor works for does an annual "holiday party" that is actually generally a weekend vacation of some variety. They get to bring a plus one, and I've been Taylor's for a few trips, now. :) Several years ago was when we went to Austin. Last year was a fancy hotel elsewhere in Colorado. This year is scenic Scottsdale, Arizona! The trip is today through Monday.

I'm excited to hang out with Taylor and my mom (who works for the same company,) but I am less excited to have to fly.

Now I'm just hoping I can find something nice for Alex while I'm in Scottsdale. :/ Which I was going to do anyway, but now it has to do double duty of souvenir and belated Valentine's day gift.

We'll celebrate on Tuesday once I'm back, but... now we also have to spend that time on apartment nonsense. (I was hoping that we'd be back at a reasonable time on Monday, but we won't be back until evening. :/ And when we have to deal with that apartment stuff is not ideal timing for me to then be gone for four days.)

My heart is breaking for a coworker going through some horrible health stuff: his own, which involves leukemia coming out of remission, and the drug they want him to take to treat it costs $16000 per month, and then his wife "feeling unwell" and going to the doctor turned into a stage 4 liver cancer diagnosis for her, and they've now been in the hospital for nearly a week with her. 

Plus the apartment worry has kept me up almost all night multiple nights in a row with just churning anxiety, and I've had a headache that I can't quite shake for the last few days, and considering how badly it spikes every time I move and how many times I've just been unable to say words or express complete thoughts over the last few days I'm afraid it's a migraine (even though I haven't been totally incapacitated), AND on Wednesday morning I had one of the worst nosebleeds I've had in years, followed by an even worse one on Wednesday night that I was *almost* concerned wasn't going to stop... I feel like I'm a mess!

I am looking forward to the trip, but am also painfully worried that I will struggle to enjoy it, because I'm so anxious about everything else! I'm going to try very hard to have a very fun few days away, then a very fun belated Valentines with Alex (the plan right now is Indian food!) and then really try to get all the unfun nonsense dealt with.

Last weekend, I went as Taylor's +1 on the annual holiday party weekend that their company throws. (Our mom works part-time there, so she was on the trip as well!) Sometimes the trip is to an exotic locale, but this year they stayed in Colorado. We stayed at the Gaylord (ha) Resort.


I guess I should have taken a picture of the actual hotel, but instead I was like "look, horsey statues." You can see part of the building in the background.

( 10 more pictures below the cut: )

Today was... just as tiring as anticipated! But it was a good day.

Neither of us slept very well in the weird motel... though not really the motel's fault. When I have to get up at a different time to do something out of the ordinary, I struggle to fall/stay asleep. Alex and I both estimate we each got about four hours total.

My favorite thing from the motel:



This hand-drawn (and color coded in crayon) emergency exit map, haha. I like how... telling it is that there are rooms just labeled with the people who live there/the companies that apparently rent out the rooms. (Zero shade at people living in the motel, just kind of funny that there are people who are SUCH a set presence they're labeled on the map in every room.)

Also, let's be honest, the hand-drawn map gives big Silent Hill vibes.

But we managed to drag ourselves to the show hall in time - early, even! - which gave us more time to set up than we usually wind up with. The morning was EXTREMELY hectic - there were three different divisions we were showing in, plus Alex was judging a fourth division, so it was basically up to me to get things into the right class at the right time. It was SO MUCH back and forth through the hall.

( Cut for people who really don't need to hear about model horse showing, lol: )

We were worried about the drive back, since we were both so damn tired, though we both kind of hit a second wind, and it didn't end up being a problem at all.

We saw a single grazing pronghorn, which legitimized the trip to Wyoming in my mind, haha. No bison, though.


The sunset was quite dramatic. I liked these rays - it looks so much like a classic stylized sunset, ha.

It was after 8:00 by the time we got to my mom's to pick Cy up, and right around 9:00 by the time we got everything unloaded from the truck and back into the apartment. Oof. Way too much carrying and walking and lifting.

Cy did fine at my mom's. I'll be heading back there sometime tomorrow to start celebrating Taylor's birthday. But first... gonna hopefully get some damn sleep, ha.

Slightly more belated. Friday was our travel day back, and it was... rough.

It turned out Eastbound I-70 *was* open (it had only been closed on Wednesday when we were heading west because they had to retrieve a rolled semi.) So we didn't have to plan on the extra two hour detour. So we had plenty of time!

There's a herd of feral ("wild") horses in the Grand Junction area... we've wanted to try to see them before, but have always been on a short timeline where we couldn't make the side trip. We were lamenting that we'd missed the turn to go see them... and just a few more miles down the road, there's a sign! A nice big official brown road sign, saying that there's access to the horse area at the next exit!

So we followed some pretty faded road signs pointing us toward the BLM land that the herd is managed on... the road turned to gravel pretty quickly, but was no big deal.

UNfortunately, there is nothing that gives ANY indication that the road will *rapidly* deteriorate in quality after about mile 5, and that it is 25 fucking miles to the border of the herd management area. Worse, the terrible road will offer very few opportunities to safely turn around!

As I said before, a good part of the issue was absolutely sunk cost fallacy. Having no idea how far it was, it was hard to want to turn around, because we'd already spent so much time and effort, that the worry that we were missing it by just one more mile was a real one.

25 miles and nearly two hours later (THAT IS HOW BAD THE SHITTY ROADS WERE) we made it to the BLM land... and about three miles in we reached a point where it was clear that we would absolutely get stuck if we kept trying to go forward. Alex had to reverse us down a steep, deeply rutted dirt road for about a half mile or so just to get us to somewhere we DID have a hope of turning around.

So two MORE hours out, we saw no horses, and wasted FOUR hours of travel time, all of which was spent sure we were going to wind up with horrific car trouble in the middle of nowhere, miles and miles away from anything resembling cell service.

Fortunately, other than the anxiety and misery and wasted time, it was all fine.


At least there were some nice views.


And the rather extreme delay did put us in place to see a pretty nice double rainbow.

( Five more pictures below the cut: )

Rough drive back. Accidental 4-hour addition for nothing except suck - attempting to make a quick little side trip, and getting trapped on a VERY rough, unpaved road full of washouts that was an undisclosed 25 FUCKING MILES to the destination. Some sunk-cost fallacy ("but we've already come so far") and also just some plain being stuck with nowhere to safely turn around. We made it out - thank you VERY much, Alex, for safely navigating that shit - but it sucked, and we didn't even get to see what we were hoping for. By the time we made it out of that shit, we could have been home.

We picked Cy up - he did way better than anticipated!

...Then we got home to a notice from our apartment saying we have to be ready for an inspection next week, possibly as soon as Monday.
Last year they barely came through, looked at almost nothing... and then informed us that we'd failed due to "presence of trash in the apartment". There was no trash... but there was laundry in a plastic bag, and we think that's what they meant, though we never got an answer, despite asking for clarification. It was extremely stressful, as we were threatened that failing the inspection could lead to eviction... but then they never followed up with us, and we've changed management either three or four times since then.
So... we've got to spend the weekend panic-cleaning the apartment, because again, the notice says that failing the inspection will be considered violation of the lease. While I think with some cleaning and neatening we can meet all of the requirements, I still worry. It's a very small studio apartment, and we have a lot of things stored in plastic storage boxes. That makes it LOOK cluttered, even when it's clean, and we aren't blocking the windows or doors.

...And then when I pulled my computer out of my bag, I discovered my laptop battery ate it the rest of the way, probably because it was so fucking hot in the car. The battery swelled to the point that it was pressing against the underside of the touchpad, so that it was impossible to "unclick". While there was a small bit of swelling that's been one of those "need to get replaced" things... in addition to making the laptop not work, that's getting to the point of being dangerous! I'm real glad it didn't actually explode or anything. It could be worse!
But that means that if the cord comes unplugged for even an instant, the computer shuts down, so I can't do too much that's time-consuming without risking hard shutdowns.
I ordered an off-brand replacement that should be here on Sunday. It seemed to be well-rated, so I hope it doesn't immediately die on me. Or explode. (And that I correctly sussed out the correct part.) I think my ONLY option is off-brand at this point. This laptop is 15 years old.
Fingers crossed that it DOES arrive when it's supposed to, and that this is a secretly good thing, since I haven't been able to use the computer unplugged for more than about five to ten minutes for years now.

But fuck. It was a really nice trip away, even if it was just for a couple days, and then today just kind of sucked and kept sucking. (Though everything was just short of being THE WORST. We could have gotten hit with rain that would have actually made it impossible to get back on the bad road, leaving us stranded and waiting for it to dry up. The really bad wind that almost blew us off the damn road could have blown one of our bags out of the truck box. The inspection notice could have come with less notice - if we'd stayed away an extra day or two, or if our return hadn't landed on a Friday. The laptop battery could have exploded.)

But ugh... definitely not up to editing and trying to post a bunch of pictures today, and at this point I just want to go to bed. I hope everyone else is well, and I really will try to get caught up on posts and comments shortly!

We didn't get out quite as early as intended, but weren't running too far behind.

Got everything packed, and Cy and all his stuff dropped off to my mom's.

We made pretty good time through the mountains (with only a handful of terrifying experiences, like a truck right in front of us with smoking brakes that didn't seem to realize it for way too long, and an oversize load of swimming pool liners that stretched pretty far into the neighboring lane, yet kept trying to pass.)

Glenwood Canyon was a bit sad to see - this was our first time through since the really extensive fires. There were a couple pockets near the river that looked okay, but for the most part everything is just... gone. Also, I thought that I70 had finally reopened (after the fires and then mudslides in the burn scar, it had been closed for quite a while, which is rough for one of the main paths through the mountains.) Oops, turns out only westbound 70 is reopened, so our trip home is going to involve the pretty significant detour, which adds an extra two hours to the drive. Oof.

We stopped at one of the only open rest areas (the No Name rest area).


There were a bunch of magpies at the rest area. This young one was very easily bribed by cracker crumbs.


From later in the drive: this fake-ass backdrop looking landscape.

( 5 pictures under the cut, mostly of the magpie: )


And at least as of a couple hours into the morning, my mom sent us this picture of Cy. Haha. She said he "seems settled in", lol.
(I hope he stays that way!)

Tonight is indeed a right-to-bed night.

But we made it to Wyoming and back to Colorado! The show was... mixed - fun, but not terribly successful in terms of competition.

The drive wasn't too bad - it was still snowing this morning at the apartment, but it had still barely stuck to the road. The roads were only even slightly slick on overpasses. We left the apartment a bit after 6:00, which was slightly later than intended (as we were aiming to be at our destination by 8:00.) Didn't quite make that - wound up there closer to 8:30, but it worked out okay. Once we got to the northern part of CO, the snow completely stopped and the roads were dry, lol.

We saw pronghorns and bison, which is about the best I hope for when having to go to Wyoming, haha.

We did have a power outage overnight, which had been warned of with the heavy snow on branches and such. I don't think it was off for long, but did go out at some point before 3:00. And I know the time because... I woke up around 2:50ish and the power was on, but the TV had gone off and the microwave/stove clocks had reset.

And then I never went back to sleep.

So I am ready for bed right now, ha.

-

I'm absolutely terrified at what I'll walk in to dealing with tomorrow. Coworker who was covering the office today did text me at one point that she was overwhelmed. I had tried very hard to leave her with very little she needed to do, but that was before we had the driver no-show, and then presumably resign. I don't know if any of that fell on coworker, or if something else went badly.

(She is new, and her usual office is my manager's other office, which is a small office in a smaller town, as opposed to my usual office which is one of the moderately busy ones, so this outside of what she ordinarily has to deal with, even though we have the same job description.)

I feel like tomorrow may be an exercise in repeatedly reminding myself that I just have to survive for 9ish hours... I just have to survive for 9ish hours...