Guessing Game!

Just for shits and giggles, guess what tree is shown in each pic! 
Clue: they're all Arizona trees

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To be a white-throated swift...

This morning I had a moment. One of those moments where you can't help but smile, you want to laugh out loud, yell and jump around. But instead you just sit and soak it in and feel content and ecstatic. 
My mom and I were at the Grand Canyon for the past day, and we walked out to the semi-secret overlook, Shoshone Point, at 7 this morning. While my mom was jogging, I sat at the edge of the canyon in the sunshine and all of a sudden I was surrounded by dozens of white-throated swifts. They swooped and soared within feet of my head, so close that I could hear the sound of their wings. The sun was rising, the birds were twirling through the canyon... I can't think of a more perfect beginning to a day.

Mom + sunset at Shoshone Point

I have a new favorite spot and a new favorite bird now, until I have another moment. 

















I've now been to the Grand Canyon twice this week, and I want to go back right now! And go to every other park in the southwest. Hopefully in the next 3 months I'll get to at least a couple more. I feel so lucky to be living in Arizona right now, and taking classes that show me spectacular vistas so that I can take pictas (shout-out to Vista 2 monongo!).

Here is one of my classmates exhibiting the most exhilarating way to look at the canyon... upside down!

I need a time-turner...

...because I just spent way too long reading Harry Potter facts. BUT. I learned SO MUCH. As fun as it is to research white-nose syndrome in bats, I would much rather discover that Diagon Alley is actually a diagonal street. Diagon Alley = diagonally! AAAH!! Knockturn Alley = nocturnally!
http://hpotterfacts.tumblr.com/


In other news, J.K. Rowling took an online quiz and was sorted in Hufflepuff House. I'm a Huff!


In actual real life news, I didn't know what to blog about so my default was Harry Potter. I suppose it is slightly relevant, because exactly one year ago I was having a Harry Potter themed birthday party. In fact, I had the MOST Harry Potter birthday. Ha!

As for Prescott news, I have a week left of my block course-- it's gone by super fast. Pretty soon I'll be moving in to my actual house! As fun as couch crashing has been, I'm excited to have a space to myself. 
I've taken up a hobby-- collecting dead cicadas and painting their heads with glitter nail polish! So many Ke$ha cicadas. But not even the enormous western Ke$ha cicadas can top the original, seen here in Jessie's equally Ke$ha-ed hand.

I will try to actually come up with something to blog about next time. Until then, be on the lookout for a Ke$ha in a mailbox near you!

Whatever the weather

This post goes out to Emiry, because it is about how weather is SO COOL.

Yes. Especially in the WEST! Oh boy!

I'm just so very excited about it!

This picture is from my first desert storm (Operation Desert Storm!).  When it rains it pours!

You could say that I am on Cloud 9 when I look at the sky here.

I'm in awe every time I go outside. The sky really is bigger in the West!

But time for a cool factoid that I just learned from Emiry:

The phrase, 'On Cloud 9' is actually in reference to a cloud guide from the 19th century in which cumulonimbus is the 9th cloud.

Well a picture can't capture it, but maybe you can get the idea. This is the view from Thumb Butte.

This picture is from today's trip to Agua Fria National Monument.

We have severe weather warnings right now, which made for EPIC skies the entire field trip. The clouds were reaching down to the ground in places and looked so ominous(ly AWESOME), but then you turned around and the sky was bright blue with fluffy clouds. And the lightning! How do I even describe it?? Jagged bolt lightning like the kind on coffee table weather books! But in real life. I think I'll end this semester with an injured neck from all the time that I've spent looking UP!

and now for desert!

It's my 5th day here in Prescott, AZ, so I thought it might be time to share some of what I've been up to/ noticing. Life in the West... it's different!
For starters... the HEAT! I was not prepared. I can't walk more than a few blocks without being completely exhausted, which is problematic when I'm in a class that goes on hikes in the desert.

We hiked in the Granite Mountain wilderness yesterday.

The cicadas out here are bigger and LOUDER! Deafening, when you are sitting under a tree with cicadas in it.

For some reason that can be diagnosed as a brain fart, I forgot that I'd be encountering different species in Arizona. I saw a big yellow butterfly and automatically assumed: Easter Tiger Swallowtail! Mark it on the butterfly list! But no, it was a Two-tailed Swallowtail. And the bird that flies like a goldfinch? Not the American Goldfinch, but the Lesser Goldfinch. And plants are another story. There are oaks that look like shrubs, and my professor only uses the latin names for plant species when you ask what something is. I have a lot of learning to do!