Airplane trip to Arizona

Assorted random thoughts on our trip:

AIRPLANE:
1. I love flying on an airplane. The flight attendants are old. I always thought they were young and pretty but I haven't seen one of those. They all look around 40-60 years old and tired. That surprised me.

2. Food in the airport is pretty good. Good coffee and good variety. I had some taco thing with great re-fried beans..not those mushy dog food like kind.

3. Nobody checked Jacob's I.D. either coming or going. But they patted my body down once on the way home and scanned my water bottle for "vapors" and emptied my backpack to look around it. I was fine with it all. Neither was an intrusion or anything that offended me. In fact, I like the diligence. Go for it.

FORGETTING THINGS:
I didn't forget one thing. Of course, as I said before, I pack like Monk. My suitcase weighed 44 pounds on the way home. I checked it, of course. I loved the fact that I didn't have to lug it around the airport or try and squeeze it into some overhead compartment because I had packed lighter so I wouldn't have to pay the $25. For me, it was worth it.

TUCSON AIRPORT:
Wow! Great signs everywhere. It was so easy to navigate thru. You'd have to be brain dead not to figure out how to get anywhere.

Great electronic charging station counters. I loved them and received wonderful WiFi reception.

JACOB...My TRAVELING COMPANION:
What can I say. He's the best person I've ever traveled with.

OUR TARANTULA CONFERENCE:
That's for another blog but it was unusual, interesting, informative and a well planned event. I got a kick out of it.

THE ONLY GOOD THING ABOUT HAVING TO GO HOME:
1'm going to get to install Lion on my computer.

TUCSON, ARIZONA:
Beautiful...absolutely breathtaking beautiful. If I couldn't live on water...which I do...I would want to live by mountains. They do what water does...change with the clouds in the sky and where your body is viewing them and every view is a good one. There is no bad view of a mountain or no bad view of a body of water.

The Raffle

We sat at the pizza dinner/raffle at the same table as the lady who started The American Tarantula Society in 1991. She is an 8th grade science teacher right now.
She had 2 sons that shared her tarantula hobby as they were growing up.

She had 1,000 (yes, that's not a typo) tarantulas when her oldest son got meningitis at 18 years old and died in 1998.

Since it was a shared hobby with her boys she couldn't even go into her tarantula room any more and they started dying. She lost over half of them before her youngest son helped pull her out of her well of despair and they could start caring for them again.

This was the 13th annual Tarantula Society Conference and the first one she was able to come to even though she was the original founder of the idea and others had to take over when her heart breaking tragedy occurred.

She's on the other side of the pain...as they say....but her story stabbed my heart.

You sure can't just look at a person and see what scars they may be carrying inside.

Tarantula burrows

Are you interested in knowing about tarantula burrows in the Arizona desert? If so, read on. If not, then run away to something else on the web. Hey...speaking of "web".....that's what this is about.

That's how you identify a tarantula hole from a hole that is not as much fun to explore. You look for the soft webbing across the hole. It's a very subtle thing and hard to spot...at least for me....not so much for Jacob.

Then you insert a tiny soft stick inside and "tickle" it out. It thinks it food and is intrigued and either comes out fast and quick or more tenuous and slowly. You never know.

You can also pour a little water into the hole and that encourages them to come out.

Jacob will sometimes start digging to discover the tunnel of the burrow if he thinks it went way down into it's hole. He gets in that hunter mode.

Now wasn't that interesting?

Night hike and Arizona scenery

Jake and I took a long night walk in the dark of night (with a guide) into the mountains looking for tarantulas in their burrows and scorpions under a black light. It was an incredible adventure. Knowing that there were rattlesnakes around us, we treaded carefully.

It was a lovely 85 degrees with a slight breeze. Nonetheless, walking up the gradual incline made me sweaty. Or, maybe it was the thought of the snakes, I'm not sure.

I really liked walking in the dark. I'm not sure why. Usually I don't like the dark. I leave lots of lights on in my house. But this was a beautiful adventure.

I even took one of those scenery pictures that probably a million people have taken just before we set out. I think I'll make it my new computer desktop picture.

Ken The Bug Guy

Jacob got to meet Ken The Bug Guy. The celebrity of the tarantula world who had the tv show.

Weird pointed kid-friendly plant?

Not touching tarantulas or sharp prickly things. Nope....he's definitely not. I won't let him and definitely wouldn't take picture.

Tarantula holes in the ground

Jacob has had amazing success in finding live 

tarantulas in the wild on our visit to Arizona.

Jake looks for small round holes with webs over them and then goes for it.

Sometimes putting some water in the hole helps the spider come to the surface.

Here's a video of Jake in action.

Tarantula coming out of it's hole from Marlyss Hollyer on Vimeo.

Type in the word 'tarantula' in the search bar if you want to
read more about Jake's adventurous hobby.

Tarantula in hand....straight from the ground

Packing and Flying

I packed like "Monk" I was told. If you've watched Monk you know what I mean. If you haven't, it's...well, a little obsessive compulsive. I packed like I was going into the wilderness and not a big city like Tucson, Arizona where I could BUY something if I forgot to pack it. I even contemplated looking on the internet to see if there was an Apple Store nearby in case I forgot some important cord for my ipad, iphone or camera. But I think I've got it all...and then some.

We left the house at 5 a.m. and headed to the airport. Everything went so smoothly it was almost like gliding on air. We had pre-printed boarding passes so we just dropped off our luggage and then went to the security line. It was a long line but clipped right along on the same smooth air we were sailing on. (Didn't have to show any I.D. for Jacob) Jacob just took off his vest and shoes and put his phone in the box and I did the same except I also had a backpack. I think this is the first time ever that I didn't beep when I went thru the scanner. I usually forget something in my pocket.

Then we sailed over to our boarding area with a quick stop for some bottled water to insert into the special pocket in our matching ScottE vests that both Jake and I are wearing.

We hardly had to wait any time before boarding and we liked the seats Susie picked out for us in row #10. Although we sat in row 11 instead. They all look the same. The couple whose seats we were in didn't care and just moved up to row 10. Jacob got the window seat and set up his homework right away and I got on my ipad.

We're having a perfect trip so far.

Falling asleep on the plane.

We are almost in Tuck-son (Tucson) so we have to keep saying the name right soon. Pilot said it's 83 degrees there and some clouds. Jake has been enjoying the window seat on both flights. He just saw another plane fly by us and spotted a low flying blimp.

The Big Adventure Begins

I packed like "Monk" I was told. If you've watched Monk you know what I mean. If you haven't, it's...well, a little obsessive compulsive. I packed like I was going into the wilderness and not a big city like Tucson, Arizona where I could BUY something if I forgot to pack it. I even contemplated looking on the internet to see if there was an Apple Store nearby in case I forgot some important cord for my ipad, iphone or camera. But I think I've got it all...and then some.

We left the house at 5 a.m. and headed to the airport. Everything went so smoothly it was almost like gliding on air. We had pre-printed boarding passes so we just dropped off our luggage and then went to the security line. It was a long line but clipped right along on the same smooth air we were sailing on. (Didn't have to show any I.D. for Jacob) Jacob just took off his vest and shoes and put his phone in the box and I did the same except I also had a backpack. I think this is the first time ever that I didn't beep when I went thru the scanner. I usually forget something in my pocket.

Then we sailed over to our boarding area with a quick stop for some bottled water to insert into the special pocket in our matching ScottE vests that both Jake and I are wearing.

We hardly had to wait any time before boarding and we liked the seats Susie picked out for us in row #10. Although we sat in row 11 instead. They all look the same. The couple whose seats we were in didn't care and just moved up to row 10. Jacob got the window seat and set up his homework right away and I got on my ipad.

We're having a perfect trip so far.

The Big Adventure: Part 1

Jacob The Adventurer from Marlyss Hollyer on Vimeo.

Our adventure is about to begin. Jacob and I are chomping

on the bit...as they say.

I wonder what we will be coming home with?

Watermelon palm tree

Hey.....how about this flower or maybe you would describe it as a palm tree.

I wish I could say that I did this. Not so.

Maybe if it was foam core but this was made from a small watermelon and a honeydew for the leaves. It was at our party this weekend.

Pretty creative I do believe. Underneath was a pineapple for the trunk.

New Suitcase....New Adventure

Jacob and I are going on our adventure soon.

 

So, therefore, I bought a new and

improved way of carrying my stuff.

 

It's like a big duffle bag on wheels.

Seems to be just the right size and has

lots of pockets and zippers. Pockets and especially 

zippered pockets are something I absolutely can't resist.

But...wait...I bought it from Costco.

How many millions of other people will

have one just like it?? I can just see all these

black duffle bags spinning around on the

baggage carousel all looking alike.

 

So I painted daisies on mine...subtle daisies.

And then I painted my name on it...not so subtly...but

near the bottom.

 

After all...I'm going to have important stuff in there.

Well, maybe not so important but MY stuff.

The popcorn issue.

I love popcorn. It's one of my favorite snacks.

I use to buy my popcorn in bulk from Costco.

They had a big 12 lb. container that lasted forever.

But like all things at Costco....things come and go and

you can't count on products staying around there.

So one day when I was almost out of popcorn 

I bought the one on the right in the picture at

Meijer. I just grabbed it and put it in my cart.

I have to say I didn't even look at the price.

Some things I just need in my life...popcorn is one of them.

Boy did I get ripped off. It was $5.99.

The much larger one on the left 

was only $3.98 at Walmart.

 I didn't even notice until I had

them both in my cupboard at the same time and 

then I was appalled....and annoyed.

Even if they were the same size and the

Walmart one was cheaper that would have

been bad enough. But the smaller one from

Meijer was $2 more??

What a big difference on a small item.

My trips to Meijer have been almost

non-existant since the popcorn issue.

Sorry Meijer...you lost a customer

over popcorn.