On many a cactus l America 2014; Part 6

We have reached the end.

I know there was a point where you probably thought it was never going to end, but I said I was going to get this done within a year of me being in America and damnit if I set myself a goal I'm going to achieve it.

So just a re-cap of what the hell was going on in America and why I was there:

I was over there to see American Girl and American Boy get married which was, as you would expect, brilliant. But before that happened I got to do some good old traditional American stuff like watching a Spring training baseball game and then embarked on a four day road trip which took in more sights than it should be possible to take in in that amount of time.

Day One - Drive from Phoenix to Monument Valley
Day Two - Drive from Monument Valley to Four Corners and then to Page, Arizona
Day Three - Visit to Antelope Canyon and then a drive to the Grand Canyon
Day Four - Visit to the Grand Canyon and then back to Phoenix

Once I was back and weddinged out there was time for one more piece of adventuring in Phoenix - this time heading out to the Desert Botanical Garden.

I'll be honest it wasn't my choice to go. There were a couple of other people over from England who were without a car and they had suggested going and if I had said "Naaaaaah, don't fancy it" then no-one would have been able to go. And nobody wants to be that girl do they?

In my head botanical gardens are kind of boring. They tend to be something that you're dragged to on a wet weekend where you are trailed into a slightly damp and muggy over-sized greenhouse where you wander around looking at ferns on steroids.

But you see I forgot that a botanical garden in Phoenix is not going to be the same as a botanical garden in Belfast. For a start - it's in the flippin' desert innit? No need for the greenhouse! And no ferns on steroids here, instead, about 4 billion types of cactus. And we all know that cacti are hilarious to look at.

Not only were there cacti there but there was wildlife to spot - we saw an actual roadrunner (it is not blue and it did not say "meep meep" which was a huge disappointment, but it did run almost horizontally so it pulled it back slightly for me.) - and we were lucky enough to be there at the same time that there was an exhibition by Chihuly, a glass sculptor whose work can be seen over here in England in the form of the glass chandelier in the V&A Rotunda.

His pieces of work were dotted all over the gardens, popping up in unexpected places and I'm almost ashamed to admit that I may have once or twice mistaken a sculpture for a real cactus, only to be terribly disappointed that the very pretty thing was glass and not nature.

It was actually a really fun tramp around, you could walk for miles without realising and some of the views were absolutely beautiful. There are several trails that you can take around the gardens and there's a wildflower and butterfly garden. (Although I stayed away from the butterfly garden because let's all remember that they are the creatures of the devil and not to be trusted.)

If I hadn't have gone, I'd have probably spent the day recovering from the wedding and being hungover on the sofa, which I can't lie would have been pretty good fun but pretty much a waste of a day when this was the other option.

So the rules to remember. Botanical Gardens in deserts? Not boring.

You are welcome,

And we're done.

Now I need to plan what to do next time I go over there...

Of planes and baseball - America 2014; Part 1

I've got to tell you. You need to brace yourselves for quite a few posts about America. I mean I could try and condense into one or two.....but I'm not going to.

Consider yourselves forewarned.

Let us start at the beginning.

As I mentioned in my last post, the turnaround from engagement to wedding was kind of fast. Knowing me and the kind of person that I am you may think that I would have been all over the planning of it.

I was not.

It just seemed to creep up on me and became on of those things that you say to yourself "Oh that's after Christmas, I'll think about it then" - and then suddenly it's mid-February and you realise that you're going away in a few weeks and nothing is organised.

We had a vague idea of what we'd do when out in Arizona. We didn't want to be too under feet whilst American Boy and American Girl were in the lead up to the wedding and still at work and we wanted to take the opportunity to do a bit of road tripping when out there. Cue lots of list-making and looking things up on Google Maps and looking for accommodation and getting tips from anyone we could ask.about where to go.

One piece of advice I was offered was from someone who recommended that we upgrade our seats from Economy to Premium Economy for the flight. We were taking the direct flight from London Heathrow to Phoenix Sky Harbor which is over a 10 hour flight. So not a short flight. I listened to my friends and I thought "Nah. We'll be fine." - basically I'm a cheapskate.

The worst thing about being in economy is that they make you walk past the Business Class seats in a Bullseye "This is what you could have won" style. As I gave everyone richer than me deathstares I realised that there was a nagging noise in my ear. What was it? Oh it was the sound of a child. Screaming.

This child then went on to scream for what definitely felt like the next 10 hours.

It must have been awful for the parents. Terrible. There they were with a baby (who was actually silent) and a toddler on a 10 hour flight. No mean feat. But my god I wanted to hurt somebody. Shut. the child. up.

We ended up in the middle of the middle of the plane. The person next to me fell asleep as soon as we took off and stayed that way for the night 9 hours, the guy next to The Person did not move for the whole flight either (he didn't wee, how is that possible?!) so we weren't massively comfortable. About 5 hours in I eventually found a position that didn't cut off the circulation to one of my limbs and determined to stay in that position. When I then tried to stand up I realised one hip was about 5cm higher than the other.

By the end of the flight I didn't know whether to cry or cry. The Person had managed to get some sleep, I got nada.

(The child was still screaming when we went through immigration. I hoped they might not let them in to the country but sadly it wasn't to be.)

Anyway.

You know what you do when you go to Phoenix in March? You go to Spring Training baby.

Spring Training took me a while to get a hang of but basically a load of baseball teams from up where it is cold have parks that they have built in places where it is hot so they can come and do some practice! So the Chicago Cubs leave behind the freezingness and the snow and the horrible weather and come to the boiling hot Phoenix. I'll be honest, I'd rather practice in the snow than in 30 degree heat but I'm just crazy like that.

So you can be dedicated and go and sit in the boring stands or you can take a blanket, sit on the grass and get drunk and not really watch the baseball.

The other thing you do is eat a hot dog.

Here we experienced American hospitality at its best. When we went up to order our hot dogs they were just in the process of making some more. The guy who served us apologised about three times in the space of about 3 minutes that the hot dogs were not ready immediately.

I wanted to take him home with me. It's hard to imagine the same happening if you went up to order a Pukka Pie at the Emirates...

From the baseball it was on to drinking and then a little bit more drinking. More sitting in the sun and talking. A slightly anti-semitic moment in a bar. (Don't ask, I can't even go there.) Before ending the day on this rooftop, American Girl and I talking whilst American Boy and The Person ended up inexplicably inebriated, gesticulating wildly, silhouetted against the setting sun.

I decided a screaming child on a 10 hour flight was probably worth it.

(But you bet your backside we upgraded to Premium Economy seats for the way back.)