February is my birthday month. As a child I loved my birthday, but as I got older, it came to mean less. Lately, though, I’ve come back around. Who cares if anyone else is celebrating? My birthday is for me.
My birthday, however, falls in the week Tucson celebrates the yearly Fiesta de los Vaqueros–aka Rodeo Break. Schools are closed Thursday and Friday. So instead of taking my birthday off, I’ve been taking the Friday of Rodeo Break, and going camping.
Last year was the second time we went to Roper Lake during Rodeo, and friends, it was blinking cold. This year, I decided, we would go somewhere else. A little south of here! A new park, a new adventure, not so cold! I reserved a cabin at Kartchner Caverns State Park, back in August (you have to reserve way ahead.)
Then my work adopted a new policy as of January 1st–everyone gets their birthday as a paid holiday, but you have to take it that day. Use it or lose it.
You are darn tootin’ I am not going to lose out on getting paid to celebrate my birthday.
I went to the desert museum for the Avian Adventure, and met this charming fellow.
It was a great time! I will be showing off that picture for a while, let me tell you.
Then Friday, I went camping. Poor me, already paid for it, can’t get out of it, sorry to take two days off in a week but I’m out of here–camping. (I call it that because the state park cabins we rent don’t have bathrooms. Anytime you have to put shoes and a coat on to go to the bathroom, it’s camping. I don’t make the rules.)
Kartchner Caverns itself is fantastic. If you get the chance to tour, absolutely do it. Go. It’s beautiful and majestic and amazing and just so freaking cool.
And camping is very nice! It’s in the middle of nowhere (though not far enough from the closest road for my tastes, but whatevs.) It’s pretty peaceful, it’s PRETTY, and it’s south of the place we camped at the last few February trips. So it’s warmer, right?
Right?
May I present the view from the cabin porch at 7:48 Sunday morning?
This one is at 7:52 Sunday morning. This is when I started cramming things into the car.
8:11 Sunday morning, and I’m plotting how to keep things dry as I cram them in the car.
8:42 Sunday morning, and I’m just laughing at this point. Snow? Freaking snow? And where did those mountains go?
Well…it was an adventure! So was the drive back home, on a freeway with a number of people who had apparently never seen snow before in their lives.
I’d rather hang out with the owl than those people, for the record.