There’s so much you can eat and make from things that grow in the desert! It’s a common misconception that the desert is just a barren place full of thorns and poisonous things. But as a tour guide at the Casa Grand ruins once pointed out, it’s like living in a grocery store. I’ve done my fair share of eating desert plants, but did you know you can make a lot of things from them, too? Even if you have no experience with bushcrafting or textile arts, you can create this yucca coil basket.
I have a yucca in the front yard that I’ve hardly thought about since we moved in. Why did I decide to cut off a couple of leaves today and make a basket? It’s all a part of my writing research for the novel I’m working on. My book is a survival story set in the Arizona desert, and my main character is an ancestral crafts instructor. So I figured I’d better learn some ancestral crafts. After all, it’s a lot easier to write about something when you’ve experienced it, not just watched some YouTube videos!
Yucca stalk
This isn’t the first time I’ve done hands-on research for the writing. Obviously, my travel writing for the web is experience-based. As far as fiction goes, I’ve also had the chance to fly a plane and learned to make mud bricks!
Drop a comment if you’d like to see an instructional post on how to make mudbricks in your backyard.
Pressing mud into a mold
Bricks drying
Mixing up mud!
So, on to why you clicked on this link: how to make a yucca fiber coil basket.
Harvest Yucca Leaves
There are a lot of ways to make a basket out of yucca leaves. I picked this one because I already knew how to make coil baskets. To date, my attempts at other types of basket weaving have not gone so well.
The first thing to do is cut a couple of yucca leaves! I took two to make this basket. It was really tiny. Like an Easter basket for a Barbie doll. If you want it to be bigger than that, you’ll need a lot more leaves. I didn’t want my yucca to be bald, so I stuck with a small project.
Be careful cutting yucca. There are sharp and some varieties have teeth on the edge of the leaves.
Scrape
You’ll need a couple of rocks for this. One should be large and flat, the other should be smaller and have a sharp edge, ideally. Scrape all the wet green stuff off the yucca leaf.
You are not pounding. I found this out the hard way. Scraping is a lot more effective. I tried rinsing out some of the green mush, and it worked OK, but it will dry just fine if you scrape it best you can.
Separate the fibers. There should be a few fibers to a strand.
Cord
Now you’ll need to create a cord out of the fibers. I was daunted by this part, thinking of Pa Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie cording straw until his hands bled by the fire all winter.
It’s not like that.
Cording was surprisingly easy, although a slow process. Basically, you have two strands of fibers. You give the bottom one a clockwise twist and then bring it counter-clockwise to the top and repeat, twisting in new strands as you get to the bottom of each.
If that makes no sense to you, try watching this video on yucca cording.
Coil
To make a coil basket, you need your cord and you also need a thicker strand to act as a base. Put your cord through a tapestry needle (or get really epic, and make a needle out of the point of the yucca leaf) and begin to wrap the thick strand with the cord.
Wrap it tightly until you have enough length to overlap in a small circle, then wrap over the overlap to secure the loop. From there, continue to wrap along the length of the thicker cord a dozen or so times, then insert the needle below the row under your current row to secure it.
Continue until you run out of cord. Now secure the end, tie off, and weave in ends.
For visual instructions, try watching this video on coil baskets.
You did it!
And that’s a wrap!
Get it? A wrap?
Anyway, I hope you have as much fun as I did making your own basket! If you’re the expert on this and have any advice on how to do this better, please leave a comment! I’m looking forward to learning more bushcraft skills as I do research for my novel. Stay tuned for more desert survival ideas!
When you get an invitation to go up in a prop plane, you take it.
I recently finished writing a novel manuscript that involves a character making an emergency landing in a small plane. And that’s all I’m going to tell you about it for now—sign up for my newsletter in the sidebar if you want to hear more in the future!
Thanks to the flight elements in my novel, I watched a lot of Youtube and read a lot of content on how to fly a plane.
Turns out, all those buttons and the names of various parts of airplanes are kind of hard to get a handle on when you’re just piddling around online.
So, I wrote the scenes as well as I could and then reached out to John Correia, one of my professors from college who also happens to have his pilot’s license, to see if he’d look it over and make sure I had it right.
Sure, he said. I could do that. Or, I could take you flying.
Um, yes please.
To say I was excited would be a major understatement. I’ve been on a lot of commercial jets, but never in a small aircraft.
The weather was perfect on the day of the flight. I pulled into the parking lot of Flying Cacti at the Glendale Airport and looked around. Not only had I never been on a smaller plane, I’ve never been in a hangar. Actually, I think I might have been in one at Luke’s Airforce Base when I was a kid on a field trip. Obviously I don’t remember enough of that for it to count, though.
Before Takeoff
John opened the hangar door to reveal a blue and white Van’s RV12. Wow! I couldn’t help but run my fingers over the glossy exterior. I could already tell that the glass dome covering the cabin was going to give incredible views, and propeller on the nose just begged to take us for a spin.
John whipped out a checklist to show me all the things he had to check before taking the plane up. It was a long list. As he pointed out, if something goes wrong with your car, you pull over. If something goes wrong with the plane, you fall out of the sky. I had been a little bit nervous at the idea of being way up in the air in a small aircraft, but after seeing how thoroughly everything had to be checked, the trace of nerves I had vanished.
During this process, it was cool to get to ask questions about how the plane worked and what every little thing did. For example, the static ports, two tiny pinholes in what looked to me like screws, use air pressure to give the pilot information about speed and altitude. I never cease to be amazed by engineers and their ability to create and pay attention to all the details. Or to create a flying machine that can carry two people and only weighs about 800 pounds.
Once all the checks were done, John pulled the plane out of the hangar and we climbed in. For my book, I needed to know the steps to start the plane and taxi down the runway, so he talked through everything as he went. When the propeller started whirring into a blur, I could feel it pushing air right into the cabin through the vents that serve as air conditioning.
My heart started beating a little faster. I was in real prop plane, about to go up in the air!
Flying!
John taxied down the runway. We waited for a couple of other planes to take off, and then he powered the plane forward, lifted the nose, and suddenly we were up in the air. Just like that. I felt a huge smile stretching across my face. Wow, the views were way better than they are in a jet with the giant wing slicing through my view out the tiny window. I could see the whole dome of sky above and the earth rapidly falling away below.
We flew above Phoenix Raceway, over the top of the Estrella Mountains, and into farm country I didn’t even know existed behind the mountain range. Below us, brown pinpricks wandered around—cows grazing in the sunshine. The Gila River snaked through the region, feeding the various canals that turn the landscape green despite the desert beige that stretches in all directions beyond the Phoenix area.
In the Air
Since the episode in my story involves a non-towered airport, John took me to Buckeye Airport for a touch-and-go landing, meaning the plane landed on the runway and took off again without stopping. I got to hear all the pilots talking to each other through my headset, communicating in the absence of a tower to coordinate landings and takeoffs.
It’s kind of hard to understand all the different voices through the headsets, which is why pilots use the NATO phonetic alphabet to reduce avoid confusion when they communicate. It sounds like some sort of secret code. Charlie Oscar Oscar Lima!
I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask about the way prop planes work, what would happen if the pilot stopped flying for a couple minutes, how to read the dials on the control panel (although this plane had a screen instead). And I did eventually manage to find the answers to all these things. For a while, though, the scenery and experience was so overwhelming that all I could do was look out the window and take it all in.
Eventually, it was time to head back to Glendale Airport. I searched the landscape for the freeway and the Cardinals stadium to get a sense of location. Wow, we had gone a long way, even though it didn’t feel like it! Back over the Estrellas we went, and soon the landing strip came closer and closer.
Landing the Prop Plane
“Every landing is a crash,” John told me. “The question is, how well are you going to control it? A good landing is one where you can walk away from the plane. A great landing is one where you can fly the plane again.”
Every time I fly, I dread the sensation of touching down. Turbulence doesn’t bother me in the least. Landing? Ugh. Usually, I grip the seat, hold my breath, and tense up in preparation for the jolt of hitting the ground. But I didn’t want to look like a moron while sitting next to a pilot, so I did my best to brace myself invisibly.
The familiar sensation of dropping in a 1000-foot elevator twisted my insides, and then the wheels touched the landing strip . . . and it was fine. I guess there’s a big difference between the feeling of landing in a 400,000-pound jetliner and the feeling of landing in a two-person plane that weighs less than half a ton!
Back at Flying Cacti
John taxied the plane back to the hangar. We rolled past a party in one of the other hangars (the party being nine seniors in lawn chairs) and got a glance at someone’s fancy two-seater, and then we were pulling off the headsets and climbing out of the plane. The owner of Flying Cacti came by for a chat, and one of the employees stopped his truck for a minute to say hi, giving me a sense of the community there.
What an experience! I had always thought of flying a plane as some kind of scary and mysterious process. I figured I had a better shot at getting sprinkled with Neverland fairy dust than grasping the concept of how airplanes move in the air. Although I never took physics (marine biology is way more fun, guys), the basic concept sounds pretty crazy. You’re fighting one of nature’s most basic forces, gravity, by harnessing different forces: thrust and lift.
What I realized from my time in the air is that, yeah, being a pilot takes a lot of skill, from understanding the NATO phonetic alphabet to keeping tabs on all the processes happening inside and outside the plane. But there’s also a sense of wonder to being in the air, controlling a flying machine, seeing the world from a whole new angle. There’s a lot of science involved, but really, science is just another word for magic.
When we lived in Michigan, I was a little traumatized by winter. I thought I knew what winter was like, but I was wrong. The worst part to me was that during the bad weather season, you had to drive for literally DAYS to get out of the cold! That’s one reason why I’m happy to be in Phoenix now– we do get a “bad weather” season in the summer when it gets up to 122 degrees F outside, but at least we only have to drive an hour and a half or so to get out of it!
We have two people in in our family with August birthdays – my sister and my husband – and my parents like to take us to the cool weather in Flagstaff to celebrate and escape the heat.
One of the things we always do, and have done in the summers since I can remember, is go to Lake Mary. We used to live right off Lake Mary Road when I was a kid, and I have many memories of heading out of town and into the pines toward the lake.
Where is Lake Mary?
Lake Mary is about 20 minutes south of downtown Flagstaff. Take Lake Mary Road south and east, and you’ll find it! There are some free parking areas along the road, but they fill quickly. You’ll have a better bet parking in the fee area, which is about $10 per car for the day.
Ben making cowboy coffee during a camping trip
What do to at Lake Mary
Bicyclists love this area. You’ll see huge flocks (packs? herds?) of bicyclists riding down the highway on weekends. It’s easy to see why they love this ride. When we go in July or August, there are always sunflowers blooming all around the lake.
We often camp above Lake Mary. Since it’s National Forest land, it’s free. There are also plenty of places to just pull off and set up tents.
Obviously, boating and all its cousin activities are perfect at Lake Mary. We don’t have a boat, but we do have an inflatable kayak that had lasted us many lake days. My parents and my sister also have some inflatable paddleboards, which is my favorite thing to do.
Fishing is OK in Lake Mary, too. You can get some bait at the shop up the road and shore fish or trawl. Fishing in Arizona is generally terrible, so if you’re from out of state, don’t expect to much. Arizonans will probably be pretty happy with a catch from Lake Mary.
Activities near Lake Mary
When you’re done with your lake day, there are plenty of things to do in the area. Downtown Flagstaff isn’t too far. You can go to catch one of the public weekend concerts, watch the train pass at the Flagstaff Visitor Center, or take a hike up Mount Humphreys. Buffalo Park is another great nature area to visit. Flagstaff Extreme Adventure is a fun activity, as well.
If you love to spend your getaways in nature, then Lake Mary is a great place to visit during your Flagstaff trip! Not only can you camp for free nearby, but you can enjoy the peace and beauty of the lake and make a quick trip into town for anything you might need.
You’re seen the photos on Instagram. Cute desk spaces in neutrals with just a pop of color, an author’s laptop next to a latte in an indie coffee shop, an antique roll-top covered in flickering candles. You know, all those spaces where writing comes naturally, where the novelists and bloggers and bullet journalers sip hot mugs of inspiration while beautiful words flow from their fingertips.
Confession time:
I used to roll my eyes at those photos and pride myself on my ability to write anywhere, anytime, with any level of noise in the background. Busy university library? No problem. Neighbors having a party upstairs? Totally fine. And did I mention my desk looked like this:
Yeahhhhh. Could I write? Sure. But it was not great. In that environment, with my workspace being divided between writing, grad school, and online teaching, I did manage to keep up a busy freelance writing schedule and write my master’s dissertation. But I realized I was also opting to write on my bed a lot, which studies have shown is disruptive to sleep. Or, I’d set up at the kitchen table.
After a while, I realized that there was a connection between my desk looking scattered and my brain feeling scattered. Is that just me? Anyone else?
So then I started trying to set the mood. My writing time started with tea, a snack, and a Youtube music playlist.
But you know what? All that took time, which meant I had to spend effort and precious minutes to get going every time I wanted to write. Because I’m pretty sure my headphones were on an escape mission, and I spent too much time trying to find music I liked, and snack prep is a hobby all on its own.
Then I realized something: if I wanted to write, I needed to put myself in a chair and start typing words.
Environment does matter. But how much did it matter for me? And how much does it matter for you?
Finding a balance
Like everything in life, I think finding a writing environment– or any creating environment– is a balance. I think that atmosphere does matter to an extent. For example, I have a really hard time writing if I can see unfolded laundry from where I am sitting. My brain just jumps into that laundry pile and doesn’t want to come out until all the towels are all lined up in the hall closet. And when I can’t move my mouse very well because I keep bumping up against random piles of clutter, that’s not great, either.
But maybe don’t make a hobby out of curating a writing space. Unless you’re an interior designer. Or that’s what you really enjoy doing in your free time. But definitely don’t fixate on it as a way to procrastinate your writing work.
What works for me is a reasonably tidy desk and a glass of water. (Or a can of Bubly. Give me all the Bubly.) I also prefer to work when other people in the house are either gone or sleeping.
What works for me might not work for you. But here are some ways you can figure out your ideal, productive writing environment:
Declutter Your Desk
Do you need a dedicated writing space? I don’t, even though I have one, but maybe you do. Do you like the background noise of a coffee shop or the mall? Or do you prefer the quiet of your own home?
I think it’s helpful to learn to write in both kinds of spaces, but let’s talk about your own desk. Or table. Or coffee table. Or wherever you have space to write.
The most important part of a desk is that you can fit a laptop on it and sit at it and type. That’s all you need from a desk.
But it’s helpful if clutter isn’t driving you nuts.
One of my favorite bloggers, Rachel Norman from A Mother Far From Home, gave this tip in one of her newsletters: When you see something that needs to be done, just do it. Clean it up. Put it in the sink. File it. And keep a basket in every room where random stuff can go until you have time to put it where it belongs. Then, your space will always feel clean.
So I tried it. Wow. Ok. Mind blown. Maybe my mom was right all those years?
The result? A desk that is always reasonably tidy. At least, it never looks like a file cabinet exploded on top of it anymore. And even better, I no longer have to spend dedicated cleaning sessions for out-of-control pile-ups. Thus, more writing time!
Here’s what my desk looked like this morning, without any prepping for this photo. Not perfect, but definitely clean enough to focus well.
So here’s a question for you: How much clutter is too much for your brain? And how can you make some small lifestyle shifts to keep it at a manageable level?
Design Your Space
Unless you’re doing a lot of Zoom meetings and you need a nice background, this probably a nonessential. I mean, as far as putting pen to paper (metaphorically, of course, unless you’re one of those cool people who still handwrite their stuff), you don’t need your work area to look pretty.
I don’t need my area to be pretty. But I do like my area to look pretty. I didn’t care for a long time, but I think I shot myself in the foot by reading up on color theory and all that. So I added a snake plant, which makes me happy, and a vintage doily from my great-grandma and a couple of candles we had, and voila. Pretty desk.
The wall art is a photo and fabric from the first round-the-world flight. I rescued it from a bulk trash pile!
If you’re really looking for productivity, if you want to finish that novel or write all your wedding thank-you notes or sketch out your memoirs for your kids, then this space is probably not something you should create for the sake of Instagram. You don’t want to spend all your time snapping photos and making reels when you should be writing.
If you like to do those things, don’t do it during your writing time. Block out your writing time and forbid yourself to so much as open your camera app or social media. Don’t water the plants or arrange the accent pieces at all during that time.
So here’s a question for you: Does the aesthetic of your writing space matter to you? What are some ways you can make it a happy place to be? Do you need to set boundaries for yourself so the visual appeal of your desk doesn’t take precedence over your writing?
Decide on Smells and Sounds
Smells and sounds seem to be an important part of the sensory experience of writing. At least if you take Instagram seriously. Come on– who really needs that many candles, Fancy Bookish Writer Lady With An Awesome Antique Inkwell? (Can you read the envy dripping from my laptop?)
But for real. I do find it intimidating when I see pictures of people writing by the light of candles with wax scented like the pages of antique books; in the background, I imagine a tuxedoed violinist drawing forth baroque masterpieces from the strings of his instrument…
The sound of surf and the smell of the sea are my favorite!
And then there’s my house. Which smells like dog and old bananas. Unless the dishwasher is running, under which circumstances the kitchen smells strongly of Drain.
Actually, I have been doing better in the smell department, thanks to my oils diffuser. But I never really pay attention to the smell of my house when I’m writing.
The sounds, now… that used to take up a lot of my time. Searching for headphones, adjusting the volume. Skipping Youtube ads, searching for the right sound on my Amazon playlist. And boy, I can’t stand lyrics when I’m writing! Too distracting… skip that song.
At this point, I’ve just cut out music entirely. I might try again if I am writing an epic scene someday and need some video game music to inspire me. Because seriously. Video game music is amazing.
So here’s a question for you: Do you like to enhance your writing atmosphere with scents and/or music? Is it helpful to you, or is it distracting you from your real purpose: writing? If you want essential oils and a playlist but you find the prep cuts into your writing time, how can you streamline the process?
Plan your Food and Drink
As far as I can tell, there are two sides to problems with writing refreshments. One is getting in a bad habit of eating constantly while writing (hello, M&Ms!) and the other is forgetting to eat. Yeah, I do both.
My excuse for just not eating is that Albert Einstein forgot to eat lunch a lot and therefore it’s a sign of genius. My family would prefer my genius to be less crabby and lethargic.
At some point, I got into a bad routine of starting my work day immediately and not eating pretty much anything until the afternoon, at which point my blood sugar would plummet and I would grab some sugary snack to make it to dinner.
Please don’t tell me I’m an idiot, because I already know that.
Obviously, not eating is bad for your brain and you can’t do your best work if you’re starving. Or even if you’re munching on dry corn flakes all day to stave off hunger.
And substituting junk food is also not great, especially if you’re like me and feel like crap when you eat sugar or caffeine.
Having a child forced me to follow a better meal routine, thankfully. But I still have a lot of days when I don’t eat lunch and then snack on weird stuff in the afternoon while I write (stale marshmallows, anyone?).
What I find works for me is making myself a healthy meal and eating that while I write. Because I am going to write. I may or may not eat. So if I’m doing both at the same time, at least I won’t be a hangry monster by the time my husband gets home.
The flip side of not eating at all is snacking too much while writing. Which I also do a lot, a habit that started when I was trying to stop biting my nails (didn’t work, by the way).
I find that chewing gum helps, or having something without too much sugar to sip on, or making a air-popped popcorn to substitute for skittles. Actually, silly putty and other tactile toys can help, too, if the problem is being super kinesthetic and just needing something to fidget with in order to focus.
And then, of course, there’s the need to have a drink on hand while writing. I’m not a coffee drinker, so I don’t really get the whole coffee-lover thing.
I know, I know. Coffee is life. It flows in your veins. We can’t be friends anymore because I don’t drink coffee.
For whatever reason, I have better writing focus when I have something to drink. I like sparkling water or tea when I write. Fancy Starbucks frappes are also on my list of favorite writing companions. And obviously drinking water all day every day is good for the brain!
In my experience, the best way to eat or drink when writing is to plan what I’m going to have in advance. Then, I’m not hungry or thirsty, I’m not hopping up to go hunt through the pantry when I should be writing a scene, and I’m not sitting there thinking, “Ok, how many pieces of licorice did I just eat? I need to stop. I really need to stop.” I’m thinking about writing. Like I want to be.
So here’s a question for you: What are your food and drink habits while you write? Do they make you feel crappy? Do they distract you from writing? Do you need to create a better routine that will help you get more done and feel better in the process?
Here’s What It Comes Down To…
The point of writing is to write. Right?
I’ve found it’s good to assess what I’m doing every now and then to see if it’s working. Strip it down and see what I miss. See what is better off gone.
If you’re a writer, or a student, or a creator, or work a desk job, or whatever, why not assess this for yourself? What habits make you sharper, more productive? What makes you frustrated, slows you down, distracts you?
Everyone is different. Find what works for you, and do it. Do what helps you sit down. Open your laptop. And write.
I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about Africa. For one thing, I’m writing a novel about an American kid in a Kenyan boarding school. For another, we’re planning on taking a trip to East Africa in the spring. Ben is allowed a residency rotation overseas, and obviously, he picked going home!
Ben near Lake Tanganyika in his hometown
It’s hard to believe we haven’t been to Africa since 2013! For someone like Ben, who grew up there, eight years is a long, long time to stay away. We were the only ones to miss the last family reunion, thanks to Ben’s med school schedule. And when you have 35 people in your immediate family (hope I added that right), living in six countries across three continents, it’s quite a bummer to mess up an opportunity to get a family photo where nobody’s photoshopped in.
Visiting a Burundian national park. Ben’s grandfather helped to start it after WWII.
Fortunately for Ben, even though it’s been a long time since he’s used Swahili on the daily, he does have frequent opportunities to use it at work. There are many people from Congo in our city, and whenever someone shows up to the hospital, Ben is able to conduct exams in a language they are more comfortable using. I, on the other hand, am getting pretty rusty. You know, rusty on the hundred or so words I actually know in Swahili. Looks like I have some work to do if I want to be able to practice any conversational skills at all while we’re there!
Swinging on vines – not just in movies!
We’re excited to go to Africa, introduce our son to the continent, and revisit the places Ben grew up. But one of the coolest things about this trip is that Ben will get to work at the very hospital where his life was saved, where he realized his calling into medicine. Over a decade ago, he was laying in one of the beds with a IV in his arm, recovering from spinal meningitis and watching the staff go about their daily tasks. He knew he wanted to use the second chance at life to pour into patients, just like those doctors and nurses. And now he gets to go back to the same hospital and do just that.
Lake Nakuru National Park in Kenya
Isn’t it amazing how God redeems our circumstances? Sometimes we never see how he does it, but other times life comes back full-circle and we can see how to worst days of our lives change us into the people we are supposed to be.
Just for fun, here are some of my favorite photos from our 2013 visit to Burundi, Kenya, and Tanzania.
Sailing Lake Tanganyika
Baboons (Ben calls them BADboons)
Overlooking the Rift Valley
Subbing at a Deaf school
Friends who helped with navigating the language barrier
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I travel. A lot. Not always for fun, sometimes we’re just moving—and we’ve moved 12 times in our seven-year marriage! But with the pandemic, we’ve really slowed it down. In fact, I haven’t been out of the country for over a year, and barely left the state. Still, I’ve been able to do some exploring right here in Phoenix! Although I’ve spent over 20 years of my life here, there’s still a lot I’ve never seen, especially when it comes to hiking trails.
A couple years ago, Ben got me a book called 60 Hikes within 60 Miles of Phoenix for Christmas. It has been our goal to hit all 60 hikes—even if some of them CHEAT and are 75 miles out of town! Not surprisingly, the 15 hikes we’ve done have been mostly close to home.
One of my favorites so far is a hike that Ben and I did during his last day off: Shaw Butte. Although we lived ten minutes away from his hike for three years, we never did it. Now that we’ve moved across town, I can say it’s still worth the drive!
Shaw Butte is apparently one of the most popular hikes in Phoenix. While I was doing Camelback and Piestewa over and over, other outdoor enthusiasts were throwing Shaw Butte into the mix. It’s actually quite a bit easier than either of the other two, but it is a bit longer, at four miles.
My favorite part of this hike is that you get a completely different view of Phoenix. It lines up just right with Piestewa Peak and Dreamy Draw so that you get to see layers on layers of mountains—something that’s not common to find in the middle of urban sprawl!
My second-favorite part of the hike are the ruins three-quarters of the way to the summit. Although ancient ruins are definitely more interesting, the shell of this 1960s building is still pretty cool. Especially considering that what used to be a restaurant patio is now the ideal lookout spot for viewing downtown Phoenix (and snapping some shots for Insta, let’s be real).
The story behind the ruins is even better. Sixty years ago, a restaurant called Cloud Nine overlooked what was then the northern part of Phoenix. Patrons were shuttled to the fancy nightclub using the owner’s vehicle, since no real road was built and there’s only way up and down.
I have to imagine that Cloud Nine wasn’t exactly to code. Maybe that’s why it burned down in a mysterious fire. And unlike the mythical bird our city is named after, it never rose from the ashes.
If you’re like me, and were clueless about Shaw Butte, or if you’re just visiting Phoenix, put this hike on your to-do list! Not only is it a good workout and an excellent photo op, but it’s also a unique view into the history of Phoenix. If you stand very still, you may be able to imagine the ghosts of night club patrons milling around the patio with voice of Bobby Darin floating from the record player.
How does one write a travel blog during a pandemic? The question of travel bloggers everywhere. I guess I could have spent time catching up on dozens of past adventures that I *intended* to write about, but instead I’ve been working on other projects– namely, finishing my novel.
HOWEVER, now that things are starting to open, I have been able to get out and do some fun things in Northern Arizona, where it isn’t a hundred bazillion degrees outside.
You think I’m exaggerating, but seriously, once it hits 115 degrees, you can’t even tell when it gets hotter anymore.
The good thing about living in Phoenix is that I can escape bad weather with a two-hour drive. My parents treated my family to trips up north in August, TWICE. A glorious reprieve.
While in Flagstaff, I finally had the chance to try the Flagstaff Extreme Adventure Course. There are actually two options for adults: The Zip Line and the Adult Adventure Course. I got to try both!
Zip Line
The Zip Line was so fun! This course offers dozens of zips, and one is so long you can’t even see the end through the trees. I love the feeling of being high up, so this was a lot of fun for me. If you’re nervous, though, never fear– you’re connected by two strong clips at all times.
My foster son, R, and I doing the Zip Line Course
Fun fact– this is the largest zip line course in the Western U.S.
Also– how many gnomes can you find hiding in the trees?
Adult Adventure Course
There are five levels to this course, and one guide told me (after I fearlessly leapt to a rope that swung me into a giant net) that only 25% of people actually finish all five. Can you do it?
My husband, Ben, and I. And yes, I chose that shirt on purpose.
The beginning of this course is really easy, aside from crawling through a hanging barrel. But it does get harder. And higher. There’s even some bouldering involved!
I liked the Adult Adventure Course best. It’s focused on challenge, rather than just fun. But both were a lot of great! Definitely something I’d do again.
COVID Precautions
The Flagstaff Extreme Adventure Course’s COVID precautions were appropriate. Everyone on staff wore a mask and the facility was clean. Guests were encouraged to social distance and avoid going in the building, except to use the restroom. We were allowed to take off our masks once we got in the trees, but each party had to stay on separate platforms. You will be touching things other people touched, but I wasn’t too worried about it since it was outside in the sunlight. I just didn’t touch my face and washed my hands after.
I totally recommend this! I was born in Flagstaff and lived there for several years. I’ve been to all the touristy things within two hours. This one is one of my favorites.
It’s high time I invited you to my favorite place in the world (outside of Sint Maarten, of course). If you’ve ever spent a significant amount of time in Arizona, you know that Great State Forty-Eight has a lot to offer in the way of hidden roadside treasures. My absolute favorite is Wupatki National Monument.
A couple of years ago, Ben and I took a road trip from Phoenix to Page, which is north of the Grand Canyon on the border of Utah. Along the way, we stopped at several ancient Native American dwellings. I wrote about Palatki, but we also stopped at Wupatki during that trip. This year, I decided to introduce my sister, Kaylee, to Wupatki.
Wupatki is one of those amazing places that doesn’t get the attention it deserves, which makes it even better, because you don’t have to share it with seven million tourists and busload of field-trippers. In fact, it’s so out-of-the-way that you might drive by it on the highway every weekend and never pay attention to the turnoff signs.
However, once you do make that trip deep into the high desert wilderness, you’ll be amazing to walk through the remains of some of Arizona’s oldest civilizations. The history value is incredible– and the Instagram factor isn’t bad, either!
There are many pueblos in Wupatki, and you can see several of them at five stopping points along the loop that takes you through the monument. My favorite is Wupatki Pueblo, a huge, multi-family complex that includes natural air conditioning (you have to see it to believe it) that comes from a hole in the ground.
Cooling off with natural air conditioning
In addition to the big pueblo, you can visit other stops within the monument to walk through houses built over a box canyon, climb inside a medium pueblo with a stunning view, and hike to a hilltop neighborhood.
The best part, to me, is getting out to a place where all you can hear is the sound of the wind over the wilderness, where animals rule the landscape, and where whispers of the past rise like smoke from the crumbling remains of mysterious ancient dwellings.
As an aside, I would encourage you to visit my sister’s blog. She talks about faith and hope in the midst of navigating life as a 23-year-old widow.
I’ve been busy… mostly writing, but also working a couple
of part-time jobs, being Mommy, and trying to get some DIY projects done around
the house. There is currently an old front door sitting on my porch, halfway to
becoming a new headboard for our bed.
One recent exciting event was getting interviewed on the World Footprints podcast! This is a travel-themed podcast that features people from travel writers like myself to celebrities like Maya Angelou.
During my interview, we talked about my time in Sint Maarten, as well as the challenges and victories of moving overseas. You can listen to the interview here, on the iHeart Radio app, or most other podcast platforms.
I ALMOST got an interview on NPR last year, but I didn’t see
their invitation email until it was too late! So I was pretty excited to get a
second chance at being on a show.
I also write for World Footprints– check out my articles here!
So, I got heat stroke yesterday. And it was more frightening than the time I almost wrecked myself on sharp rocks while surfing.
A word to the wise: the elements generally win.
So, what was I doing to incur the wrath of the Arizona sun? I was spending an hour and a half cleaning up my front yard. Yup, that’s all it takes in the summer, apparently.
I was also gathering the ingredients to make fried prickly pear for lunch, which actually turned out pretty decently!
I have always tried to appreciate the food that grows in my own backyard, no matter how unexpected. In the Caribbean, I used to fish and gather food like moringa, tamarind, sea grapes, and coconuts (well, Ben climbed for the coconuts and got most of the fish…)
Sea Grapes in Anguilla
Here, the food is less obvious but still there. In my yard, I can eat three varieties of cactus fruit and two varieties of prickly pear.
Prickly Pear paddles have a lemony tasteYou can also eat the fruit. They make good jams. Leather gloves are a good idea for this step.Watch out for tiny thorns at the base of the bigger spinesBoiling and then frying tastes better than grilling, IMOCheese and onions to stuff it! Fry in olive oil and pretend it’s healthy Voila!
I don’t recommend using this type of prickly pear if you have options. The kind without thorns is a lot better. I did stick myself pretty bad, and Ben stepped on one thorn that I dropped. You can buy thorn-free paddles from the store if you don’t grow them. Phoenix Wal-Marts often carry them, and Mexican food stores sell them in other areas.
This was a pretty good lunch. Not amazing, but edible. And sort of a bucket-list item and bragging point. And let’s be honest– who doesn’t want a photo like this on their Instagram? So #trendy.
That being said, it wasn’t worth the heatstroke. So be smart, and know the risks and signs. Stay hydrated when it’s hot, too.
Now you’re wondering what heatstroke signs are. Lucky you– I happen to know first-hand. Unlucky me.
The first thing that happened was that I started to have sore and tingly muscles. I thought I was sore from my workout, even though it felt different than that. Then I got really lethargic and too tired to move.
At this point I was starting to get nervous. My family was coming over in half an hour so I decided to wait it out.
By the time they arrived, I was freezing and shaking, even though it was hot. They took care of me and made me drink water, even though I didn’t want it. By the time Ben got off work and talked to them on the phone, I had a fever that quickly climbed to 104 degrees F. I started get confused, too. I don’t remember that part.
As soon as Ben got home, he started treating me for heatstroke. He aggressively rehydrated me and started cooling measures. My temperature began to drop quickly. Since Ben is a doctor, he was able to make that call and treat me at home. Otherwise, I would have had to go to the hospital and get evaluated. Heat stroke is deadly and you should never take chances. I was really stupid not to tell anyone what I was feeling when I knew something was wrong. The faster you get hydrated and bring the fever down, the better your chances for survival and the lower your chances for serious damage like hearing loss.
The moral to the story is this: drink water, stay out of the heat, and get help if you need it.
Breana Johnson 