Sayonara Sacaton!

Our time has drawn to a close here in Sacaton, Arizona. The music of our home is sweetly calling to us from afar – the radiant song of the lonesome tambourine. We have had quite an adventure here. But all things must come to an end I guess. Except of course the quest for knowledge. And tuberculosis.

Things we will miss:
1. Our own house. There was a period of time that we even started growing a little vegetable garden. But later we found out that instead of zucchini, we were growing a tarantula's egg sac. But believe me, it still tastes great in a casserole!

2. Free evenings. And by "free" I mean having the time to read Harry Potter until you're bleary-eyed and seriously wondering if you're a wizard.

3. A laid-back work environment. I think the term "beaten like a red-headed stepchild" actually originated from my school's clinic in Fullerton.

4. Dave’s BBQ:

5. Roadrunners. These little guys would pop up now and again, only to allow us a brief glimpse of how awesome they are. The only things cooler than roadrunners are bald eagles, condors, and possibly The Fonz. I'll bet this stud-muff gets all the little chickey-babes running around town:

6. Really nice patients. Even though the Indians didn't talk much, they were never rude and were forgiving of mistakes. And believe me, I made a lot of them - just ask One-Eyed Hector. After seeing me he needed to say goodbye to his dreams of setting up a needle-threading business.

Things we are happy to live without:

1. A neighborhood where it looks like everyone is having a yard sale. Every single day.

("Wow, I can't believe you've been having a hard time getting that dead yak sold! Think of the possibilities!)

2. The nearest anything is 20 miles away. Unless you count the “Sacaton general store” featuring pickled roadrunner and music by Peyote Pete.

3. The water. The floaties in the water were only the beginning of our problems. There was a period of time when we thought Sheri was pregnant, until we realized it was just a tapeworm. I have to admit, the thought dressing my new son in little onesie was just adorable:

Grand Canyon Capers

We are nearing the end of a wonderful saga in our lives, “Dave and Sheri: Daring Adventurers or Victims of Desert Madness?” We decided that during the twilight of our careers in Arizona (whose state slogan is “home of two kinds of weather: ‘really hot’ and ‘why is Grandma’s skin bubbling?’”) we would finish off with a bang by visiting the Grand Canyon.

Now, this isn’t some weak-sauce stroll through the forest. This is a good 10 mile hike through the base of the grand canyon with nothing to survive on except your wits, your water, and if necessary, the flesh of those around you (I’m serious about this one. I caught John several times trying to spread barbecue sauce on my calves). At then end of 10 miles of very dry and dusty desert, you finally come to an absolutely beautiful area that is just like the Garden of Eden. Luckily, we all still had our clothes on…

We basically spent the rest of our time down there either in the water, or throwing rocks at the fatty squirrels that kept trying to steal our food. Here are some images of this amazing place:


This is John and me under one of the many waterfalls down there. It kind of reminded me of my daily showers in Russia – it was really cold, the water hurt my back, and there always seemed to be some creepy guy standing next to me.

To get to one of the waterfalls, you need to descend this gentle slope otherwise known as “The Cliffs of Insanity”. The main trick was to not slip and poke one of your eyes out. I had images in my head of being a future optometrist with a black eye patch and a hook, scaring little kids into taking care of their eyes (the hook would be for added effect. And to catch fish)

I look at breathtaking views like this and I think, “I wonder what’s on TV right now?”

I’m no wildlife expert, but if you look really closely, you can see a bear in his natural habitat grinning behind the waterfall. Every time Sheri and I threw some dead fish at him, he would do this amazing dance. Now that’s what I call science!

Jumping off this waterfall is like watching “Deal or No Deal” – so stupid, yet strangely irresistible. While I was here I kept wishing that my water-loving brother Steven was with us. He probably would have done this same jump blindfolded and with a pair of rusty scissors in each hand just to make it more difficult. By the Big Brother Law, I would have had to follow suit plus a little bit extra. I would have had to add piranhas to the water or something…dang Big Brother Law…

Unfortunately, our trip had to come to an end. We woke up at 3:30am that morning so that we could reach the rim of the canyon before it got too hot. We arrived at the top just before 9:00am. John apparently found a swimming pool on the way up.

Disney Princess Party

Anyone who is friends with us knows at least two things: 1. We absolutely love Disneyland, and 2. Donald Duck doesn’t wear pants. Ever. Which I find hilarious but somewhat disturbing at the same time. Have you ever noticed that if Donald loses his shirt, he instantly gets embarrassed and tries to hide? He seems oblivious to the fact that he is constantly running around without so much as a little pair of duck shorts to keep him BYU approved. Case in point: Donald unwittingly sticks his head down an anthill, and of course the little beasties suck his shirt right off. He looks straight into the camera, turns beet red, and then grabs a barrel to cover himself. You can just see him thinking, “Thank goodness for this barrel or else I’d really be pushing the envelope of children’s entertainment!” Of course he ends up plummeting down Niagara Falls anyway, but that’s beside the point. The idea that I was exposed to partial duck nudity as a child is both shocking and totally awesome all at the same time.

But that is not the point of this entry. The point of this entry is to change your life. And to do that, you need to take the following quiz: Which Disney princess are you? You may find that the results radically change your outlook on life. When Sheri took it, she ended up being the beautiful princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), which of course was no surprise:

I somehow ended up being Grubriel – a cross between Ariel (the Little Mermaid) and Bernie Grubowitz (champion of the 1974 Southwest Wyoming Intermediate Racquetball League). That’s pretty cool I guess - I get the best of both worlds. I can smack a ball as hard as I can and it gives me the excuse to wear my protective seashells…

Enjoy!
Princess quiz:
http://www.greatestjournal.com/quiz.bml?Q=16354

A Midsummer's Night Monsoon

That’s right – Monsoon season. Did you know that the word “Monsoon” actually comes from an Indian word that means, “Gary the Weeping Lizard”? Navajo legend has it that the thunder and rain are caused by a rather surly lizard on roller-skates (hence the thunder) who cries and spits its venom every which way (hence the acid burns…I mean, rain). The belief among the Indians is that the only way to stop a monsoon is to communicate to Gary through the use of sock puppets. It sounded pretty straight forward to me at first, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m either being lied to, or this “Gary” doesn’t appreciate googily-eyed socks with feathery headdresses.

Sedona Seduction

Welcome to Sedona Arizona! Lego Insider magazine once called it “The Most Beautiful Place in America”. Yes, it was very beautiful. But we disagree that it’s the most beautiful. We think it's more like, “Evidence that Arizona actually has trees. And flesh-eating tree shrews.”

As you can see, I’m so excited about being there that I can’t seem to keep my eyes open. I think I was so happy that the temperature plummeted to a nippy 107 that I was ready to curl up for a long winter’s nap inside a nearby cactus.




The city of Sedona is filled with a lot of specialty shops that we browsed through. Sheri and I have a creepy pattern to our pictures. Every time we take one of ourselves, Sheri looks like herself: cute and fun. I look like a severely disturbed cartoon character.





See?!? Even the rabid boar is afraid of me!

We did some amazing hikes while we were there. This one is considered one of the best hikes in Sedona. I'm pretty sure it's called "I peed my pants" lookout. At least that's what it should be called...stupid arch...





I can only imagine what our kids will say after they look at this picture ("Daddy, why did Mommy have a death wish?") But I'm sure I'll come up with a brilliant story about how Mommy wasn't actually on the edge of certain death, but was being protected by Glitterbright, The Enchanted Rainbow Unicorn. Kids like that kind of stuff - you know, lies. That's how people like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Barrack Obama came into existence.



This is our luxurious campsite. Just to be manly I decided that I'd sleep on a mound of rocks with no padding except for a fine layer of rusty nails and a horde of angry scorpions as my pillow. Sheri built herself a waterbed. Now that's camping!




Sheri is standing next to the last known Yellow Bongo Tree in the world. Rumor has it that by merely touching it you will instantly become pregnant with triplets. It doesn't appear to have happened to Sheri, but for some reason I've been getting some strange contractions as of late...




Yes, Mr. Smarty Pants, we are on top of a mountain. And yes, Mr. Smarty Pants, my forehead is the size of a small African country. Unfortunately I inherited it from by younger brother. Don't ask me how that works. It's complicated.



Little did we know that during our escapades we were slowly being eaten alive by either mosquitoes, spiders, or Keebler elves. I tend to believe the latter, because every time you scratched them, you got a whiff of sultry chocolate. All in all we had a combined total of...and I'm not kidding here...156 bites!!!

A Facial Hair Affair

This is me and my friend Oliver right before I moved to "hotter-than-the-devil’s-sweatpants" Arizona. Oliver is an awesome guy, and also happens to be brilliant. In fact, I once heard rumor that the other day his brain exploded. Twice.

Oliver and I recently participated in a school quiz show that was designed to be kind of like Jeopardy. In addition to winning a laminated skin sample from Alex Trebek’s bicep, we could win a free trip to Seattle to participate in the much-coveted "Optometry Super Bowl". It's a lot like the real Superbowl, except the “football” is actually “questions” that are “fielded” by a bunch of guys that have the athletic prowess of Steve Erkel.

Seattle seemed like a lot of fun to me, so Oliver and I decided that our chances of winning were greatly enhanced by sporting our new, fuzzy lady-killers. I mean, just look at my manliness! It's like I'm wearing a sexy black caterpillar that’s just waiting to be caressed. (Sheri loved it by the way. She is constantly begging me to bring it back. I told her I wouldn’t do it because too many people mistook me as the human version of Luigi)

Unfortunately, my plan had a drawback: While trying to answer the questions, I didn't anticipate that brain would spontaneously turn into nougat. I just couldn’t come up with the answers fast enough. I felt like the fat kid trying to fit into his old Osh-Kosh-B’Goshs: I knew that I should be able to do it, but something was going terribly wrong.

In the end, I took 4th out of 8. I don't think that's too bad - I ended up beating a drunk guy, two chimps, and a jar of marmalade. Don’t get too sad, though, because I’ll compete again soon. By this time next year you’ll all be reading my new book: “The Red Fury: Dave’s path to victory through the power of the mullet”.

Ghost Town Hijinx!!

That's right - a ghost town! On our way to hike Big Scary Tarantula Mountain, we stopped by this horrifyingly quaint city of the undead. It was pretty much the coolest thing ever. Just to be on the safe side, Sheri and I brought my plastic ghostbusters backpack and trapper that I had gotten as a college graduation present. Fortunately we only needed to use it once and ended up catching a rather surly tumbleweed. --Sheri and I would love to set up an optometry practice here. For fun on the weekends we can dress up as rattlesnakes and scare all the neighborhood kiddies.

--I don't know what is more scary about this picture: the "I-just-beat-up-your-mom" look on Sheri's face, or the fact that my knees look like I should have been a Ninja Turtle.

--There's just something about Arizona that yearns to be deeply respected - as deep as the infectious puncture wounds that we gladly embrace.



--I suddenly realized why Sheri had agreed to marry me


--This is exactly the type of thing I wish I had room to store (the cart, not the wife). I can think of at least 87 ways this would come in handy. Think about it: if you simultaneously broke both your legs, wanted to hitch a ride on a Winnebago, or needed protection from nuclear fallout, what other option do you have?

--This picture is entitled, "I really, really miss Disneyland"

--Come to think of it, this reminds me of some of the rides at Disneyland. Except, of course, for the fact the ride moves, there are singing animals, and you usually don't get tetanus afterwards.

--They always say, "The only way to tame a woman is to give her your heart." I think a giant bird cage is a simpler option.

--At the end of the day, we did the only logical thing to properly wish the ghosts farewell: riot! Say goodbye to your little ghost house, Spooky!