Sunday April 12: An Eaden and Eldrik Easter

The day started out really nice and relaxed, and continued in that vein for it's entirety. It being Easter Sunday and all, Eaden and Eldrik understandably had some family time planned with their two sons before they could drive up and meet us. So, for the first time since we began this crazy adventure, Light and I discovered a morning with no plans. We took our time getting going, had a leisurely continental breakfast in the little hotel office, and then made our way to the laundromat.

Laundry isn't something you usually associate with vacationing, but we both packed kinda light for a 3 week trip and, well, it was about that time. And lo and behold, time we had! The laundromat we had gotten directions for wasn't where it was supposed to be, but after some aimless wandering, atrocious navigating on my part, and a whole lot of dumb luck we ended up at The Loggermat. Despite spending countless hours cooped up in a Civic, this really felt like the first "down time" of the trip for me. And it was kinda nice, just chillin on plastic lawn furniture, watching our clothes tumble over and over itself, and listening to Ricky Gervais' podcast. Rejuvenating.

Clean clothes in hand, we returned to the hotel room, watched a little TV and then got in touch with Eaden and Eldrik using Nem's gift of a cell phone. (Thanks again, Nem, it's a godsend!) They let us know they were closing in on Flagstaff, so we headed down to a little micro-brewery on Beaver Street to meet them.

They were everything I expected them to be. Very laid back and comfortable people to be around, the conversation started right away and really didn't stop for the rest of the visit. After enjoying some tasty brews and some delicious stone baked pizza, we all hopped into their vehicle for a tour of the town. It so happened that Eldrik attended the local University, so he was very knowledgeable about the area. And it's so incredibly beautiful here! We saw the campus, the freakish giant lumberjack statue, the football stadium (really cool, a big white dome) and then headed up 4000 feet to the ski resort to take in the view.

10,000 feet above sea level is really high! And the view, quite literally, took my breath away. We spent quite a while up there, not minding the cold or the snow but just taking in the panorama and enjoying each other's company. Like any other time you gather a bunch of WoW players together, the conversation touched for a long time on Warcraft. I really can't think of a more pleasant way to spend an afternoon; being in a beautiful place, with people I enjoy, talking about something I'm passionate about. What a great day!

After a while, we started to notice the chill and decided to head back down the mountain. Eldrik mentioned the possibility of supper, but we were all still pretty full from lunch, so it was decided instead to visit an Indian Casino that was about 45 minutes away. This decision had the added bonus of allowing Chris and I to witness the famous Arizona sunset as we descended from the Plateau area where Flagstaff sits. Absolutely awesome. So much color, stretched across the entirety of the vast horizon, sometimes ducking behind mountains, it's simply indescribable. We tried to document the experience with the camera, but the light at dusk mixed with photographing from a moving vehicle resulted in sub-sub-par pictures. Guess they will just have to do, but feel free to insert substantial amounts of imagination to get the full idea of it all.

The casino was a lot of fun. Neither Chris nor myself are big gamblers, but it was a great experience hanging out with our hosts, rooting for Eaden as she sucked money out of the house (she totally kicked butt!), and getting mesmerized by all the flashing lights and happy noises. There's a lot of psychology that goes into casinos, and we had a grand ol' time speculating on why they did things this way, and why that was placed there, and so on and so forth.

The casino had three different restaurants, a fancy one, a regular one and a burger joint. We settled on the regular one, and once again enjoyed some good food and great conversation. Long after we polished off the last of our food, we lingered at the table just chilling out.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, especially when Eaden has to work the next morning. Luckily, we still had the drive back to the hotel to hang out. And even after they dropped us off, I'm ashamed to say we jealously kept them far into the night, and then they still had a two hour drive home!. So Ea, if you read this tomorrow at work, sorry if you're exhausted. Thank you both so much for a greatly enjoyable and relaxing day. It was just what the doctor ordered.

Now, dear readers, it's off to bed, for tomorrow we shall California. (you can use California as a verb, right?)