Arizona Trip

Hal writes:

I spent the Memorial Day weekend in Arizona visiting Anna. She also had Monday off and we made the most of our three day weekend. All the photos that I have in this post are from our adventures in northern Arizona. During our 12 hour trip, we only spent five hours in the car, which meant the other seven were hiking or climbing. I still have red rock dust on my shoes now that I am back in Wisconsin.

Our first visit was Chapel of the Rock, a church that is associated with the Phoenix Catholic Diocese. Frank Lloyd Wright consulted on this project during his later years while living in Phoenix. I also saw a church designed by FLW, but was unable to get a picture of it.

Here is Anna outside the Chapel.After visiting the Chapel, we went to climb Chapel Rock just outside Sedona. The climb was steep (as indicated by the photo of Anna about halfway up the mountain) and is listed as a 1.5 mile trek with a 600ft change in elevation. It took about two hours to go up and about the same time to get down because of the steepness. But when we reached the highest point that it was safe to climb, a park ranger was at the top to answer any questions about the geography.

Here's a picture of Anna and I near the top. In between the two hills in the distant background is the Chapel of the Rock. We were able to get a better view of it by using the camera to zoom in on it.

Our next stop was Walnut Canyon National Monument, near the Flagstaff area. At this national park are ruins of cliff dwelling houses built in the 12th century. The dwellings have remained due to their placement 600 feet up in the canyon. The picture below shows some of the ruins across the canyon.

There were more than 10 dwellings that we visited along the end of the canyon. It was very cool to touch and see the actual rocks that were placed there over 800 years ago. Some of the dwellings had black marks on the ceiling from old camp fires (which, through carbon dating, allowed archaeologists to determine when people lived here). My favorite part is that in the mud that was made to hold the stones together, there are still finger prints from the people who built the structure set in the mud. I had taken a picture of my hand next to some of the hand prints, but it did not turn out well.

Perhaps the original inhabitants were smaller than me... Or perhaps this is middle earth and hobbits once roamed these canyons.

Other fun adventures in Arizona included eating at a fun restaurant called Claim Jumpers, having a cookout with an old friend Jess who was living and teaching in Arizona this past year, and spending some time in the swimming pool. The low points of the trip are when the airlines try and fit me into an airplane seat. At least the SkyMall catalogue kept me amused for a while, including my all-time favorite product that they sell.

I'll be returning to Phoenix at the end of June. But until then, I'll be working.

Hal's birthday recap

Hal writes:

My birthday has typically come at a time of year where other events (namely graduations and final exams) have overshadowed my day. But with the advent of Facebook, a number of people who never would have known it was my birthday were able to leave me messages all day long. And I kind of liked it. I also appreciated those who called to sing to me as well as those who sent me e-cards. Better still, the cards that I will be getting in the mail. I use the future tense because there is a lapse in mail services due to nobody sorting the mail on campus now that it is summer, but some students have been hired and I hope that they will be getting the mail to me soon.

So, the tradition with my coworkers is that the birthday boy or girl gets to pick what they wanted to do. I wanted to eat lunch at a favorite of ours, Frank's Place in Shullsburg, but it was closed. So we walked down the street to Brewmeisters. The service was slow, but we were not in a rush to get back to work and enjoyed the time. I had two of my four birthday desserts: a malt with my meal and then a the wait staff brought me a hot fudge brownie with ice cream. Pictured below are some of us behind the bar next to where we sat.

Later in the evening people came over to my apartment and we sat out on my patio. Stef brought over some root beer and ice cream for root beer floats (birthday treat #3) and we chatted outside. Later on in the evening, one my RAs who is known for her baking skills stopped by with another RA with a cake they had made (birthday treat #4). We had a few pieces and I brought the rest to staff meeting this morning.

At staff meeting, we found out our summer assignments. Since I am only working three out of the eight weeks this summer, the number of projects that I am participating in are limited. The biggest project I have is preparing housing for the summer orientation and registration days, which I enjoy doing. After that, we started preparing for RA training. I think I took on a few more things than I wanted to, but everyone got to select some things they enjoy.

One of the traditions that we have in my department is when we have a meeting that falls within a week of your birthday, you get "Happy Birthday" sung to you. But the birthday boy/girl gets to select the style of song. For example, we have had rap, heavy metal, country, pig latin, Louis Armstrong, polka, and other stylings of how to sing the popular song. Well, they forgot my birthday last year, so I have been thinking about what I wanted for two years.

I selected "interpretive dance". It was me who sang the song, but with each of the six words (happy, birthday, to, you, dear, Hal) each person had to strike a pose about how they best felt they could interpretive dance each work. I took some pictures while I sang and they danced.

Pictured below is some of the group with their interpretive pose of "Hal". A majority went with the height aspect. KJ is pointing at her big foot while Kelly is amidst her "Halllllll-agator" impression. I'm not sure why my boss is looking so scared or why Jen decided to impersonate herself and not me.

Fondue Farewell

Hal writes:

Typically, the housing department gives me money to spend to feed my RAs dinner on the last day of finals and breakfast the next morning since there is no meal service on campus. The amount of money is good for a little meal, but my RAs wanted to go out with more of a feast. In additional to the departmental funds, the RAs saved up their lockout money to use for a Fondue Party for their last dinner on campus in my apartment. (When a student gets locked out of their room, they get let back in the first time for free, and then they are charged $3 each time after that. The RAs pick what to spend the money on.)

It took me two hours to prepare all the items, mostly on my own. As my staff showed up for dinner, they helped out where they could. One area was the cheese fondue area. This was made with three different types of cheese, a variety of spices, and a little bit of white wine to thin out the mixture. To my RAs amusement, it was a little thick to begin with, so I kept adding more white wine once the mixture was in the crock pot. This was served with cut up loaves of french bread and pretzels.



The "main course" was the meat fondue area. I had two pots (because of the number of people I had, you don't want more than six per pot) to cook the meat. I had defrosted and cut up a few chicken breasts and had cut up three different types of steak. You can see around the edge of the table the different types of sauces for dipping. As an experiment, we deep fried some bratwurst as well. (Only in Wisconsin...) This was the first fondue experience for many of my RAs.

And last, but certainly not least, the chocolate fountain. I had borrowed the machine from another RD and mixed my own chocolate for the fountain. There were marshmallows, angel food cake, fresh baked brownies, pretzels, bananas, apples, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries to dip in the chocolate swirl.

Now that I have confidence in myself to put something like this on again, just let me know if you would like me to come and help you host a fondue party. (Limited to 12 people, I need 2.5 hours of prep time...)