From Steers To Stares:

A Day in the Life of Kristen.

Today was eventful, you guys. I got up early this morning, met up with some friends, and we headed East of here to the Boyce Thompson Arboretum to do some hiking. We'd been tooling down Route 60 for about a half an hour when, out of the blue, middle of the desert, traffic comes to a complete stop. For as far as we can see in front of us, cars are stopped dead. With ravine-like ditches on either side of the road, it wasn't like we could flip a u-ie and head back to Phoenix. So we sat there. Cheryl got fed up at one point and climbed on top of the car to see if she could spot the trouble. Suddenly, people who had been wandering around were scrambling for their cars. We all hopped back in and got ready to go when, inexplicably, a steer, horns and all, comes racing down the side of the road. Shortly after that, traffic began moving again. What the crap. We never did find out how in the world the animal stopped traffic dead for 20 minutes...

On to the Arboretum. We spent the morning and early afternoon exploring this place. It's such a cool place - it's full of desert plants from around the world.
(anyone else think that rock formation on the bottom (heh heh...)looks a bit like an arse? No? Just me?)

They also had a greenhouse full of rare and endangered succulents and cacti from all over the place. There are some crazy looking cacti out there, you guys. We wandered around for three or four hours and then headed into the town of Superior for lunch. I love those old, small, out of the way kind of towns that are still somewhat up and running. We ate lunch at the local cafe and tried to visit the World's Smallest Museum, which was closed. And has a roof made out of empty beer cans. Seriously. Then we drove back towards the Arboretum and toured the Pickett Post House - it was built on the rock cliffs above the arboretum by Boyce Thompson himself. Pretty amazing place - 32 rooms! After that we hightailed it back to Phoenix because one of our friends had invited us to a Comedy Night at a church up in Scottsdale that night.

By the time we got back to Phoenix, we were all pretty exhausted. I contemplated not going, but decided I should honor the commitment I'd made so I picked up Cheryl and we headed up to Scottsdale. We found a parking spot, walked in...and something just felt a little "off" to me. I look around and everyone looks a little...old... YEAH. Turns out it was a 30's and 40's Aged Singles event. Oh yeah. Someone forgot to mention that during the invite. Holy crap. Talk about awkward and out of place. Oh I got some looks. I mean, let's face it, I might as well have been walking around with "20-something seeks Sugar Daddy" stamped on my forehead. Sheesh.

My friends from the church I used to go to tend to forget the age difference between us. So while they, the appropriately-aged 35-40ish women that they are, had a great time chatting it up with the gentlemen at our table, I had to keep myself from responding with "Yes, sir" when the 50ish guy sitting next to me asked if I was having a good time.

I mean, SERIOUSLY.