Four-thirty finds me beachside, sprawled on Noah and David's multicolored beach towel, camera in hand, in the hopes of catching one of what Noah describes as Redondo Beach's spectacular sunsets. They're pretty picky out here, these sunset connoisseurs. Knowing that tomorrow, the sun will - yet again - set into the ocean means they're not nearly so excited by its daily happening as someone who will only see a maximum of six such occurrences before flying back east again.

Despite my laughter and my joking about California weather to my friends, it does get cold here, although not as cold as the locals would like you to think. The beach winds at sunset have teeth sharpened over miles of ocean; they chew past the breakers and roar onto the sand, looking for something to devour.

Me.

We drove south from the Grand Canyon through Flagstaff, marveling at the random slashes of aspen through the pines of Cocanino National Forest, making our way toward Sedona. There's no quick way to get to Sedona from the north, as far as I know; to my knowledge, the only way to slide from one to the other requires a jaunt through Oak Creek Canyon.

We were laughing and tired as Kara drove, tired from the walking and the altitude, upwards to the canyon. We realized we were being beaten over our heads with instructions to pay attention to the scenery, by means of repeated warnings: "Scenic Overlook 2 Miles." "Scenic Overlook 1 Mile." "Scenic Overlook ½ Mile."

Or, as Kara said, 'We get it already! We'll stop! We swear!"

Oak Creek Canyon overlook
by domesticat.

Flickr photos from the album 2003 - Sedona by domesticat

Oak Creek Canyon overlook
by domesticat.Oak Creek Canyon overlook
by domesticat.Leaving Oak Creek Canyon
by domesticat.Very red rocks
by domesticat.Cathedral Rock - 1 of 4
by domesticat.Cathedral Rock - 2 of 4
by domesticat.Cathedral Rock - 3 of 4
by domesticat.Cathedral Rock - 4 of 4
by domesticat.Primitive road?
by domesticat.Sunset - 1 of 5
by domesticat.

10 out of 17 on Flickr

So that's what the photos from the Grand Canyon look like. I wasn't able to get Matt and Kara's computer to play nicely with my card reader, so even looking at the photos had to wait until I got to California, but a few of them were actually worth the wait.There are about twenty photos in this batch. I took more, but decided to prune out the obvious duplicates. I'll post the photos from Oak Creek Canyon and Sedona separately. Right now I have a choice: sit here and work on photos, or make myself some lunch and enjoy an exquisitely sunny day.

I have a 4 p.m. play date with a very exuberant Labrador retriever, whose day job is to be a hearing dog for one of Noah and David's friends. We're going down to the beach, and we're planning on having a lovely romp.

Sunset and rock formation photos can wait. It's time to play.

Lumbar Support Boy doesn't know it, but he was lucky to make it to Phoenix. It took two and a half hours of him attempting to pummel his feet into my lower back before I rose over the back of my seat to growl at him, but I think his mother got the point rather quickly.Take your child's feet from out of my back or I will make a scene. Oh, and have a lovely trip, wherever you're going, eh? Don't make me ritually sacrifice your kid at cruising altitude or you'll find out just how deadly knitting needles are when they're wielded with malice aforethought.

I took the purple-handled scissors and snipped off the 'HSV' tag left on the bag from Jeff's last flight. In the world of baggage, his trumps mine; back, many years ago when my parents gave me a set of inexpensive luggage as a gift, I'm not sure they ever envisioned me flying, much less taking these bags with me.But the bags survived four years of college, more road trips than I can count, and moved with me to Alabama. I learned just how frustrating it was to cart unwheeled baggage through Atlanta's Hartsfield airport.

After a bit of a hiatus, one of our semi-completed household projects has been brought to full completion. Last weekend, I asked Jeff to cut the remaining pieces of wood so that we could finish up our new CD rack, since our current plethora of CDs outgrew our old storage facility at least six months ago.Once he'd attached a back and a stabilizing base, all it needed was a coat of paint and we were good to go. I applied the paint yesterday afternoon and brought in the finished rack after dark. I set it up in the reading room and thought, "Oh dear.