In Which We Visit the Arizona Outdoors

So we've been here for a few weeks now. So far we like the area. Turns out that Phoenix is really pretty! Also, our jobs are going well. I'm really, really enjoying being an actual History teacher. Turns out I've been right to want to do it all these years. At least, so far I feel that way. But, I'm not blogging about that. No, I'm blogging about the awesome Arizona outdoors. We've gotten out the past three weekends, and it's been awesome. I'll start at the beginning, three weeks ago.

Two weeks ago it was only like 95 degrees, so we decided to go hiking on one of the trails near our house. It was a trail where only members of the HOA that our apartment complex is part of are allowed, so we felt pretty exclusive. I think this trail was called Sidewinder, though I also think that we did the short version. Whatever it was, it was pleasant. We climbed a hill, had a nice view of the valley, saw a lot of cacti, and got a look at the desert landscape around here. I've always enjoyed the desert, and this isn't the same as southern Utah by any means, but so far I've liked it. Here are some pictures from that.

Getting started. Notice Nancy's fantastic Korean hiking hat.

Saguaro skeleton! I think these cacti are so cool.

Starting up the hill. Notice how I look awesome.

Looking out over the Valley.

Once again, the reader should note that I look awesome.

Nancy looks really attractive.

South Mountain in the background.

So, that was that. All told we were probably out less than an hour. Last weekend we went on a triple-date with some friends to go rappelling. We went to a place called Papago Park, and I was fairly impressed. There were some pretty big rocks, and I think the rappel we did was like 150 feet, which is nothing to sneeze at. I didn't take any rappelling pictures because we have tons of those, but I did take a few of the scenery. With my phone, so the quality will probably not be fantastic. Here they are.

Then, yesterday, we went canyoneering! We went with our friend Dustin and another friend named Julia and a bunch of random strangers. I was actually a little apprehensive, because it was the first trip I've been on where I or one of the people who either taught me or I've taught canyoneering wasn't in charge of the trip. I think I'm kind of a control freak. But, in the end it worked out awesome. We did two canyons up on the Mogollon (try pronouncing that word right if you're not from Arizona. I'm still not sure how I'm supposed to say it.) Rim called Bear and Sundance, and I have to say, they were AWESOME! Seriously, some of the most bang for your buck canyons I've ever been in. They were easy to get to, easy to get out of, and the narrows were CRAZY beautiful. Like, in terms of sheer beauty, they seriously rivaled any Utah canyon I've been in, and that's saying something, because I've been in some sick Utah canyons. Don't get me wrong, Choprock remains my favorite canyon, but these ones were great. They had rappels, some downclimbs (I'm pleased to say that I was one of the best downclimbers in the group), and Sundance even had a couple potholes that were full enough to jump, which was fantastic. Sundance ended with a 180 foot rappel through a waterfall, a large part of which was free-hanging. They were seriously great canyons and I look forward to going back again. Plus, I solved the worry of me not being in charge by kind of just taking charge. I guess I am a control freak. No one seemed to mind, though. I got the idea that I may have been the most knowledgeable one there when it came to rigging and techniques and things like that. Now I sound like a controlling, high-minded jerk-face. Maybe I am. But I still felt like everyone had a good time regardless. I certainly did. I would also definitely go canyoneering with all of these people again. They were cool and very competent. We took our waterproof camera, which sucks, but here are some pictures anyway. I apologize for the quality in advance. I think I need to goof around with the settings a bit. It is, however, waterproof, so that's something. Anyway, here are the pictures.

Leaving to drop into Bear Canyon.

Moving downcanyon before the technical section.

What the beautiful! It's so green!

SO GREEN! This is the spot where I executed a flawless downclimb.

But first I got my picture taken.

Looking back into the narrows.

Climbing up out of Bear Canyon.

The beginning of Sundance Canyon.

Nancy in Sundance Canyon.

Bryce giving Nancy head-arms (that's a thing I just made up).

Next to the start of the narrows.

Bryce.

Log soup!

Did I mention that both of these canyons had FLOWING WATER? So awesome!

Nancy rappelling.

Turns out we never managed to get a moderately non-blurry photo of Dustin. Couldn't say why.

Narrows!

Stephen about to jump!

Julia about to jump.

Dustin about to jump.

I tried to get Dustin mid-jump, but it turns out our camera has a delay, so I got his splash
instead.

Last rappel! So cool! By this time most of our pictures were turning out even more blurry
because I was shivering. Turns out a wetsuit would have been useful. I was fine without
it, but I would have been more comfortable with it.

Nancy at the bottom of the last rappel.

After this I'm not sure who's who coming down the rope. Suffice it to say that we all made it.

So, those canyons were sweet. I kind of expected to go into them with the attitude of, "Meh, I've seen better," and don't get me wrong, I have seen better, but definitely not much better. I'm pretty sure these ones went up into my top five. Granted, these are two of the four five-star rated canyons in the book, but if this is the best that Arizona has to offer, I'm cool with it. There's a lot of awesome stuff that can be almost as cool as this. At any rate, that's about all I've got for this post. Just want everyone to know that we're doing awesome. This is Captain Danger out.

In Which We Move to Arizona

So, it's been a pretty wild past few weeks. We've been to Provo and back twice and we've finally moved into our apartment and gotten settled in. We've done quite a bit of stuff since my last blog post. We managed to get a canyoneering trip in before we left Utah. We went to The Black Hole of White Canyon with some friends, and it was AWESOME. I'm going to miss Utah canyons. But, we're only about two hours further out from a lot of the areas, so that's some consolation, and we have canyons of our own down here. Our friend Sarah bought the guidebook and lent it to us. I may not give it back. We went kayaking with our friends the Dunsters, which was fun, though I've learned that having a large and heavy butt is not an asset (see what I did there) when you are kayaking. We drove down from Utah in a Penske truck. Those things are surprisingly nice to drive. We didn't have it very loaded down, so that sucker took off like crazy. Granted, top speed was 75 miles per hour, but you could get used to that. Actually, I thought that it was nice not worrying about going fast. We weren't in a hurry, and so I didn't worry about going five miles over the speed limit or about passing slow people or anything like that. Then we moved into our apartment in Phoenix, which is by far the nicest place I've ever lived. It's much better than our Korean place (read: it has an oven and a microwave and it's not tiny and it has a bathtub and carpet), and pretty big by our standards. We bought furniture for our place, and assembled it, which was an adventure. We also decorated, and we've had a lot of onsite training for our schools, though Nancy has had more than me, because she actually has a school building. They're hoping that mine will be done in time for the first day of school. Anyway, maybe you all would like to see some pictures of all this stuff? That's ridiculous, but okay.

It's tradition to take a picture next to this sign.

Dropping in to the canyon.

I'm a fan of this picture. Captain Danger, investigating around the corner.

Sarah about to make a big jump. I made it first.

Wrapping the rope we used for assistance on the tricky downclimb. In case you're wondering, I didn't use it.

Awesome reflections. All these photos are credited to Anthony Dunster.

Jumping rock!

Climbing out.

Kayaking!

Anthony and Jessica

The water was too shallow for my big butt, so I had to get out and tow the kayak out of
the shallows.

Nice surroundings.

Our Penske truck!

Lake Powell! I want to actually go there at some point.

Glen Canyon! Pretty sick.

Note my kickawesome sunglasses.

Glen Canyon Dam! It's huge!

Really cute nephews.

Our apartment! We bought the couch at a place in kind of a shady part of town, and I put it together. The chair is on loan from our friend Dustin.

Dining room. Notice the Asian decor.

Other angle on the living room. Captain Danger for scale.

Kitchen. Notice the fantastic amount of counter space.

Bathroom. I managed to get into this one, too.

Bedroom. One of these days I'm going to make us a headboard. It will be the DIY project of the century!

Our dresser and our wall decor in the bedroom.

Behold the awesomeness of the WALK IN CLOSET!

So, there's your update on the Chandlers. We're having a pretty good time so far. I've been enjoying the Phoenix area. People are friendly here. When I'm out running, everyone says hi to me, and everyone has awesome dogs. Also, the heat of Arizona is definitely overstated. I've gotten used to it way faster than I thought I would. At any rate, that's all I've got for now. This is Captain Danger out.

In Which We Get Thoroughly Trained

Well, more things have happened. This time it was our work training down in Tucson, Arizona. I won't bore you with details, but I will say that I'm pretty excited to work at this school. I think I'll have some pretty awesome coworkers and I like the level of freedom I'm going to be given with my curriculum, even if it is going to require a decent amount of work. Maybe more on that later.

Anyway, the main cool thing about this training is that they put us up in a nice hotel. I mean really nice. Like seriously. And I'm not just saying that because I've spent the last year staying in the cheapest guesthouses we could find. We were driving up to it and we kept on asking, "Are you sure this is the right place?" and we kept having to reassure ourselves with, "No, this is the place from the link that we were sent." and things like that. When we went to the front desk and I said, "We're here for the BASIS training," I half expected them to say, "We don't have any idea what you're talking about," but it was the right place! I've got a couple pictures of it.

Anyway, the training was good and I met some cool people and I got some work done. I made a fantastic introduction PowerPoint, and I also got to look at what I'll be teaching. All this time I thought I would be teaching US History to sixth graders, but it turns out I'll be teaching World History. I'm cool with that, and I think it will be a little more fun, but at the same time, it's a little daunting, because when I look at the topics I'm supposed to cover, I realized that there are seriously a lot of them that I don't know about. I guess I'll be learning a lot this year, too! At any rate, it was a pretty good week, and the thing that really sucked was that we had to go to some of it on Sunday. But then we got to go up to Phoenix and drive around looking at the temples with our friend Sarah, so that was cool. At any rate, here are some pictures.

The pool view of the resort.

Arizona!

Arizona sunset!

Mesa temple!

This one has Nancy and Sarah in it kind of.

Me and Nancy with the Gilbert Temple!

So, that's that. Overall we're looking forward to moving down there. We should have a good time and the heat isn't awesome, but we'll survive, I'm sure, especially since our apartment (which looks awesome, btw, we drove past it while we were in the neighborhood) has a pool. So, all that being said, I'll make an end with this awesome picture I took on the Fourth of July when I was feeling especially American.

This is Captain Danger out.

In Which We Take the Train

I have to say, things have been pretty busy lately, but we've been having a pretty good time. This blog post is about my first experience with Amtrak. Of course, I've ridden on trains before. I did in Korea, in the blog post about our visit to Seoul and Gimcheon that Nancy never published. And, I will say that I think that my experience with Amtrak was slightly better than my experience with Korean trains, mostly because I didn't have to stand up for the better part of three hours.

Anyway, an increasing number of car problems resulted in us deciding to take the train to Reno to borrow a car that Nancy's parents graciously offered us to get to Tucson for our training. Nancy has taken the train a few times before, and I was looking forward to the experience, until it turned out that it was delayed five hours--FIVE HOURS, you guys. I mean, how does that happen? So, our train ride that was supposed to go from 9:30 pm until 8:30 am ended up going from 3:35 am (turned out it was delayed six hours in the end) to about 3:00 pm. 

Then there were problems en route. One of our engines broke so we had only one engine, and then it was too hot so we couldn't go faster than fifty miles per hour. The amazing thing was that people really weren't complaining about it. I was a bit surprised by that.. Generally Americans are crazy quick to complain, but not here. Everyone just seemed to take it as a matter of course. All I know is that I won't take the train if I ever need to get somewhere on a schedule. 

Regardless, we did make it to Tucson in the end. We've just finished our first day of new teacher training, and I'm writing this on my new (like, seriously brand new 17 inch) school laptop. So, so far so good! Also, can I point out that driving from Reno to Tucson takes a stupidly long time? It totally does. At any rate, that's about all I've got to say right now. Hopefully soon I'll have a blog post where I can put up some pictures. I'd love to write about our canyoneering trip we did on Saturday, but someone I know might take their time getting those pictures to me. Something about a new baby or something. Anyway, I'll call it a day here. This is Captain Danger out.

In Which We Learn a Profound and Beautiful Truth

We've been back in the United States for a few days now. It's been pleasant. I have to say, one improvement has really stood out to me: the lack of humidity. Seriously, though, it makes a HUGE difference. Put me out in 70 degrees with 80% humidity and I'll be soaked with sweat in well under a minute. Put me in 100 degree weather with no humidity, and now I'm barely sweating! I was moving sprinkler pipes around and wandering all over the fields yesterday in 95 degrees and I wasn't sweating at all. This is an excellent improvement and I hope I never get used to it. I'm afraid that's more than I can ask for, though.

Also, driving: It's easy to start doing again. Kind of like riding a bike.

Also also, not sorting your trash: It's highly underrated. It's awesome to have a piece of plastic and be able to throw it away wherever I want.

Finally, licorice and root beer: They're as awesome as I remembered.

It's good to be back. This is Captain Danger out.