Christmas season

I think of December as the Christmas season... here are some snapshots of Christmas season 2013. On the water, sailing continues as usual, except that the Saturday races start a bit earlier, the wet suits and dry suits come out, and post-sailing beer is more likely to be inside the pub, rather than outside.  

I do love the light at this time of year, however. The low sun reflects off the clouds and the water in the morning and the evening, often drawing me outside with my camera to try to catch the atmosphere.

Of course, there are also days like today, when the rain blows through in sheets on the back of the strong winds from the south. The “earth wind map’ of the UK today shows this quite impressively! [For those of you who don’t know the earth wind map, check out http://earth.nullschool.net/]

The rain bouncing off of the sidewalk and the gusts of wind on the water make my Christmas week in Arizona seem very far away. The family decided on a sunny Christmas this year, so we all headed to Tucson... which was, indeed, sunny and warm every day. We rented two houses on the north side of town, at the foot of the Santa Catalina mountains and a short distance from Sabino Canyon and numerous hiking trails through the desert vegetation - most of it prickly, and the saguaro, in particular, amusingly human. The canyon itself hosted cottonwood trees that still clung to their fall color, and a dam on Sabino Creek provided a watery touch to the dry desert environment. 

Christmas day was split between the two houses, with stockings and breakfast at the Trexler house and presents on the sunny deck at the Kelsey house. Each house had a small cardboard tree and plentiful Christmas cookies!

Christmas dinner was traditional, from turkey to pumpkin pie. Christmas crackers and golden crown provided a festive (and British) touch to the celebration. A cross-generational discussion of music (Lorde, specifically) led to some father-daughter dancing. Other meals ranged from Mexican to Georgian (as in the country). The latter was a fabulous meal that Chad cooked, complete with supplies that he had brought from Georgia after his field season there: three bottles of (bright green) tarragon soda, three bottles of different kinds of plum sauce, and two bottles of Georgian wine (no wonder Chad’s bags were so heavy!!). The dinner ranged from home made cheese bread to walnut-stuffed eggplant to pomegranate chicken...

Boxing Day was our day to be tourists. First Kartchner Caverns State Park, where we went on a tour of the limestone caves. The caves were discovered in the 1970s, but not developed as a park until 1999. The development was done with the goal of attempting to maintain the pristine cave environment, and includes air-lock doors and misting misting devices to humidify the tourists before entering the cave. It was really quite spectacular, with an amazing range of stalagmites and stalactites and other limestone features. No cameras allowed in the cave, so no photos here.

The next stop was Bisbee, a small mining community near the Mexican border. A cute little western town that now hosts an artsy community amidst the relics of the Old West.

Then onto a mining town at the other end of the tourist spectrum - Tombstone, home of the OK Corral with its famous shootout, and now a rather Disneyland environment, with stagecoach rides and hourly re-enactments of the shootout. But an entertaining place to wander around, and fun for those of us who hadn’t visited before.

The remaining days were spent hiking, biking and jogging in the sunshine before we all dispersed to cloudier and cooler climates.