Home Alone

Christa and Isaac are out of town for the week for a geo conference, but Alden and I just got back from a 3 day camping trip to the Chiricahuas. Granpa Wink joined us for a great trip. The Chiricahuas are a 2 hour drive east of Tucson, and the northern end, Chiricahua (Cheer-ee-cow-ah) National Monument has a high concentration of very spectacularly eroded welded tuff formations (that's hard-baked volcanic ash for you non-geo types). Anyway, we went on a long 4.5 mile hike with Alden in the backpack. Alden loved hiking, especially where the slope was shallow enough to let him get out and run. At the campground Alden was flabbergasted by the great gobs of dirt and rocks available to load into his dumper. Alden can now sing large portions of the ABC song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Let's count the Raindrops and Rockabye Baby. he doesn't mind yodelling every now and then either.
Not much wildlife (a deer and some squirrels), but when we got back to Tucson, I managed to run over a rattlesnake as I pulled out of the carport the next morning. What the hell! Now I have to worry about rattlesnakes in addition to the crime and noise?