Horsing Around Arizona

A few weeks ago, Anton and I took a road trip out west. In our original wild scheme, we were going to road trip all the way from San Francisco to New York… but then we found out that a) most of America is boring and b) renting a car for that long and that far is expensive. So instead, we flew into Phoenix, rented a Zipcar, and drove it to the Grand Canyon and back over four days, arriving just in time for JSConf. So it wasn't really the grand epic adventure we once envisioned, but it was still pretty damn cool. Let me take you on a little photo journey...

We started off our trip with a leisurely drive around Sedona, taking in the cactus-spotted scenery and the impressive rock formations.

We realized that we didn't really know anything about the history of the area, so we checked out Tuzigoot and Monetezuma Castle, learning about the badass Sinagua tribes that literally carved their homes into the cliffs - and climbed up and down each day. Impressive!

Then we drove up to Jerome and checked out their famous ghost town. We got behind the wheel of a few rusty vintage cars, and I even got to feed a real live donkey! We tried to stop for a drink in their saloon, but, well, ghosts aren't so good at serving alcohol.

Next we drove up to Flagstaff, found ourself a cheap motel on Historic Route 66, and used that as our base for a couple nights. From there, we drove up to the south rim of the Grand Canyon and hiked the South Kaibab trail, past the "Oooh-Ahh point" and up til the "Cedar Ridge" point, where we relaxed and took in the surreal, spectacular scenery.

After all that road tripping, we were ready for some nerding out. We spent a sunny Sunday at NotConf, where I spoke on my undying hatred for quadruple nested ternary operators and Anton enjoyed some quality hacking time. Then we spent the next few days at JSConf, taking in some amazing talks and meeting the best of the best JavaScript developers. And, yes, we might have taken a few compromising photos of our roommate.

What a week! By the time we got onto our airplane ride, I was exhausted and ready to hit the hay. Until next time, Arizona!