Weekend review - ridiculous amount of picturage

So I'm finally caught up. Weekend pictures are sorted (from 170 down to 40) and, to an extent, corrected. I've finished about 75% of the work on my desk (which is a far higher percentage than usual), and I'm ready to blog again!

 

Where to start though? How about Friday night? Right!

 

Me and DaNece went on a date. Not the type of date that we are currently accustomed to, but the type that we used to go on when money was tight and it was more about the quality of time spent together. She packed an awesome picnic meal of ritz crackers, salame, ham, some tuna fish, cheese, strawberries, a slice of cake, and a bottle of sparkly apple-cranberry cider. It was perfect! We drove the truck out to a backroad that I thought I had seen that would overlook Watson and Willow lakes, with a beautiful show of the sun setting behind granite mountain. 4-lo and 25 minutes later and we had arrived. We setup our picnic food in the back of the 4Runner, got the cameras out and started snapping pictures. What a great way to spend a Friday night!

 

The setup (and DaNece doing  a great job of holding still for a full 4 seconds for the shot):

 

The view (the sunset was very lack-luster. But you can see Watson lake [blue] closest to us, and Willow lake a little farther away and to the right):

 

On the way back home I snapped this pic of Prescott Valley at night:

 

Saturday was actually a pretty uneventful day. DaNece spent most of the day at the hospital waiting for a friend to deliver a baby, so I was home alone all day. Oil changes were done, cars were washed, groceries were purchased, books were read, and a laptop was fixed. Thankfully not my laptop, as it wasn't broken. The laptop in question belonged to my sister who was in town for a few days:

 

In the midst of preparing for a presentation she was suddenly unable to get windows to load properly. Turns out that having some corrupted system files, 7 viruses, and about 300 bits of malware on your computer will cause that. Who'd have thought?

 

As an exchange for fixing her laptop she graced us with her presence for dinner on Saturday along with my mom. Dinner was a ridiculous display of mexican heathenism. Nachos. Monster Nachos. Homemade flour tortilla chips topped with homemade spanish rice, beans, spicy meat, fresh guacamole, cheese, black olives, tomatoes and sour cream. I couldn't even bear to take pictures of the insanity.

 

I even made dessert, which is something I almost never do (I'm a savory type of guy). Sadly though, I hadn't planned on making dessert, so it was whipped together quickly and with few ingredients. Vanilla ice cream, surrounded by fresh strawberries, and some lightly baked pear slices with cinnamon and sugar. Not too shabby for 5 ingredients and about 15 minutes:

 

Sunday we had resolved to go take some pictures around town in the early morning light. Of course by now the sun is rising at about 5:00AM, so we didn't quite get dawn light, but we also didn't have to wait 3 hours to get coffee at Cuppers either, so it was a good compromise.

 

A trash bin on the square from festivities the night before, with a bit of wisdom on it:

 

We walked over to my old middle school, where they are putting up a new mural:

 

And took a few snaps of the old building entrances, and gave DaNece the nickel tour:

 

On our way to Cuppers we saw a rare find for Prescott, an old Bentley:

 

Finally, caffeine fix in hand, we sat down at the coffee shop, and enjoyed a latte and smoothie (respectively). I also had the supreme opportunity to annoy DaNece with my camera:

 

From there we drove to Yavapai College, where we parked and started hiking along Granite Creek. The goal in my mind was to make it all the way to the Prescott Lakes overpass. Sadly we didn't make it that far, due to a minor sprain to DaNece's ankle. We did make it about half way though, and got to see a lot of cool things.

 

Like the bird nests under highway 89:

 

A bit more graffiti:

 

Cottonwood trees starting to pop their seeds (I'm sure Rich is thrilled):

 

As well as a very large street making machine of some type:

 

We walked back to the truck, and stopped in at the VA to take some pictures. The memorial sculptures always catch my eye:

 

So that was the weekend. And it was a darn good one! I'm so glad that the weather finally permits walking around. It is truly hard to beat Prescott's spring season.