Day 4 - Boot Camp Graduation

It was a typical sunny and warm Arizona morning.

And today was the last day of our CorelDRAW 3X Boot Camp.

The 3 Arkansas girls left before lunch.

So all that was left was Gary from El Paso, Jodi from Vancouver, Edie from Boulder, and yours truly.

And we cannot forget Freckles, Foster's dog. She was as much a part of our class as anyone else.

After another very filling lunch, it was time to return to the darken classroom for even more information overload. By the time we were done, all of our brains were numb.

It was hard to believe that we covered over 200 pages of material in just 3 days. Surprising our brains had any more room left.

But for all of our hard work, we each got a certificate of completion and this nifty tee shirt. At least it didn't say, "My parents went to Arizona and all I got was this stupid tee shirt."

So now we're all official boot camp survivors!

With numbed out brains, we said our thanks and good-byes, and went on our way, probably never to cross paths again.

Once back at the B & B, Gary reminded me of the favor I asked him to do ~ to take a picture of me holding "The Wanderer," my town's weekly journal.

("The Wanderer" has a tradition where it posts pictures of Tri-Towners holding up an issue of the journal wherever they travel. So if you live in the Tri-Town area and are planning a trip or vacation , you must remember to pack an issue of "The Wanderer" with you!)

Just what my poor, over-loaded brain needed ~ physical exercise.

Gary and I took a brief walk up School House Road, this time heading towards the main drag instead of the opposite direction when I was in quest for that "JAVELINA X-ING" sign. It was just a brief walk to the other side of the Desert Foot Hills Library, which stood next to the Spur Cross B & B.

Here's "Gumby," the saguaro that I first noticed on Wednesday, on my early morning hike behind the B & B.

Here's Gary in front of this tall, multiple-armed saguaro. I wonder how old that baby is.

Seeing that I'm a big saguaro nut, Gary took several pictures of me in front this saguaro in particular.

After weeding through all the pictures of me in front of cacti as tall as trees, this is the one Ariana thought should go into "The Wanderer."

You know, that multiple-arm saguaro was truly amazing. Even Gary had to take some pictures of it.

Here's a better view of it.

Having gotten our vanity shots, it was time to mosey on back to the ranch and rustle up some grub.

But first we had to go across the road and take some more pictures of the mountains.

It's hard to believe that with scenery like this, the Spur Cross Bed & Breakfast is considered part of Cave Creek's downtown proper.

The main drag ~ Cave Creek Road ~ is just about a quarter to half a mile up the road from the B & B. With a bank and post office on the corner, that's where all the action is.

Gary and I decided to go out to dinner together this time. This was to be his last night in Cave Creek before his early morning departure the next day.

Now came the fun of trying to decide where to eat. I have really wanted to get a taste of rattlesnake just so I could say, when I got home, "I ate rattlesnake in Arizona."

Unfortunately, I came a month or two too early for rattlesnake to be on anyone's menu. Apparently, the time to get rattlesnake is in October and November, when they are nice and fat.

There was a possibility that I could probably get some rattlesnake at Cartwright's, which served all sorts of game. But the great uncertainty of me being able to find such an item on the menu led me to defer to Gary for picking the eating spot.

Because Gary really enjoyed his first meal in Arizona at the Horny Toad, that's where he decided he would like to eat. I had no problem with that. Had I been in Cave Creek much longer than my allotted time, I would have most likely wanted to try out that place.

"Are you driving?"

"Yes."

"Oh good! That means I can have a margarita or two!"

It's been awhile since I had a nice frosty top-shelf Grande Marnier margarita. And after having my brain numbed out from information overload, why not make it "official?"

After Gary parked the car, we walked by this HUGE prickly pear cactus on the away to the Horny Toad entrance. That sucker was enormous! It must have at least 4 or 5 feet taller than me. Maybe more.

When we got seated, Gary ordered a "Colorado Kool-Aid" (Coors) while I ordered a margarita.

I asked if they had Patron Silver. Yes they did. So I ordered it with that. (I never had Patron Silver before, but I heard it was really good stuff.)

I then ordered a cup of chili, which was OK, and an order of beef ribs. Gary ordered the meat loaf.

Meat loaf? That sounds something my sister would order. I have nothing against meat loaf. In fact, I enjoy a really good meat loaf. But like chicken, that's not one of the foods that I order when I eat out.

But why order at a restaurant something that you normally can get at home? For me, restaurants are places of culinary adventure where you can try new things.

They're also places where someone else does all the cooking, serving, and cleaning up. Oh! I can never say too much about how much I love eating out!

Our food had arrived ~ Gary's humble meat loaf and my giant platter of Fred Flintstone, dinosaur bone beef ribs.

Gary wasn't all that thrilled with his meat loaf. But I was going nuts over the ribs.

They weren't like the beef ribs I find in this area. In fact, it's not too easy to find beef ribs where I live. The only ribs that you can get anywhere around home are those mamby-pamby baby-back ribs. Oh sure, baby-backs are great. But they simply can't compare to a nice and savory beef rib.

And the added bonus is that my dogs can enjoy the bones afterwards. They can't do that with pork ribs. (Actually, my dogs could. It's just that I won't let them have pork bones ~ period.)

Oh! and what wonderful ribs they were ~ loaded with lots of meat. I've never seen beef ribs this meaty back home. Usually the ones I get here ~ when I can find them ~ are loaded with gobs of fat.

And while digging in, I ordered another margarita.

Both Gary and I could not finish our meals, but for different reasons. Gary wasn't enjoying his meal while I was enjoying mine too much. My stomach could not handle all that gastronomical pleasure all at once. Also, my still painful Bozo lips where not being very cooperative.

So while Gary opted not to take his meal back (besides it wouldn't have made sense with his having to catch a plane the next morning), I had mine wrapped up.

Now came time for the bill. I was all set to pay my own way when Gary insisted that he would pay it. He would have me leave the tip.

When I looked at the bill so that I could calculate the tip, my jaw dropped to see that both of my margaritas came out to $23! I guess that Patron Silver is really top-shelf stuff.

Seeing that my 2 drinks cost more than my meal, I asked Gary if he was sure that he wanted to pay for my meal. I just didn't think it was right. But he insisted.

Paying the bill, we walked a few steps over to check out the Horny Toad gift shop. It was just us and the shopkeeper, Bill, who was a pleasant fellow.

Gary was interested in the kachinas and ironwood figures. I liked the whimsically painted wood carvings from Oaxaca. And my eye especially travelled to the jewelry case and landed on a gorgeous Navajo silver and green turquoise cuff bracelet.

I fell in love with that bracelet! The silver work was exquisite. And the stone was just the right color to complement my complexion.

Most turquoise is a bright blue. It's a pretty color. But somehow it doesn't look quite right against my skin. But the green turquoise ~ now there's a color that my skin likes.

The color of the stone is determined by the amounts of copper and iron. The more copper it has, the more blue the stone. Likewise, the more iron present, the more green the stone.

I also learned from Bill that some Navajo silversmiths are a suspicious lot who believe that when a person dies, he or she has has to be buried with all his or her jewelry. And for an artisan, who has a part of himself go into each piece he makes, that's a lot of jewelry to to try to locate, let alone be buried with.

So to avoid any disasters or unpleasant consequences in the after life, many Navajo silversmiths will not stamp their work, or only stamp just part of their name.

The bracelet that I coveted was stamped with a single "R."

I would have bought the bracelet right on the spot had I realized that I had the money with me. But seeing that I forgot I had some extra bills tucked away out of sight in my check book, I had to wait until the next day.

Since the next day was Sunday, the store would be opening at noon ~ just in time for me to stop by after attending the church that was right next door to the Horny Toad.

With just my left-overs in hand, we returned to the Spur Cross B & B.

Gary had to pack for an early flight back to El Paso. And I had my journal to record another day of my Arizona adventures.

Day 3 - The Work Begins

It was a fine morning except for the painful crustiness on and around my lips. I had no idea what it was. All that I knew was that I was already having some irritation around my lips before I left for Phoenix.

It couldn't have been allergies because the allergy medication I had did not even touch it. It wasn't sunburn because that was the only part of my body that was affected. Whatever it was, it hurt. And it made my lips swell to twice their normal size.

I had to apply a cool compress to my lips to get some relief and to soften up those painful crusts. Yuck!

Gary and I had a better opportunity to get to know each other over breakfast (which I can't remember what we had except for the fresh strawberries and raspberries, bacon, and coffee). He was a sweet 66-year-old Texas gentleman who worked for the U.S. government at Fort Bliss.

It was good having Gary join me for breakfast, especially when he exclaimed to Carolyn that this was 10 times the amount of food he normally eats for breakfast. Good! I didn't have to feel so bad for not being able to eat all of Carolyn's gut-busting portions.

Because we had to be at class for 9:00 AM, there was no dilly-dallying over breakfast like yesterday. Also, there was no more bringing back uneaten left-overs either.

Our 3-day seminar was officially called "CorelDRAW X3 Unleashed Boot Camp." It was to be 3 full days of intensive training in the new version of CorelDRAW, a graphic editing program which I think is superior to the ubiquitous and over-used Adobe (Illustrator and Photo Shop) software. (Sorry to all you folks who like and use Adobe products.)

All along, for some reason, I had thought that the class was going to be taught in one of the function rooms at the Rancho Mañana Golf Club. Maybe that was because it was listed in the directions to get to the boot camp.

But no, boot camp was actually held at the home of the the instructor, Foster Coburn III, who also happens to be a CorelDRAW guru.

Foster's an interesting guy. He looks younger than his 42 years of age. He's a nice enough fellow, but not one who elicits warm fuzzies. And he does seem to be a bit full of himself at times. I suppose that is to be expected of someone with his extensive area of expertise.

But still, he was an excellent teacher who had much to offer.

It's amazing just how much of his material Foster knows. And even more amazing is the opulent adobe home that he has across the street from the Rancho Mañana Golf Club. That swimming pool is none like I've ever seen except in those fancy-schmancy home and garden magazines.

Boot camp was in this darkened room that looked like a home theater. Just as well that the room was dark. I was feeling rather self-conscious of my Bozo lips, though for originally skinny lips like mine, they probably did not seem as freakish as I thought.

First order of the day, after finding our name tags and assigned seats was to introduce each other.

We already met Gary. And you all know who I am. So that leaves Gina, Kandy, and Gala who work for Wilkerson's, a jewelry liquidator in Arkansas; Edie, another government worker at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (the place that's home to the Atomic Clock) in Boulder, Colorado; and Jodi from Vancouver, British Columbia who has her own design and sign-making business.

Knowing that the U.S. government (along with some big mucky-muck corporations that were not represented in this boot camp) sends its people to train with Foster gave me great confidence in my decision to attend this boot camp.

After introductions, it was down to business. Today's full-day class was going to focus on vector graphics.

Vector graphics may be a little bit hard to explain to those of you who have no familiarity with graphic editing.

Vector graphics is what you use in designing logos, signs, illustrations, etc. Unlike bit-maps, of which photos are one example, vector graphic do not become distorted and do not pixelate when they are enlarged. This is all done using very complex mathematical algorithms that I will not even attempt to explain.

We were well fed all throughout the day. Soda, coffee, tea, water, pastries, etc. were always available. For lunch, we had a choice of items from a menu of a local restaurant (and a new restaurant for each day that we were there). I ordered a southwestern burger.

When Foster's assistant, Diane, arrived with the food, we broke for lunch. Surprisingly, we all ate outside, even though the temperature was in the low 100s.

What?! Were we nuts?!

No.

Actually it was comfortable outside because the air was being cooled with fine mists of water that were being sprayed at periodic intervals. Plus, we all sat in the shade at one of the many tables that were scattered around Foster's extravagant pool.

My Bozo mouth made it difficult and painful to eat. Plus, my stomach could not accept an entire burger. It was an effort just to eat half.

While all the others threw out their uneaten portions, I saved mine for the left-over collection that was multiplying back in my room. After all, my mother deeply ingrained in me that throwing out food was a sin.

All through the class Edie kept exclaiming how the information that she just learned had already paid for her class. Her boot camp experience must have been paid for at least a dozen times by the end of the final class!

While there were a lot of things that I already knew about, there were also plenty of things that I had forgotten about or not even used. Plus, there were some new tools that I didn't know about. So I felt good about my first day in class.

We managed to survive day one of boot camp.

That night I offered Gary a bottle of chili beer, and he took it with trepidation as we headed up to the star-gazing deck for some conversation.

Gary is not a big beer fan. The only beer that he drinks is Coors, which he calls "Colorado Kool-Aid."

We had pleasant conversation about the boot camp, Arizona, our lives, and the sense of accomplishment and failure we experienced.

After awhile of this deep and personal conversation, Gary said, "I hope you don't get offended if I don't finish this beer."

Me? Offended? No way! More chili beer for me!

Pretty soon my bladder was signaling its discomfort. I guess this was as good a point as any to call it a night. I made a bee-line for the bathroom while Gary called his honey back in El Paso.

Thus day 3 of my great Arizona adventure has been put to bed.