Danielle came out to Flagstaff! It was super fun.

    We mountain biked, climbed, hiked, cliff jumped, and stuck to a strict paleo diet. Well, if you count coconut pancakes, gelato, and tequila as paleo. So I guess it was the high sugar paleo diet. :)

We discovered tons of stuff, too. Everything from a heart in the rocks of Sedona to a big big spider.

It's September, and the wildflowers are out in Flagstaff!

    Across the street from my house in my old, forested, quaint little neighborhood, the aspens have started to change, their leaves are coming down. The crunch beneath my feet is a familiar sound - the Fall is coming on.
   
    A crisp breeze blows down the street, rustling the leaves and swinging me in my hammock. A hummingbird buzzes close to me and asks what I am thinking about for a brief moment before becoming distracted and buzzing off to the next Douglas Fir.

    It takes me back to Cape Cod, as the oceans turn frigid but light up in a green bio-luminescence upon jumping in on for a midnight swim.
It takes me back to the banks of the Potomac River, as those yellowing leaves fell into the water and swiftly circumnavigated the stern of my kayak.
It takes me back to the Dalton highway, Alaska, in late August - to a mother moose grazing on the side of the road with her calf. She paid not a care in the world to me as I rode my bicycle past.
It takes me back to crisp days riding through the pastures and meadows of Rhode Island, getting ready for cyclocross season.
All these places feel like home to me. The years have come and gone like the monsoons on the rim, and I have moved around and meandered. But today... well today is special. It is the first day of the rest of my life, a boy of 23. And what do I want to do? No idea.

So come play with me,
Love,
beneath these clear Autumn skies,
in these fields of wildflowers,
on these Mesa's above the little world.
We'll examine the small green spiders,
barely noticeable on our fingertips.
Run your hands through my hair,
feel it grow long with the passing seasons.
We'll watch the stars by night and wonder,
universes orbiting our heads.

Flagstaff, Arizona is so amazing.

When I got back from my trip back from Panama, it was 3 AM in the morning, and of course this little mountain town was pitch dark. The stars were so unbelievable. You would think I would have had better star-gazing while on vacation... but as I like to say, I live in a vacation spot!

Today, Felipe, Iris, and I rode mountain bikes out to Fisher Point on the mouth of Walnut Canyon. We explored further back into the canyon and found a deep, cold cave in the sandstone cliffs. We walked back into it and soon ran out of light, but we felt our way along the cave's walls as far back as we could and soon found an opening that went further back. Upon getting on our hands and knees to crawl through we saw light on the other end - a tiny tunnel to the other side! We crawled and squeezed through and popped out on a different section of the canyon. Super fun :)
We headed back to the mouth of the canyon and explored another mini cave. This one had a huge fault-crack - my favorite! I took off my shoes, wedged my body between both walls, and began to climb. I climbed up a good hundred feet or so using a fallen tree wedged in the crack as a good resting point, and I explored the top sections of the canyon. After downclimbing back to the cave, we watched a canyon wren hang upside down on the top of the cave and chase bugs. He caught one butterfly, but the bug eventually got away (down one piece of his body it seemed).

We rode back to Felipe's place and on the way back the clouds rolled overhead and it began to rain while lightning flashed. We enjoyed the cool summer rain and the smell of dirt getting wet, got home, and gathered food we had gotten in the morning from the farmer's market. After lunch, Felipe and Iris played some awesome renditions of Edward Sharpe's 'Home' as the rain fell right next to the porch stoop and the lightning flashed. The monsoon rains cleared off and we were left again with beautiful blue skies and distant booms of thunder. We slacklined and watched as a myriad of birds - grossbeaks, orioles, several species of woodpecker and hummingbirds, among many others flew around us in the yard (they love Felipe's bird feeders).