Weekend fun in AZ

It's been almost a week since I posted anything. . . but I have a really good reason. Ben's mom was in an accident on her bike a couple of weeks ago in which she sustained some pretty major breaks to her leg. And the timing was awful. They were supposed to be painting and moving into a new home this week. An awful situation for any time, but especially in the midst of all of that stress. So. . . . We took a road trip to AZ. It was a crazy whirlwind couple of days. 13 hour drives each way & 3 days straight of painting. Here are a few of the highlights.

First stop, Panquitch. And this poor bear. She's huge, looks like she may be carrying a little bear bun in the oven, and to add to the pressure, is chained up in front of the mini-mart. Now, that's just cruel.

Yes, you read that right. This was apparently an Italian restaurant. We kicked around the idea of actually eating here, but thankfully decided against it. The name of the place was entertaining enough. Just across the dirt parking lot was the gas station we had actually stopped for, with this sign above the door:
Yes, yes it was. This was in Arizona, but I can't remember the name of the "town" on the exit sign. This sign says it all.


This is the very pretty house from the outside. It's very Arizona, and, according to Ben, a very Hess house.

This is the living room. Most of Sunday I spent up on a ladder painting this room. Ben and his dad have permanently cricked necks from painting every ceiling in the house, including these VERY high vaulted ones. But Ben doesn't like ladders, and his sisters are. . . vertically challenged, so I got up and did the high parts of the walls.

The kitchen, laundry room, and closets were a joyful combination of semi-gloss paint over semi-gloss primer. A very tricky combination. The paint slides all over the place, rather than sticking where you put it.

One thing I'll never paint two tone without again:


It's this amazing little edger tool you can get at Walmart that does an amazing job cutting in the edges of two toned paint. A LIFE SAVER.

On the plus side, the weather was perfect, not cold and blustery like Utah right now, and there were some killer sunsets:


And there was also some yummy food. Awesome Mexican and Chinese food from some local restaurants. And lots of good company. It was great to spend time with Ben's family without the distraction of lots of little people. I felt like I got to know them a lot better this way. On the drive back, I stopped in Page to let Ben drive again. . . I didn't want to face this monster that crosses over Lake Powell:

I am terrified of bridges. & this one was VERY high. I would have taken a picture of how high it was from the bridge itself. . . but I was curled up in the back seat closing my eyes.