Well, Hello Phoenix.

I was in love before our plane landed.

My whole life, I've always had this big plan to visit my Aunt Sarah in Arizona. It was always a far-fetched plan. I'd never flown alone. I'd never been further west than Missouri. I knew nothing about the southwest. And yet, here we are. My cousin Caitlyn and I, that is.

Despite waking up an hour late, leaving my cell phone at home and trying to find a Barnes and Noble in a  ghetto section of Baltimore - we managed not to miss our flight. In fact, we arrived moments before boarding and declared ourselves the queens of travel. (The whole trip has been about perfect timing.)

If there's anything to know about me, it's that I love to fly. Furthermore, I love my ability to sleep on flights. Despite some rough turbulence (the roughest I've ever flown through), we managed to make it to Phoenix in almost four hours flight. Thank you tail wind. By the time we unloaded from the plane, and grabbed some Starbucks, Uncle Rob pulled up in a little SUV with a Cupcakes license plate. (It was Sarah's car, don't worry.) Like I said, perfect timing.



There's nothing I love more than seeing the landscape through a plane window. On the way to Florida, I kept my eyes peeled for palm trees. France? The Eiffel Tower. But Arizona. I knew it was desert, I knew it was dry, but I didn't expect to see nothing but desert and mountains... with a city in the center. I loved it before the "seatbelts on" charm dinged for arrival.

I'm surprised I made it through a day here with less than thirty frames shot. Culture, err, landscape, shock I suppose. Everything is beautiful. The sky. The lack of clouds. The highways (REALLY). The cactuses..? cacti? Who knows.

Instead, we began our trip to Arizona with a delicious breakfast and a trip to the shooting range. Caitlyn and I managed to blow holes through halo-esque targets with machine guns. No, I'm not kidding. And hey, our aim wasn't half bad either. But being the girly-girls that we are, we left and immediately headed to the nail salon.

Our afternoon was spent eating snacks, talking about our crazy lives, and shopping for the brightest sneakers I've ever owned. (And meeting two sales women.. at two different shoe stores.. who were both from Pennsylvania - Hazleton and Scranton, of course.)

Our evening? Mongolian stir fry and coconut gelato. I really think I could get used to this.

And the palms tree and Arizona skies?
Well, they don't make me miss Pennsylvania, that's for sure.