Flagstaff - Day One and Two

The whole course was one beautiful view after another!

Clark Telescope - one of the three we looked through

The hike - Kirk is still smiling!

Moutain Wildflowers

"Ghost Faced" Owl

Harrier Hawk and "Big Owl"

The first day here in Flagstaff was very busy. We went to the Flagstaff Arboretum and who would have thought it would be so interesting. It is labeled as a mountain garden and it had lots of flowers and plants that are indigenous to the area. After walking through all the gardens, we attended the raptor demonstration. I shot a lot of pictures of the birds (hawks, owls, kestrel). The naturalist asked us how much we thought the owl weighed. It was a huge bird - Kirk guessed 35 pounds but it acutally was only 7 pounds! After the Arboretum we went for a nice hike on a trail - Fatman's Loop. It provided a panoramic view of the city of Flagstaff. Although rated easy on the online site, it ended up being a one mile hike up and a one mile hike down. So you can be assured we were doing a little huffing and puffing. We need to get the hiking legs in shape for Zion, Bryce and other points north.

After dinner we went to the Lowell Observatory to see Saturn and M5 (a galaxy 35 light years away) through several telescopes at the observatory. It was a late night but well worth the education. Hey, you can't always just play golf and drink beer! Which brings me to day two. We played a gorgeous mountain course - Elephant Rock Golf Course. Kirk whooped me by 6 strokes. We still aren't sure where the elephant rocks were. That gets us to the end of the day where we headed for Beaver Creek Microbrewery for pizza and beer with Dick Jr. who flew in to be with us for several days.