Updated:  October 3, 2006                                                                        Email Me

Arizona 2006

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The USS Caiman, a submarine built in 1943, was my home for four years in the late 1960's.  I have stayed in touch with a few of the people I served with and have been able to reconnect with many of the others at a reunion in Colorado in 2004 and this past May in Flagstaff, Arizona.  Kathy didn't go to Colorado but she agreed to attend this reunion and I don't think she regrets it.  We rented a car in Phoenix, drove to Flagstaff for the reunion, and then drove to the north rim of the Grand Canyon where neither of us had ever been.  It was spectacular and dwarfed everything I've ever seen in several trips to the south rim.  Trails do not all go down into the canyon but along the rim too.  The north rim is one thousand feet higher than the south rim so the views across the canyon are spectacular.  The country on the rim is big trees, lots of huge meadows, and hundreds of mule deer everywhere.

We also had the chance to see some historical stuff.  We toured the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff where the planet Pluto (is it still a planet? c'mon it's gotta be) was discovered.  We saw the Meteor Crater site where it is impossible to understand how massive that hole in the ground is unless you are standing on its rim.  We saw several old Indian sites and, on our arrival back in Phoenix the night before we came home, had dinner at Matta's, a Mexican Restaurant we loved five years before.

Here ya go with a few pictures.  Click on the photo to enlarge it.