Hitch # 3 – Pinnacle Peak Round Two

My forth hitch was back at Pinnacle Peak and McDowell Park to finish up our projects there. It ended up being only a week long because of a combination of President's Day, the rest of the crew's upcoming vacation (I do not get a vacation), and generally low moral. Why low moral you ask? Weather. When camping in tents every night, bad weather can be a real bummer. Monday night a storm blew in. We set up camp in the rain, made dinner in the rain, ate in the van, and went to bed as the storm worsened. A couple hours later we woke up to winds collapsing our tent and blowing in the rain. Everything got soaked. We grabbed what we could and ran to sleep in the van. There, the three of us girls found two of the boys who had run into the same problem. Soaked to the bone and the temperature in the mid thirties I fell asleep in the driver's seat with my head on the steering wheel. The morning sun revealed that our tent suffered a terrible defeat to the storm. The clips that hold the tent to the poles had torn off and the poles were broken into pieces. We would be sleeping in the van for the rest of the hitch.

With no way to dry our clothes we went to work wet. It was a cold windy day. But as the sun emerged further from behind the clouds the surrounding snowcapped mountains were revealed and it was by far the most beautiful day I've witnessed in Arizona.

In hopes of finding a laundromat after work, we had piled our wet things into the back of the van. Bad news, the well to do area of Scottsdale, Arizona didn't have laundromats. The closest one was almost an hour away. Good news, our project partner, John, is in good with the fire chief. While we worked, the firefighters of Scottsdale not only dried, but washed our wet clothes and sleeping bags. A huge thank you goes out to them.

The rest of the chilly week was spent hauling more rock and building more rock retaining walls. I am proud to say that I am the up and coming perhaps best rock worker on our crew. Perhaps someday I will pursue becoming a Master of English Dry Masonry.