Weekend, Fast and Slow

I've written before that some of our weekends are fast (busy/packed) and others are slow (little to do/relaxing). This past weekend was both.

Our day trip to Zim Zim Falls on Saturday was awesome. It's exactly the kind of thing we've been waiting weeks to do. Finally this past weekend the right opportunity appeared, with good weather and us having an open schedule. We even thought about doing two hiking trips this weekend. Yes, the forecast had great looking weather on tap both days.

Saturday morning Hawk had suggested, "I thought we were going to do this other hike today and Zim Zim tomorrow."

"Let's do Zim Zim today in case we're wrecked afterwards," I countered. "That gives us the option of just resting up tomorrow."

I was glad we did because Sunday morning we were wrecked. Oh, Saturday night we were still a bit optimistic. We were tired coming home from Zim Zim but imagined that we might feel better in the morning. We even had time to soak in the hot tub Saturday night and relax back in the house. I even found time to blog the trip with 5 videos— the same day! I could see us feeling better enough to do another few miles of hiking on Sunday.

Yeah, no. We're not 40 anymore. We slept in 'til almost 10 on Sunday and were stiff when we got up. All we wanted to do was take it easy. But that was fine because we had nothing on the calendar for the day. We ate lunch at a favorite spot, did a bit of shopping, and came back to putter around the house for the rest of the afternoon. As busy as Saturday was, Sunday was un-busy. And we liked it.

Phoenix this Weekend: On, Off, On Again

We're going to Phoenix this coming weekend. That sounds like a nice little last-minute getaway, right? Well, it's not last minute. We've had this trip planned for months. What is last minute is us wondering whether to pull the plug. 😰

Five Things:

1) We planned this trip at the start of the year. Basically we spent part of the New Year holiday break discussing, "Where do we want to travel this year?" One of the ideas was to spend a few days in Phoenix at the hotel where we love splashing around in the pools. If you click click that link and look at the date of the journal I linked to, you'll see it's from 2017. Yes, that's the last time we were there!

2) The planning for this trip really goes back three years. We had this trip planned for April 2020 but canceled it when Coronavirus became a true global pandemic. It took us until this year to get it back on our calendar. It's not that we're taking a long trip; it's a 3-day weekend. But every day off takes planning as it's always a question of "What best could we do with our limited time off from work?" Finding the right time to reschedule this put it out into 2023. 😔

3) Weather WTF? We chose early April for this trip because it's shoulder season in Phoenix. It's a time of the year when weather is warm enough to enjoy swimming outdoors but not middle-of-the-summer 113° (45° C) 🥵 hot. In the past early April has always seemed like a good time. For the past two weeks, though, Phoenix has been in a cold snap. I've been watching the daily weather; for several days in a row the temps didn't rise about the 60s. WTF, Phoenix?

4) We almost canceled several times. Seeing weather in Phoenix way too cool for enjoying swimming I started considering alternatives. We could pull the plug on Phoenix without losing money (reservations are all refundable)... but where would we go? A lot of other places on our list are too snowy right now. We'll have to leave those for later in the year, especially with the big snow season we've had in the west this year. And trips further east than Phoenix don't really work in the short, 3 day timeframe we have.

5) Phoenix, it is. Getting warmer. Ultimately I didn't cancel the Phoenix trip because I refused to do so until I had something credible as an alternative lined up. Nothing lined up. And now the weather forecast for next weekend is getting a bit warmer. Forecasts of upper 70s have climbed to 80 and now to the low 80s. That's still not quite warm enough for real swimming weather... but maybe the warming trend will continue! And if it doesn't, we'll spend less time swimming and more time hiking.

The Mandalorian, S3E3: The Convert

Oh, man. Just after season 3 of The Mandalorian escaped the MST3K parody-ready juvenile writing of S3E1 and seemed to set up an epic story progression in S3E2, along comes S3E3 and throws it all away. 🙄 Chapter 19, "The Convert", reverts to amateur writing with loose ends and unearned plot points. It also commits the grave mistake The Book of Boba Fett and Andor did when they split their stories with side plots that involved different main characters. With TBoBF, at least, that other main character was interesting— it was The Mandalorian! See Boba Fett S1E5: No Boba Fett and The Book of Boba Fett S1E6: Boba Fett Writes a Book About Somebody Else. Alas this series is already about Mando, so switching viewpoint to someone else is a step down.

( Meanwhile, on Coruscant... (episode spoilers) )

...Okay, so is that side story now over? If so, what was the point of it? What was Elia's goal? Is she now the main character of the side story? Is she evil for good's sake or evil for evil's sake? These are bad questions to have to be asking at this point in the story.

Oh, and the title, "The Convert"? That refers to the plot with the actual main character, Din Djarin, who's only given a few minutes of screen time in this episode. He and Bo-Katan go back to the Mandalorian covert in exile. Din Djarin is redeemed, and Bo-Katan, having also bathed in the sacred waters, is forgiven for her helmet-taking-off ways. ...Nevermind that she was part of the ruling family in political feuds that probably caused the destruction of their whole planet, she's now absolved of going helmetless in public. This is The Way.

This short sequence with the Mandalorian covert also surfaces numerous unearned plot points. A few of them:

• How do they eat? There's no food. They're on a deserted desert planet and have no space ship.


• How did they even get there? They have no space ship and there's no space port.


• How do they get technology— and fuel— for the Armorer to build things with her forge? They're on a deserted desert planet with no food, no supplies, and no transportation.

Again, this story feels like an roleplaying adventure written by a 12 year old... with an army of set dressers and special effects people to make it look like a million bucks.