Snow Camping in May?

This year Melanie's birthday fell over Memorial Day weekend so we decided to escape the heat and go camping in the mountains near Payson. Not only did we escape the heat, but somehow we were also time warped back to January! When we arrived at our camp site it was freezing, rainy and the people setting up camp next to us had to leave behind hundreds of dollars worth of gear further up the Rim because it was buried in four feet of snow! We were indecisive for a while as to whether we should attempt to camp in the cold, especially considering the fire ban that was in effect. (You couldn't have set the forest on fire if you wanted. Everything was soaked!) It seemed the weather was clearing so we decided to try it for at least a night. And as soon as we paid our fees to the camp host, it started hailing and we had to take cover in the truck until there was a short break for us to set up the tent. All in all, we had a great time and were fortunate to enjoy a very rare weekend of fishing in the snow, watching the rain roll off our tent, building makeshift canopies and cooking fish over the fire (once the ban was lifted!). Check out the pictures below to see what Arizona in the winter looks like in May!

New York: The Final Chapter

Sunday was our last day in New York, the last day of our amazing vacation, and the first day back to real life. We started the morning off with brunch at a tiny Australian hole in the wall called The Tuck Shop. This made Melanie incredibly happy to be able to enjoy some food from her adopted home land and to be able to introduce Ryan to a good ol' meat pie for the first time. One of the things that is so great and unique about NYC is that you really can find almost any type of food from any place in the world. The diversity is so great that an Aussie ex-pat can actually make a living by owning a hole in the wall restaurant dedicated solely to Australian cuisine!




The Tuck Shop was not too far away from Little Italy and China Town so we spent some time just walking around those areas before it was time for us to head back to the studio and head out to the airport. One of the things we had to revisit was this great advertisement we saw our first day in the city. There's nothing better than seeing a big poster featuring your home team in a city on the other side of the country.


This is where our trip sadly came to an end. We headed back to Brooklyn got our stuff and hopped on a train to JFK airport. Thanks for hanging in there with the long and drawn out East Coast trip recount. Hope you enjoyed hearing the stories as much as we enjoyed experiencing them!