Sledding

Snow in Arizona is often a hit or miss proposition, and when its a hit you have the downside of not knowing how long its going to stick around. Last week Arizona had a major winter storm dumping about 2" of rain in the Phoenix metro area while leaving up to three feet of snow in the higher elevations of the state.

Yesterday, Wednesday, February 18th we closed the store to go sledding. Located about 10 miles northwest of Flagstaff, Arizona is the Wing Mountain Recreation Area, managed by the state. The skies were clear and blue and the sun was shining brightly over the acres and acres of glistening snow- nice and powdery on the approach to the sledding zones, but perfectly packed for fast rides down the hills. We found our best rides were had on an inflatable tube rather than on our plastic sleds. Wow, what an amazing time we had! I'll admit that a 300 mile roundtrip commute is a bit much to go sledding for 1 1/2 hours, but you can't measure the pleasure in miles. I hope we have more snow soon...

Happy Valentine's Day

Do you remember when you were in elementary school and celebrated Valentine's Day? Do you remember the excitement- addressing cards for the entire class and giving away candy hearts to everyone? Of course, the most exciting part was receiving cards and candy from everyone else and trying to read meaning into their little notes. Or even better, reading meaning into the little saying on the candy hearts! And then even better yet, eating the candy hearts!!

OK, so we don't have pens with cute inscriptions, nor are we going to send out Valentine's cards to everyone, but we do wish you and yours a Happy Valentine's Day. Since pens are us I will mention that we have red pens in stock from Aurora, Caran d'Ache, Cross, Lamy, Monteverde, Pelikan, and Retro 51.