![\"vacation\"](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/vacation-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>If it’s summer in Arizona<\/strong> it can only mean one thing – get out of town!\u00a0 I usually look for some signs to tell me when it’s time to leave.\u00a0 This week we got two – one expected and one, well, out of this world.\u00a0 The expected sign was in the form of heat.\u00a0 While the rest of you are enjoying the lapping of an ocean wave or the rustling of a quaking aspen<\/strong>, what we hear all summer is the constant thrummmmm<\/em> of the air conditioner.\u00a0 This past week we’ve not only had\u00a0the usual “summer has arrived in Arizona” heat but staggering, breath-sapping inferno temperatures.\u00a0 To add to the fun, there was an air quality alert the past four days.\u00a0 So, not only did we have temperatures that looked more like a steak order, but the air looked like Los Angeles in the 60’s<\/strong>.\u00a0 Somehow I think that when you can see the air you’re breathing it’s a sign – and not a good one.\u00a0 We have a lot of travel plans this summer – Denver, Central Coast of California, Mammoth Lakes and Sun Valley – but it took the second sign to put our travel plans into action.<\/p>\nLast Thursday morning, at 4 a.m., we were startled out of a sound sleep<\/strong> by a loud “boom”.\u00a0 My husband also saw a bright light flash.\u00a0 I figured the light was the newspaper truck circling our court.\u00a0 But I couldn’t account for the sound.\u00a0 Of course, when you’re awakened in this way you are confused about what you heard.\u00a0 Did the newspaper guy run into the house next door?\u00a0 Or was it someone breaking into our house<\/strong>?\u00a0 Ever on the alert, my husband grabbed a flashlight and a bat from under the bed and set out to discover what caused the noise.\u00a0 Dash the Wonder Dog and I laid our heads back down on the pillow but, of course, sleep is impossible under these circumstances so I decided I’d go help find the culprit.\u00a0 I grabbed the phone so I could call 9-1-1 and caught up with my husband.\u00a0 There we were, in the pre-dawn darkness, skulking through our house<\/strong> on tip-toe looking for someone who, ostensibly, was large enough to knock down\u00a0the garage door to enter our house.\u00a0This was not going to end well.\u00a0 \u00a0Slowly we creeped through the whole house and found nothing.\u00a0 My husband decided to venture outside but since we just found a rattlesnake in our yard last week, I held sentry at the front door.\u00a0 There was no sign of an intruder so we put down our bat and phone and decided to brew coffee.<\/p>\n As for me, I think when the universe starts throwing rocks at you it’s a sign, so this week we’re\u00a0beginning our summer travels.\u00a0 Stay tuned.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Suzanne Sparrow Watson If it’s summer in Arizona it can only mean one thing – get out of town!\u00a0 I usually look for some signs to tell me when it’s time to leave.\u00a0 This week we got two – … read more![\"2016-06-02](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/2016-06-02-05.03.24-Small-150x150.jpg\")
We stood in our kitchen, wondering what the sound could have been, when my husband looked out the window and saw what appeared to be contrails in the sky<\/strong>.\u00a0 I captured it with my camera (picture right) and we surmised it was a plane of some sort that may have crashed.\u00a0 But when we turned on the news we discovered that Arizona had experienced an asteroid explosion<\/strong>!\u00a0 Now that’s<\/em> something you don’t see every day.\u00a0 Sure enough, the sound we heard was a sonic boom when the asteroid fireball\u00a0broke apart.\u00a0 Later in the day NASA officials confirmed that it was a\u00a0small asteroid,\u00a0about 10 feet in diameter,\u00a0that had entered the Earth’s atmosphere near Payson, Arizona.\u00a0 They\u00a0estimated that the object was moving at more than 40,000 mph<\/strong> when it sped across the\u00a0sky.\u00a0 What everyone who was up early saw (and what I captured in my photo) was the smoke trail of the fireball \u2013 the winds of the upper atmosphere had caused the trail to twist and turn.\u00a0 I learned a lot about asteroids on Thursday, mainly that they happen all the time.\u00a0 They are considered to be “space debris,”<\/strong> or leftover fragments from the formation of the solar system.\u00a0 Kind of like the spare parts left over from the bed you bought at Ikea.\u00a0 There are millions of asteroids orbiting the sun,\u00a0750,000 of which are found in the asteroid belt<\/strong> located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.\u00a0 This week scientists have been scrambling to find the scattered bits of the asteroid so they can\u00a0examine them more closely.\u00a0 Their fear is that amateurs with their metal-detectors\u00a0will find them first\u00a0and they’ll end up on someone’s nook so the finder can say at the next neighborhood BBQ, “Hey, want to come see my asteroid?”.\u00a0 In any event, these remnants tell scientists about the formation of the solar system<\/strong> so hopefully NASA will find them and we’ll know\u00a0once and for all whether there are little green men on Mars.<\/p>\n