Saturday, May 9: Getting to Arizona and a Few Sights/Sites
Traveling to Arizona takes a while-- and entailed getting up at 4 in the morning in order to make the flight, all of which was uneventful. (Really, the most challenging part of traveling was getting all of Lisa's luggage into the airport. It might not look like much in the picture, but compared to my one, smaller suitcase and small purse, her larger suitcase, duffel bag, computer bag and larger purse were quite a lot. And, I did warn her if she brought this much luggage, I was going to kid her about it on my blog...)
The nice thing about flying west is that time is gained, and so we still managed to arrive in Phoenix before noon (though by the time we collected luggage and got our rental car, it was probably about 12:45), giving us most of the day to slowly make our way to Flagstaff, where we were spending the first part of the week. Why Flagstaff? It's pretty centrally located-- it's an hour and half to two hours from pretty much everywhere we wanted to be and when we booked this trip, it seemed easier to stay in one central location rather than to keep changing hotels. (Most of the time, this was easier; a couple times, it seemed like maybe we didn't think driving all those miles every day through entirely.)
The landscape of Arizona is nothing like the east coast where I've lived most of my life-- which I expected, but it's still striking in its vastness and empty space. It's desert and mountain all at once, but what is really remarkable is how open and undeveloped it is (once you get outside of Phoenix, which is like most big cities, except hotter and drier than a lot of them).
The coloration in the photos is a little off because I was taking them through the car windows-- but the openness is apparent. It's also very different vegetation.
We kept passing signs that told us we were entering different "forests." Most of them were defined by brush and cacti, not trees. It seems a little loose with the word forest, but maybe that's an east coast idea of what a forest is.
Our first actual stop was for lunch-- it took a little while to find a sign that indicated anything but the usual chains and fast food stops, but we eventually came upon a sign telling us to exit to go to Rock Springs Cafe. We knew nothing about it, but it turned out to be a rather iconic and long-established place (established in 1818), apparently famous for its pies. It was late for lunch-- getting close to 2 pm-- and the place was still very crowded and there was a wait.
The interior plays up the western location
and the house specialty, pie.
When we were finally seated, Lisa ordered a burger and I ordered their version of a Ruben, which turned out to be the largest sandwich I've ever seen (there are fries on the plate, but they are being largely masked by the sandwich).
Despite how large the sandwich was (seriously much bigger than the burger-- the picture doesn't lie), everything about Rock Springs Cafe insists you order pie. (They ship their pies-- any bakery that has pie shipping in demand has to be good.) So, we did (we ordered one a la mode and then split the ice cream between us. So, what you see on top of each pie is actually half of a serving. Stuff isn't just big in Texas, apparently.). That's mixed berry crumble on the right and peach crumble on the left.
From Rock Springs Cafe, we continued on to Flagstaff-- it was now after 3:30. But, it didn't feel right to simply drive along to Flagstaff and do nothing touristy with our day, and so, when we passed the sign directing us to Montezuma Castle, we made a detour. Fortunately, it doesn't take that long to see Montezuma Castle because we got there about 45 minutes before it closed.
Montezuma Castle is a five-story, 20 room dwelling, built high up in the rock.
You can't actually tour this particular dwelling; you can only stare at it from about 100 feet below. (There are other similar dwellings in Arizona that can be toured, though we didn't make it to any of them.) It was built by the Sinagua farmers-- and it's rather incredible, especially considering this were built c. 1125. Just fathoming how they did this without modern tools is mind-boggling. They built here because it was close to water, so they had resources they needed (this might be the lushest area we visited all week).
A close-up photo makes it look much smaller than it really is, but does show some of the detail.
What we kept trying to figure out how they got up to the dwelling. To the left of this, is a section of rock with a lot of holes in it
which at first looked like maybe it provided some clue to how they climbed. However, these holes are actually what is left of a larger castle (one with approximately 40 rooms). The guess, provided by this model of what archeologists think the original looked like, suggests that they used ladders to climb up.
By the time we got to our Flagstaff hotel, it was after 6 pm, which really gave us enough time to get settled (and by this I mean, sit down on the bed and then suddenly wake up an hour later) and change before heading out to dinner. Downtown Flagstaff is really cute and looks a lot like what a college downtown should look like. We chose Mountain Oasis for dinner.
I'm not exactly sure what makes it "international." There were some Mediterranean influences to the food, but it wasn't a vast menu, so didn't really have an international flare. But, it was natural and organic and very good. And, they accommodated Lisa's request to basically create her own meal based on sides that were offered with other entrees and combine them with the steak she wanted. I ordered a steak salad (which had mango and avocado on it-- both of which I love).
And then, having been up for quite a while (more than 20 hours), we headed back to the hotel to rest up for the next day's grandness.
Sunday, May 10: The Grand Canyon
Several times, I have trekked to places to see famous things only to find them disappointing: the Mona Lisa (I thought it would be bigger); the Mannequin Pis (also, thought it would be bigger-- and more obviously on display. It's tucked into a corner almost hidden by the adjoining souvenir shop); the Leaning Tower of Pisa (which is the size I expected-- but once you take the requisite picture of yourself pretending to hold up the Tower, you've pretty much gotten everything that site has to offer). Many people had assured me that the Grand Canyon would be awe-inspiring and exceed expectations-- which only set those expectations higher. But, happily, even with high expectations, the Grand Canyon does not disappoint.
The first thing we did when we got to the Grand Canyon was go to the small take-out cafe and buy sandwiches to take with us. The plan was to hike down Bright Angel Trail to 1 1/2 Mile Resthouse (a three mile round-trip hike).
To get to the start of Bright Angel Trail (which goes all the way to the bottom of the canyon), you have to take the Village Route/Blue line shuttle bus (there are 3 lines of color-coded shuttle buses). And from there, you get to the start of the trail and start hiking down. (This is one of the distinguishing features of hiking in the Grand Canyon-- you do the easy part, down, first. And then, of course, there's the view.)
This (I'm pretty sure) is the first picture I took of the Grand Canyon-- it's from the Rim Trail.
The Rim Trail is what it sounds like-- it's a trail that goes around the rim of the Grand Canyon-- it's about 14 miles and basically flat. You can pretty easily get the Grand Canyon experience staying on the rim, especially since that's where the most expansive views are. You can also walk the rim and get to the start of many other trails, like Bright Angel.
I took about 200 pictures of the Grand Canyon on the first day, many of them during the walk down the trail. What they all demonstrate is the beauty and vastness-- these are some of my favorites (or, some of the ones I thought showed the gorgeous color and the diversity in the rock landscape. There are a lot more I took that I could call "favorites".). Photos don't really do it justice-- they show the color and landscape, but even the panoramas (like the first photo) don't really express the size of it and the vastness you feel in person.
There are places where the rock forms natural tunnels-- and Bright Angel Trail has used them as markings to delineate hikes and give you a sense of how far you've gone. Upper Tunnel is .2 miles down.
People kept climbing out on the rocks of Upper Tunnel (like the guy in blue sort-of centered in the picture). It seemed a little precarious.
This is Upper Tunnel from below (you can see the hole for the tunnel about mid-picture).
People kept climbing out on those rocks too even though there are signs posted telling people not to climb out on the rocks and warning that these aren't "firm" areas to walk on. The signs seemed to just pose a dare to a lot of people (you can sort of see the people on the edges of the rock). The actual walk out onto these rocks was pretty flat-- but, it's a long way down if the "not firm" ground gives out. We trusted the signs.
On our way down, just past Upper Tunnel, we passed the famous Grand Canyon mules, though they were only being led up the trail; they weren't carrying passengers (just a couple trail leaders).
Video shows them closer up.
And then we made our way through lower tunnel, which is a little more than 3/4 of a mile down. There was an inset set of rocks just a few yards down from Lower Tunnel which is where we stopped to have lunch. The sandwiches were fine; really, lunch was all about the view.
The trail becomes steeper past this point down 1 1/2 Mile Resthouse and while it wasn't particularly hot, it was quite sunny (and, in retrospect, we were pretty high up in altitude) and Lisa wanted to head back up rather than add the next, steep 3/4 mile to our round-trip. It might have been a little interesting to find out what a rest house built into the Grand Canyon looked like-- it can't be easy to build anything in the Grand Canyon-- but since the view wasn't really going to change (it was simply going to continue to be gorgeous), we headed back up. The trail down to Lower Tunnel is rated moderate in the Grand Canyon guide. This is what moderate steepness looks like in the Grand Canyon.
Moderate, I think, can get steeper than this as the incline looked like it might be a little more drastic headed down to the Resthouse. But, it's still an uphill climb-- and feels longer and steeper than it is, mostly because when you look up to where you're headed back to, it looks like this (and, we were pretty close to the top here).
It can be kind of daunting. At any rate, it took us a little while to climb out because the combination of sun and (I'm guessing) altitude was causing Lisa to struggle a bit. There was a very nice park ranger who offered words of encouragement and Skittles (carbs and sugar) and kept "catching up" with us for the last 1/2 mile or so to see how it was going. So, the mile and a half we wound up doing took a little longer than it normally would have-- but we got back to the top of Bright Angel Trailhead, and got Lisa to a bench in the shade.
While Lisa sat on the bench, I wandered along the rim to the Kolb Studio
which is a gift shop with a small museum on the lower floor. It was the home and studio to Emery and Ellsworth Kolb (artists and pioneers, as the pamphlet I took tells me). The house was initially constructed in 1904, but has undergone major additions and minor other changes over the years. The museum itself was about the brothers, though the few artifacts housed in it weren't terribly interesting, except for this boat
which the Kolb brothers used to run the rapids of the Colorado River. Given how rough those waters can be, I'm amazed they survived it in this-- it looks pretty flimsy (the flimsiness is really apparent in person).
Near the Kolb Studio is The Lookout Studio, which is currently undergoing what seem to be major renovations.
It's very close to Kolb Studio; it was built by the Fred Harvey Company in an attempt to run Kolb out of business. The way it was built practically blocked access to the Kolb Studio at the time, so apparently many people visited The Lookout Studio thinking it was Kolb Studio (which is really a brilliant business strategy-- completely block access to the competition). The Lookout Studio is also now a gift shop; I had texted Lisa when I entered that I had found gift shops and other stuff during my rim walk and she was feeling a lot better, so she walked over rejoin me. The Lookout Studio doesn't really resemble what I'm sure it looked like when it was a studio (though, perhaps what is being renovated are the museum parts equivalent to the bottom floor in Kolb Studio), but what it does have is a great patio space on the back which provides a fantastic photo spot-- it sort of makes it look like we're sitting right on the edge of the Canyon (Lisa is on the left; I'm on the right. The real grandness is behind us.).
This photo was taken by a German(?) man who was offering to take pictures of people with his very fancy camera (because he was sure they would come out better) and then email the photos. I had him take two with my camera just because I wasn't really sure that he would email us the photos later (nor am I quite sure what he is going to do with all these photos of people he doesn't know at the Grand Canyon), but later that evening, Lisa did get an email with two pictures of us attached. I think this is one of them (though, it could be the one taken with my cheap point-and-shoot. It turns out the quality wasn't that dramatically different, at least not when the photos are small like this.).
Near the Bright Angel Trail is the Bright Angel Lodge, which is lodging, a bar, a more formal restaurant, a snack hut and a gift shop. There are also other historical buildings around, like Buckey's Cabin
built in 1895 by William Owen"Buckey" O'Neill (the informational sign did not explain why he was nicknamed Buckey). It's the only remaining building from the early pioneer settlement of Grand Canyon Village. There's also the Hopi House
which displays and sells Native American crafts
but is considered an historical building because it was the first, built in 1905, of 8 projects in the Grand Canyon designed by architect Mary Coulter and built by the Fred Harvey Company. It wasn't an actual Hopi dwelling-- it was always intended to house Native American crafts-- but it is supposed to resemble a traditional Hopi pueblo.
There are also lots of informational signs posted along the rim walk, like this one, which explains why the Grand Canyon rocks are different colors and ties the layers to one of three eras (the information is actually readable if you open it in something like photo gallery and magnify it).
After having walked around for a while, quite a while after hiking the Bright Angel Trail, what I really wanted was a snack. Fortunately for me, the snack shop sold ice cream, which is always my snack of choice when traveling (actually, my snack of choice is gelato, but ice cream is never a bad second). This is my giant ice cream cone-- this was a single, small scoop.
From this angle it looks really precariously balanced on my cone, but it wasn't. There was no sad moment when much of it fell to the ground. After an ice cream break (or, rather my ice cream break-- Lisa had juice), we walked around the remaining gift shops and then headed back to the car to drive the 25 mile scenic loop. I was talking photos with both my camera and my phone during this loop (which is along Route 64, so you can't walk it-- but there are many strategic scenic pull-offs), but I think I've managed to place them in chronological order below. What you can see in them is the changing of color and light as the sun sets.
Some of these are just great views, but a couple of them were notable stops for other reasons. For example, this rock formation is duck on a rock (you can see that it does look like a duck a bit better in this zoomed out photo than the one above).
And this is Last Chance Mine (the close white part in the first picture and the white-ish structure in the middle of the second picture).
Horseshoe mesa is 2,500 feet below the Last Chance Mine;
in 1890, copper was discovered and so Pete Berry and fellow miners built this mine, though it turned out that while the area had rich copper, there wasn't much of it. You can climb out to be pretty close to the top of the mine (which is where I took that panoramic from), but you can't actually get into the mine.
We reached Desert View, the last scenic pull-off, just before the sun set completely. And, well after the Watchtower (and the gift shops at this final point) had closed.
When it's open, you can go to the top of the Watchtower (which also houses a small museum-- and was also designed by Mary Coulter), for an even more aerial view of the Grand Canyon.
But, the view of Desert View is pretty good even without being in the Watchtower.
You can tell from the last picture how dark it was starting to get-- it was after 7:30 by the time we reached the end of the scenic drive. This was also our first up-close encounter with Grand Canyon elk, who really don't seem to care how close people get to them as long as they don't interfere with their eating.
I thought this was a deer at first-- but then I learned that elk shed their antlers in the winter and regrow them, so this is an elk whose antlers haven't grown back yet.
From here, we headed back to Flagstaff, thinking we were going to stop somewhere along the way for dinner. It turns out that if you drive from the end of the scenic drive back to Flagstaff along 64 and then 89 south, there are no places to stop and eat. We saw no signs for places to pull off-- not even for fast food. So, we wound up eating rather late at a place near our hotel in Flagstaff named Coco's.
Even though they stay open fairly late, we were the only people there. Lisa had a steak and potato and I had a slice of quiche
and then we headed back to the hotel, because we had to be up at 3:45 am to make our Grand Canyon Adventure Tour the next day.
Monday, May 11: Sky, Land and Water
The one activity we had pre-booked was a tour that started at 6:30 am-- when we planned this we were thinking it would be ok because even though neither of us is a morning person, 6:30 in Arizona is 9:30 on the east coast and so it wouldn't feel so early. That part was true-- what we didn't quite think through was that the tour started at the Grand Canyon airport (where we had to check-in by 6 am), an hour and a half away from our centrally located Flagstaff hotel, so we really had to get up by 3:45 am in order to make it on time. And that's 6:45 am on the east coast, which is still quite early. But we made it-- sunrise in Arizona is quite lovely.
The tour group provided breakfast at check-in-- a box which contained yogurt, a muffin, an apple, granola bars and orange juice. It was really nicely done for a packaged breakfast. At 6:30, everyone on the tour boarded the small planes that would take us on our aerial tour of the eastern rim of the Grand Canyon, Colorado River, and Page/Powell Lake. There were two planes; we boarded the smaller one along with a family of four while everyone else in our group got on the larger plane.
I don't know what the logic behind the separation was (I think we could have all fit on the larger plane, though not everyone would have had a window seat, but I don't know how they determined who went on the larger or smaller plane), though everyone on our plane agreed that we probably got the better views being in the smaller plane (I have no idea if we were right...). These are some views of the Grand Canyon Eastern Rim and Colorado River.
And, video of what it's like to be over the Grand Canyon in a plane. This is over the water.
And, this is over the rock.
The plane ride lasted about an hour, and then we were deposited at another airport, near Page, Arizona. After about 15 minutes in that airport, we were picked up in Jeeps with trailers (with seating) attached and taken to Upper Antelope Canyon.
Upper Antelope Canyon is an inverted canyon, called a slot canyon, so it feels a lot like being in a cave. It's on Navajo land and can only be accessed on a tour led by a Navajo guide. Years ago, it was open to the public and anyone could ride up, through the red dust
but that open access was ruined by people who defaced the canyon. It even looks like you're entering a cave from the front (What makes it a canyon rather than a cave? I'm virtually positive it has to do with the way it's formed. A canyon is formed by water rushing through and wearing away the limestone and sand, creating an above land structure while a cave is underground and can be formed by forces other than water.)
Our guide was Lynette, who quickly became my favorite tour guide ever, largely because she was very assertive about making people in other groups move along so everyone could get unobstructed pictures. She even kept scolding one guy who was in our group who kept lagging behind, holding up our pictures and getting in the way of scenic photos.
You have to set your camera to special settings to get the best pictures; my camera phone (which I did set correctly), kept reverting back to the original settings every time it timed out and shut off, so sometimes the pictures I took didn't have the amazing color they could have (because it took me a little while to realize the settings were reverting back to the defaults and adjust)-- but you can get an idea of how amazing the lighting in the canyon makes it appear. And, the rock often appears to be waves.
There are times when sand rains in from above. The video in the canyon doesn't have great lighting, but you can hear Lynette explaining the phenomenon and sort of see what it looks like when sand falls (Lynette created this effect artificially on this day-- there was no actually raining sand the day we were there).
There are two really famous shots from Antelope Canyon (you can find variations of them everywhere on line) that we replicated on our tour-- and they are my favorite shots (I can't really take credit for them though-- Lynette was trying to demonstrate to the group how to get the shots and used my phone as her demonstration. So, she took them). This one is morning glory. It was taken looking straight up through the cracks in the canyon above (it was about 10 am when this was taken). It does look a lot like a sunrise.
And this one is referred to as the million dollar shot because the first person to take it sold a version of this photo for a million dollars. The rocks look like waves.
The exterior back of Upper Antelope Canyon looks much like the front, though some of it is riddled with bullet holes (you can sort of see them in this photo-- there's a pretty well-defined on in the middle left of this photo). This and the little bit of graffiti that couldn't be gotten rid of is why there's no more open access.
the start of our 15+ mile tour down that part of the Colorado River. This was truly a floating tour of the river. While there are some very difficult rapids to navigate in the Grand Canyon, the Glen Canyon stretch of the Colorado River is very calm. Like not a single rapid to be found. It's also made of a different kind of rock than the Grand Canyon; it's much redder (though not as red as the red rock in Sedona, which I'll get to later). The reason the Glen Canyon is so calm is because the river bed is relatively flat; the rock rises above the river bed whereas in the Grand Canyon, the river bed falls off and descends, sometimes quite steeply.
These are the rafts we were on.
And these are lovely scenic shots of the Colorado River through Glen Canyon. They give a sense of what it's like to be at the bottom of a canyon, rather than looking over it (though it's much more impressive in person-- I think it's hard to tell from photos how the canyon seems to loom above).
It is possible, in places, to hike down the rock to the river (Native Americans used to cross from one side to the other in places). Here are two guys who were doing that as we floated by (they're in the center of the picture).
Our way in seemed significantly easier.
Along the way, our tour guide told us stories about Glen Canyon, especially about John Wesley Powell, the leader of the first known passage through the Glen and Grand Canyons by Europeans. He ran the river the first time in 1869, having no idea what he would encounter.
We stopped about halfway through our tour to look at petroglyphs. Petroglyphs are images "pecked" into rock (rather than drawn on it).
These were likely done by the Anasazi between 1 and 1300 AD.
Just past the Petroglyph Panel is Horseshoe Bend, which from above quite clearly (supposedly) looks like a horseshoe. To actually get to see it from above, we would have had to drive back to Page another time; we had other plans and Page is more than two hours from Flagstaff, too far out of the way to see from above what we floated through.
We navigated around it in a way that also shows how rounded it is. What you can hear in the video is the raft motor, but you can also tell how silent it is on the river-- there is little ambient noise other than the river.
The rafting trip ended at Lee's Ferry, which is where the Glen Canyon ends and the Grand Canyon begins. It's the starting point for those who are going to run the Grand Canyon rapids.
From here, we boarded the bus to take us back to the airport at the South Rim-- it's about three hours on the bus. There are a few sites along the way, most of them early (they're not great photos since they were taken through a bus window). For example, these oddly balancing rocks.
And, there is a great view as we crossed over Navajo bridge
The rest of the ride back to the airport was relatively uneventful; our driver played a documentary about famous river runners which I largely slept through. We stopped for about thirty minutes at Cameron Trading Post, which is on a Navajo reservation but itself is really just a nice gift shop (with bathrooms and a snack bar-- what most people were interested in). As we got closer to the Grand Canyon, the driver began his own narrative about the area, including his favorite places to eat in the area, a couple of which were in the park itself. It had already occurred to me that we should have dinner in the park because 1) it was close and 2) we should make the most of our pass (which was good for a week. Most of the places/attractions we went to were reasonably priced and Grand Canyon Park was no exception. When you arrive at the gates, you pay $25 for the car, no matter how many people are in it, and that pass is good for seven days. Even for a day, it doesn't seem unreasonable, but for a week's entry, it's a bargain.). So, once we got back to the car, we headed up towards the park to have dinner in the Arizona Room, which was in the same area as the gift shops near the Bright Angel Trail we had been at the day before.
We found parking near the Bright Angel Lodge and headed over, walking right past more elk.
They are really undisturbed by people walking past them; you can get really close to them as long as you don't actively disturb their eating (which one man did-- and the elk barked and went after him. I don't know why anyone is dumb enough to get between a wild animal and food.) It was close to sunset when we arrived at the Grand Canyon-- and, despite trying for quite a while the day before to get a good sunset shot, this impromptu, unplanned one is my favorite sunset photo. I love the colors.
There are no reservations at the Arizona Room
but you can get drinks and sit on the deck while you wait for a table. It's cocktails with a view.
We didn't have to wait all that long for a table-- the nice part of the dinner is that it too has a view.
Our bus driver had mentioned on the bus that this was the less expensive place to eat in Grand Canyon Park; it still wasn't cheap-- not that it was bad, but it make Lisa and me wonder about how much it would have cost to eat at the nicer place he talked about. I was clearly hungry because absolutely everything on the menu sounded fantastic (not that it wasn't a nice menu-- but I had a moment where I was ready to order practically everything on it). By far, the best part of the meal were the soups we ordered.
Mine was black bean and Lisa's was a creamy chicken soup. Both were amazing. Dinner was good-- but the Arizona Room should definitely promote its soups more. For dinner, Lisa has a steak and potato and I had stuffed zucchini.
And then, we left to drive back to Flagstaff, which after getting up before 4 am and having a long day in the air, on water, and on land, seemed really long (especially for poor Lisa who was driving).
Tuesday, May 12: Meteor Crater, Winslow and the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest
We were headed to a whole new park on Tuesday: Petrified Forest Park. It's about 2 hours from Flagstaff to the "top" of the park, which is about 25 miles long and ends closer to Flagstaff than it begins. There are also attractions along the way to Petrified Forest Park, around Winslow, Arizona.
The first attraction is Meteor Crater, which announces itself long before you get there with large signs, almost all of which say IMPACT!!!! and other hyperbolic things. Meteor Crater also has its own radio station, which we tuned into-- on which a large, booming voice says "IMPACT!!!!" a lot. There's a lot of build-up before you actually get to the crater, including road signs along the road in. Our favorite was this one:
There's a bit of overselling happening on the way to Meteor Crater, which is, basically, a large hole in the ground. It was made 50,000 years ago by an iron and nickel meteorite that was about 150 feet across, several hundred thousand tons in weights, and sped towards the earth at (the road-sign approved) speed of 26,000 mph. According to the brief history pamphlet, it hit the plain with an explosive force greater than 20 million tons of TNT. And made this hole:
It is big-- it's 700 feet deep and more than 4,000 feet across. But, it did not impress us nearly as much as the build-up to it had. It may be that we had spent two days exploring the impressive Grand and Glen Canyons and so this was destined to pale in comparison. (It didn't help that admission to Meteor Crater is $18 a person-- so more than the cost of a week's entry into Grand Canyon Park. I said earlier that most of the places we went were really reasonably priced; of all the places we went, this was really the only one that felt like a bit of a rip-off.)
You can't walk down into the crater; it's a protected geological site. There are three platformed picture spots above it from which photos can be taken; all were really windy, which made taking a panoramic shot difficult since the wind was making it really hard to hold the camera steady. But, the one above gives a better sense of its expanse. The wind wasn't abnormal; it's a windy place-- so windy that there's a t-shirt addressing it in the gift shop.
There is a little more at Meteor Crater, including a 15 minute movie that once again reminds you that there was an IMPACT.
And, there's an interactive museum, though most of the visuals that are there are either fabricated (this really would have been better, or at least a little more historically accurate, if it were a dinosaur announcing that the sky was falling)
or about the geological importance of the site. It's not a bad museum, but unless you are a geology or astronomy freak, you've basically paid a lot of money to look at a big hole. (The next day, Lisa and I overheard people debating about whether to go or not and we told them not to bother. You can listen to the radio station as you go past and get all the drama without spending the money. Really-- the dramatic build-up is the best part.)
After a little less than an hour at Meteor Crater, we headed back on the road to find Winslow proper, which was really just a few miles down the road. I was determined to stand on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. It turns out, there's an actual park in which to do this: Standin' on the Corner Park. So just as the Eagles sang, you can stand on a corner
in Winslow, Arizona
with a girl in a flat-bed Ford slowin' down (or in this case, completely stopped)
to take a look at you. (We did actually take photos with the statue and the truck-- selfies at first and then actual photos when a nice German couple came by a few minutes later-- but after being blown about by the wind at Meteor Crater, the pictures weren't particularly flattering, so I've left them out.)
The "park" (which really is this one street corner) was officially established in 1999 after many, many people had arrived in Winslow to stand on any random street corner and take pictures. The now official corner is located on historical Route 66.
The statue is named "Easy" and was created by Ron Adamson-- it's intended to represent the fictional first person narrator in the song. John Pugh painted the mural. Frankly, I'm amazed it took the people of Winslow nearly 20 years to capitalize on the only real tourist attraction they have-- there is really not much else (besides a souvenir shop across the street from the park where you can buy "authentic" Standin' on the Corner keepsakes) in downtown, historic Winslow.
It was close to noon when we got done posing for pictures with "Easy" and the Ford, so we decided to stay in Winslow for lunch; we went to Casa Blanca Cafe
where Lisa had tacos and I had a small burrito.
And then, we were back on the road to the Petrified Forest National Park (which includes the Painted Desert, so I'm not quite sure why that isn't part of the name).
This was, by far, the most overcast day we had the whole week. It was cloudy and a bit chilly and windy all day-- which was fine, but I'm pretty sure that the Painted Desert would have looked more vibrant, both in person and in photos, had it been sunnier (or, sunny at all). Even with the clouds, however, it's impressively gorgeous... and vast.
The park was established as protected land in 1906. You basically have to drive through it since the visitor's center is at one entrance and the Rainbow Forest Museum is at the alternative entrance (most people's exit) 25 miles south(ish). There are overlooks and small parking lots all along the way, and some of those stopping points are access points to hiking trails (the longest of which is 2 miles round trip and none of which seemed particularly difficult) that get you closer to the desert or petrified trees. When you enter Petrified Forest National Park at the visitor's center, you are closest to the Painted Desert portion. It's desert land in greens, yellows and oranges.
The first non-desert oriented scenic spot is at Painted Desert Inn
which is now an historical landmark. Inside, many of the original features (or, reproductions of them) remain, including signs with the original pricing for the restaurant.
Nothing on the menu is more than 30 cents. The furniture in the inn was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1937 and 1940, when the inn was being reconstructed.
There is some lovely stained glass in the ceiling.
The historic inn was cool, but it just couldn't compare to the outside. The most photographic part of the painted desert was near the end, before the oranges and yellows gave way to the Blue Mesa. I like this particular section-- it looks like a sunrise painted into the side of the hill.
Shortly after this, the colors of the landscape changes and becomes Blue Mesa (which was my favorite part). However, before it does, you cross historic Route 66, marked by a 1932 Studebaker that sits close to the original phone lines that ran parallel to the original Route 66.
There is also the grille of a car and bench marker in this spot.
Shortly after you cross historic Route 66, you enter Blue Mesa; this is video of our first look at the Blue Mesa formations (taken from the roadside, not an official overlook. We were not the only ones who stopped at an unofficial spot; there were multiple others who pulled off at the first sight rather than waiting for the overlook).
Within the Blue Mesa section is Puerco Pueblo which has the remains of Puebloan homes that were inhabited between approximately 1250 and 1380 AD
and petroglyphs
including Newspaper Rock, which has more than 690 petroglyphs.
Unfortunately, this is as close as we could get to Newspaper Rock. There were telescopes available for getting a closer look, and we saw a couple of the larger drawings. It would have taken hours (and very focused attention) to find even a fraction of them though. It's amazing that people used to live here; what is even more amazing to me is that this once wasn't desert but rather, a lush, sub-tropic forest. About 225 million years ago, this landscape looked completely different. About 60 million years ago, tectonic movements lifted this area up to about 10,000 feet above sea level. What is here now looks nothing like it did millions of years ago; it is the erosion and the movement of wind and sand that has created this landscape as well as the petrification of the trees (though read that all as a gross oversimplification of what has happened here over millions of years).
The Blue Mesa, as I said, was by far my favorite part of the park. (It also matches the color scheme of my bathroom and bedroom... I like blue and brown together.)
The petrified wood lies largely in this area. Much of it lies in small piles around the landscape
but there is also the Agate Bridge
The largest concentration of petrified trees are in the Crystal Forest. You can wander the through it on a 3/4 mile trail-- which I did. It was windy and cold on this day; Lisa elected to wait in the car while I got up close to both the trees and the blue mesa (which I really wanted to touch to see if it was as soft as some of the signs in the park said it was. It is-- not in a fuzzy kind of way, but in a crumbly way.). Some of the crystallized parts of the wood are quite smooth, though nothing like the examples of petrified wood you can buy in a store (which are often buffed).
Even though most of what is here are relatively small pieces (when you consider how big a tree can be), there are some examples of what seem to be mostly whole trees, laying where they fell.
But that it once was a whole, lush forest that now looks like this
is mind-boggling.
We got to the end of the park fairly close to closing time (the Petrified Forest National Park closes at 5 pm, unlike a lot of other places which close at sundown), so we didn't have much time for the Rainbow Forest Museum or Giant Logs Trail. The museum is largely dedicated to the time when dinosaurs roamed the land, so has exhibits that look like this.
It's not very big, but it does explain some of the time period when the desert wasn't a desert. The Large Logs Trail is out back and is quite short (4/10) of a mile-- I wanted to see Old Faithful, one of the largest remaining examples of a petrified tree, so I walked the short trail while Lisa waited.
It's one of the only trees that give you a sense of the roots having been pulled from the earth. Part of the remains of this tree were mortared in 1962 after lightening struck it. (The informational pamphlet about the Long Logs Trail is quick to point out that no one today would do this as an example of changing attitudes about resources in the national parks.) I didn't get to spend much time looking at the large logs or the museum because it was all closing. We drove out of the park pretty much at 5 pm and headed back to Flagstaff.
We headed into downtown Flagstaff for dinner and wound up at Beaver Street Brewery (after nixing our first choice because it looked rather fancy and we were not fancy-appropriate after wandering in the wind of the desert all day)
a really cute brewpub
that makes its own beer and serves hot apple cider (which Lisa ordered-- more appropriate given how cold it was in Flagstaff, which was in the high 30s most evenings we were there. It actually snowed before we arrived and after we left.).
I had a pizza (with brie, arugula, red pepper and pesto) and Lisa had a hamburger and sweet potato fries.
And that ended our evening.
Wednesday, May 13: Bearizona and Sedona
We were headed back to Phoenix on Wednesday, via other places. I had been looking forward to Bearizona, in Williams, Arizona (about 40 minutes from Flagstaff), since I had stumbled across it on TripAdvisor. Bearizona is a zoo combined with a safari. And it was even cooler than I had imagined it would be (even Lisa, who was not truly excited about Bearizona beforehand, came around to thinking it was really cool). We got up in time to arrive at Bearizona around the time it opened since their site says the animals are most active in the morning or late afternoon.
When you enter Bearizona, you pull up to a gate where they take your money and give you a rules sheet, a map and a speaker that plays through the radio and talks about all the animals as you encounter them in your ride through the park. The first section is a 3 mile drive through a wildlife preserve where you can get amazingly close to the animals. And, you can leave your windows down for better viewing in all the areas except those with wolves and bears (there are signs as you enter those areas telling you to roll your windows up). The first animals are the Rocky Mountain Goats.
This is a pretty good example of how close we were to all the animals with the car. It's really amazing how close they'll let you get-- and not even turn their heads. Some of the animals were more showy than others-- some almost seemed to be posing for the camera while others acted indifferent.
Next were the Dall Sheep.
(You can see in the video how close the side mirror was to the sheep.)
Then the Rocky Mountain Elk and Mule Deer (which were probably the least exciting since we had already been up close and personal with them in Grand Canyon Park).
Then the American Burro.
And then, the first time we were told to roll up our windows-- for the wolves. There were Alaskan Tundra Wolves and Arctic Wolves (which may be the same thing... in the pictures I have of them, I can't tell the difference. Or maybe one is bigger than the other.).
That's Lisa's photo above. I got better shots of them on video than in still photos.
From the wolves, you drive into the area with the 1-3 year old junior black bears (so, windows still rolled up). They are separated from the adult bears (which come later in the drive) and the baby bears (prepare for the extreme cuteness to come shortly).
Separating the bears by age group has something to do with teaching them to behave properly before larger bears will make them pay for improper behavior, but I'm not exactly sure why they have to be taught in these conditions (when it seems like they must naturally learn how to behave in the wild).
After we passed through the wolf and bear section, we could open our windows again for the White Bison. And, again, we could get really close. Look how big his face is!
There were a lot of babies throughout the park; this is feeding time for one baby bison.
Next to the White Bison are the American Bison. In both cases, to see the bison, you drive a loop off the main trail in order to get a closer look. This one was standing by himself right on the side of the loop
away from the center field where the other American Bison were lying around.
After the bison loops were the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep-- and more babies. The mommy sheep actually had the babies quite far from road, so it's hard to see them in pictures, especially the ones who were hanging out on the rocks in the back.
It's a little easier to see the babies in video.
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The final area in the driving section is the Black Bear-- windows up. But here, there is also a loop that allows you to drive up really close to the bears.
They just sort of amble along-- I'm sure there's good reason to have the windows closed, but none of these bears look like they're really going to muster up the energy to actually attack.
After the driving section comes the walking area of Bearizona
which is more like a traditional zoo, though its displays also allow you to get up really close to the animals. There are peacocks wandering around, including this completely white one. I was amazed in Portugal by a peacock with a white stripe because I'd never seen a peacock with any white-- I didn't know completely white ones existed. This particular peacock was really showy, making sure everyone could get a look at the white feathers.
There were the traditionally colorful peacocks as well.
But, by far, the main attraction at Bearizona is the bear cubs.
They were very active and playful while we were there.
I really wanted to cuddle with a bear cub, especially the one who was climbing the tree. I still maintain nothing really bad would have happened-- how sharp can their teeth be (if they have even all grown in) at this age?
In a separate pen are the toddler bears; it's the area that Bearizona bills as akin to grades K-12.
After they graduate, they get to go join the junior black bears in the open, driving section. I know they have to master proper bear etiquette before that, but I'm not sure what else they have to learn.
The bears draw the most attention, which makes seeing the animals everywhere else in the zoo easy (not that there wasn't access to the bears). There aren't really large animals in this part of the zoo. But there is a bobcat (who I couldn't get a good still picture of because he wouldn't stop moving).
And otters-- for some it was nap time, but not all of them.
There were red fox
and pigs and warthogs.
There is also a petting zoo, with very cute, younger goats who very clearly recognized the difference between adults and children because they ran away from the kids but were quite happy to be petted by adults.
There were other animals, but the pictures didn't come out as well, largely because it was getting later in the morning and many of them were hiding in shady areas catching a nap. Before we left, we went to see the Birds of Prey show which featured birds that would swoop over the audience, very close to our heads (we were told they think people are just part of the furniture, so it doesn't occur to them to leave much clearance).
We made a quick trip to the gift shop-- which has a sense of humor, but (to my dismay) does not sell baby bears to take home.
This was a pretty ambitious day; from Bearizona, we were headed to Sedona to see the red rocks before we ended our day checking into a hotel in Phoenix.
The drive to Sedona is gorgeous, though down a very windy road-- it's clear when riding in the car that you are very quickly going down in elevation (though not really clear in the pictures).
Our first destination was Red Rock State Park, which is relatively new as far as state parks in Arizona go-- it was opened to the public in 1991.
You could just go to the Red Rock State Park visitor's center and get a great view.
But, there are also hiking trails that get closer to the red rocks. We started off on one that leads to the House of Apache Fire. However, the signs are not as good as the park rangers think they are and so the sign we initially followed pointed to the left (rather than up) which put us on the East Gate path and took us off the path to the House of Apache Fire. In fact, this trail was about 10 feet below the path we meant to be on, but this wasn't evident until later.
The East Gate path is rocky,
though the rocks, at times, look like they were once created to be stairs or something else intentional (though I don't think they were).
We made it to the end of the East Gate path (which ends at a fence) with no clear way to get onto the trail we wanted, so we headed back the way we had come. It didn't seem like we had really walked all that far, but House of Apache Fire Trail is 1.7 miles round trip (and we hadn't done much of it before we got onto the wrong path), so Lisa elected to wait for me while I hiked up to the house.
The trail to the house is not nearly as steep as it appears it will be. The house itself is kind of hard to see in the picture from the visitor's center, but it's the darker spot in the center of the picture.
You can see it here in the left, lower corner of this picture.
There are a surprising number of blooming cactus on the way up the trail to the house.
It's a fairly pleasant walk, that winds around and eventually comes out at the top of the hill, where the house is.
This is as close to the house as I got. I actually thought I was going to be able to go in it, but it's fenced off and closed (which the pamphlet does not mention). It was built by Helen and Jack Frye (who was president of TWA) starting in 1947, meant to resemble a Hopi Indian pueblo. However, Helen and Jack were divorced in 1950, before construction was complete. The property became Helen's, but she didn't do anything with the house for a while. In fact, this house has never fully been completed. Construction resumed in 1956, the house then intended to be an art center, but that plan fell through. In 1967, a snowstorm collapsed the roof. In the 1970s, a spiritual group bought it and began to develop it, but that project wasn't completed either. And then, in the early 1980s, the land all became the property of the state.
All of that said, it didn't look terribly "unfinished" from outside the fence. What looked like remnants were separate from the house, like this wheel
and what looks like an unfinished well.
The views from the property are lovely.
The hike back down is relatively quick-- and I found Lisa waiting on a bench for me.
We walked back to the visitor's center, held up by having to wait for a snake to finish crossing our path
and headed out to find Chapel in the Rock (which, for some reason, I had quite wrongly thought was also in Red Rock Park). It's not too far away from the park.
Chapel in the Rock is exactly what it sounds like-- it's a chapel built into the rock.
It's still a working chapel with a congregation, so it has parking pretty near the top, making it not particularly hard to get to.
The views from inside the chapel are really nice, though not necessarily easy to see in photos.
It's easier to see the sweeping views in pictures from outside.
The chapel also overlooks this house
which must be amazing. (I have no idea how we would have gotten an impromptu tour of it.)
From Chapel in the Rock, we headed to the historic area of Sedona which has a lot of shops and restaurants. We stopped for a snack-- at some point during the day, we should have stopped for lunch, but we never did (though I'm not quite sure why other than that there was nowhere to eat in Red Rock Park and then the day just got away). I, of course, had ice cream, which is always the perfect snack. Lisa had a salad which I forgot to photograph before she ate it.
The shopping in this area of Sedona was a little disappointing-- really touristy. However, it's still surrounded by all the red rock; some of the formations have been named, and once you look at them, you can see how they got named. For example, there's Snoopy (center of pic-- the lower rock formation).
If you look closely, you can see how it looks like Snoopy asleep on top of his house.
We decided to go to Elote for dinner; it's really well known in Sedona-- it doesn't take reservations and there is always a wait.
If you want to get seated easily, you have to get there before it opens. Apparently, it is filled and on a wait within 30 minutes of opening
They do, however, have cornhole on the patio outside where you can have drinks. And, you can pickup popcorn at the bar to hold you over until you're seated.
All that said, we didn't wait very long-- maybe 15 minutes (after being told it would be at least 45 minutes). We had said any table was acceptable, but lucked out and were seated on the outside deck-- with this view.
Dinner, at least for me, was fantastic. We ordered their namesake appetizer, elote, which is this fantastic corn "salsa" dip (which the menu says is spicy, but is not).
For dinner, I had two more appetizers: the corn soup and short rib tacos. The soup was amazing. If you're going to eat here, order anything that has corn in it. Elote means corn-- and anything in this restaurant that has corn is fantastic.
Lisa ordered a mushroom and queso fundido
which was not advertised as spicy on the menu, but really was (it was certainly a lot spicier than the elote which the menu said would be spicy but wasn't). The waiter was really nice about it, taking her dinner off the bill because she didn't like it. The service at Elote is also really good; I get why this place has the popular reputation it does.
From Elote, we got back in the car and drove the rest of the way to Phoenix, mostly in the dark.
Thursday, May 14: Phoenix Botanical Gardens and Zoo
Initially we were going visit Scottsdale and the Phoenix Art Museum on Thursday because it was supposed to be the hotter of the two days, but the weather called for rain on Friday, so we decided to save the indoor activities for then. The Botanical Gardens and Zoo were really close to the hotel, so we headed off for those.
The entry way into the Phoenix Botanical Garden is gorgeous. It has this Chihuly sculpture (which is plant in glass) in the entry. About a year ago, there had been a Chihuly exhibit in the garden; Dale Chihuly is a famous glass artist who has done a lot of work with plants and blown glass. There are also really pretty purple cacti.
Once inside the garden, we decided to take a short guided walk (which turned out not to be so short as our docent really liked to talk about the cacti and other plants, but his enthusiasm was endearing). What I feel like we learned the most about were the Saguaro (pronounced swarrow) cacti.
Saguaros live for 70 years before they start to grow arms (so this one, with its very long arms, is quite old). How many arms they grow is completely arbitrary (and some never do grow arms). The hole in the cactus was made by a woodpecker (though, is larger than normal) who then burrows downwards to build a home in the cacti. All of the saguaros have holes in them (and, yet, I never saw a woodpecker). There is a wood spine in the cactus that you can see in cacti that have been damaged or are dead (there were none in the gardens, but we saw some the next day in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve). The flowers on the cacti are night blooming, though they stay open until about noon the next day, so they were still open when we got there.
After our guided tour, we we walked the rest of the gardens, which is basically a large circle with themed trails leading off it. The first one was the herb garden
which had a lot of vegetables too. This is what an artichoke, unpicked, looks like. It grows purple flowers.
The next trail is the Sonoran Desert Loop Trail, which has a lot of indigenous cacti
and animals.
There is the Plants and People trail, which has both native plants people use for food and drink and structures that indigenous people would have lived in.
There were lots of examples of agave (the plant on the left), which is what tequila and mescal are made from (though not all agave plants are used, just some varieties).
There are also a few palo verde trees-- the state tree. You can't really tell from the picture, but the bark is green (because there's chlorophyll in the bark).
What we couldn't get into was the butterfly pavilion (though I have no idea why-- it was supposed to be open), which I had been looking forward to. It took about and hour and half to tour the gardens.
The zoo is right next door to botanical gardens, so we went there next.
The Phoenix Zoo is really nice, but we had been in Bearizona the day before and it didn't have much chance of being anything but second best. (I love a zoo-- but Bearizona has now established a very high bar against which to be measured.)
The first exhibit is the Arizona Trail, which has a lot of animals indigenous to Arizona: birds, lizards, prairie dogs.
After wandering that trail, we had lunch
and then moved onto the rest of the zoo, which housed the more interesting and larger animals, like giraffes.
There is an opportunity at this zoo to feed the giraffes-- however, there are signs that you are not allowed to pet the giraffes as you feed them because they don't like that, which makes me think they also wouldn't have liked it if I hugged them, so it didn't quite seem worth paying for.
The enclosures at the Phoenix Zoo are well done, so you can get pretty close to most of the animals, like antelope and rhinos.
And, the big cats (who were hiding as far away as they could since we were there in the afternoon, prime nap time).
The otters largely wanted to sleep to, though this one at least looked up to have its picture taken.
And, there were flamingos-- this is the second time I have watched flamingos get testy (there was a full-on fight in the Lisbon Zoo). I didn't know they were such touchy animals.
There was also a baby crane. The baby is the white and gray one-- it's only about a month old and nearly as tall as the father crane. (Momma crane had wandered away-- apparently, cranes never leave their babies alone, so one of them has to stay with it all times.)
Next to the cranes were the zebras.
And nearby were the elephants. Supposedly, the zoo has 4 of them, though only this one was out.
There was construction going on nearby for a new big cats habitat and the pool was dry (on a warm day) so the others may have been protesting.
By far, the most active animals in the zoo were the monkeys and chimps, like these two who kept trying to outdo each other.
And this orangutang whose acrobatics with the blanket was impressive (especially since he started on the ground, lying around with the blanket).
There were several baby monkeys at the zoo, like this one (a little hard to photograph through the glass), being held by its mom (mom is chewing on an ice cube to keep cool).
Finally, off in a corner, were a couple of black bears.
Even though they got to swim (and I didn't see any water in Bearizona), I still feel like they got the raw deal. They should be protesting to get relocated.
This pool doesn't really make up for not getting to run around with lots of bears in Bearizona... it's pretty small.
After the zoo, we decided to head over to Hole in the Rock-- which is exactly what it sounds like. It's a hole in a rock; I was fascinated by how a hole became a tourist attraction. And, it's right near the zoo, so easy access.
Hole in the Rock is actually an archeological site. The hole itself is a naturally occurring formation of conglomerate sandstone that was used by the Hohokam people as a calendar device to help them know when to plant. There is a trail that goes along the side and up the back to get up to Hole in the Rock, which I wanted to climb. It was fairly late in the afternoon and we had been walking around gardens and zoos for a long time, so Lisa elected to wait in the parking lot while I climbed up.
The climb itself isn't difficult and there are makeshift stairs for most of it.
I'm unclear as to whether this was created by the archeologists or if the stairs are the remains from a long time ago. Once up in Hole in the Rock, you can see a lot of Phoenix.
What's harder to see is that in the right of the panoramic picture, there are stairs carved into the rock. Those lead from the small"entry" hole in the back down to the ledge in the front that is the larger hole. I tried to take a picture of them, but it was way to dark to really see it.
I texted Lisa when I got up to Hole in the Rock, so she took a picture of me from the parking lot.
I'm in the middle (I don't know who the guy to the left is). This is what Lisa, standing by the car, looked like from my vantage point.
After I climbed down from Hole in the Rock, we decided we needed a snack since it was about 4:00. It was too early for dinner, but neither of us was going to make it until then without something. We went to Phoenix City Market Cafe
where Lisa got a cookie and I got what was supposed to be a small plate of nachos (I really wanted a hot pretzel but they were out. These nachos were on the happy hour menu and were advertised as small. The regular portion must be huge.)
This was the first day of the trip that we weren't rushing around and driving crazy long distances to get places-- which meant that after our snacks we had time to go back to the hotel and nap and shower before dinner.
Dinner was at Phoenix City Grille in downtown Phoenix
where I had a beet salad and eggplant squares and Lisa had a chicken dish that she says was the best thing she ate all week.
And then we went back to our hotel. The next day was to be our last full day of the trip.
Friday, May 15: Scottsdale and Phoenix Art Museum
Friday called for rain in the afternoon, so we drove to Scottsdale in the morning to go to the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. We did part of the Gateway Trail (the whole loop is a little over 4 miles), climbing up high enough to be able to see the Valley below.
You can see the storm clouds gathering in these shots. There are many thousands of saguaro cacti here, in a variety of conditions. This one isn't in great shape, but it does allow for seeing the bark spine.
There were people who were running the trail which seemed crazy to me-- not because it was so steep or such a difficult climb, but because it's incredibly rocky (though pretty cacti sometime grow in the rocks).
I tripped over rocks once as we were walking back down and nearly wiped out. I have no idea how runners don't turn ankles more often (or, maybe they do).
After a morning hike around the preserve, we headed into historic downtown Scottsdale for lunch. Scottsdale is really cute and inviting with lots of great little restaurants (Scottsdale is what I thought historic Sedona was going to look like). We went to Rehab Burger Therapy
which was quirky (as its menu shows-- it's brownies come in a pot and so are "pot brownies" and happy hour begins at 11 am)
and made a great burger. There were a large variety to choose from; I ordered an artery clogging and completely unhealthy jalapeno popper burger, which was basically deconstructed jalapeno poppers on a burger; this is a small version. There is a larger burger too.
Lisa got a Cobb salad.
After lunch, we left Scottsdale to go back to the Phoenix Art Museum, which Lisa really wanted to go to and had been looking forward to for two days (plus, we were pretty sure it was going to rain sometime and a museum seemed like a good place to be in a storm).
There were a couple of good exhibits in the museum. Actually, my favorite piece might have been this sculpture in the lobby.
I think my favorite total exhibit was the Thorne Miniature Rooms, which were miniature reconstructions of different styles of furnished rooms from (mostly) the 19th and 20th centuries.
There was also a special exhibit of Andy Warhol's portraits which was pretty cool (but no photographs were allowed) and included some of the more famous ones (like Marilyn) as well as some more obscure work. And, there was a collection of work by an artist named Phillip Curtis, who I had never heard of before, but who reminded me a bit of Rene Magritte, who I've always liked (here's a link to his work if you're interested). What we had both been looking forward to was the fashion design exhibit, which we thought was going to be much bigger-- it was in a pretty tiny mezzanine area and hosted only one small exhibit featuring fabric prints (with a few complete dresses) by Jacqueline Groag, a post-WWII Czech designer who worked in England. It was kind of disappointing-- as was the whole museum experience. Lisa had figured we should save at least 3 hours for the museum; I think we were finished in about 45 minutes. So, we headed back to Scottsdale (which was only about 25 minutes away) to explore the downtown shops.
and looks like it hasn't changed its decor since it opened. Since it was a soda fountain, we had ice cream (that's a mint chocolate chip cone and strawberry in a bowl).
And then as we walked back towards the car, it began to rain-- the thunderstorm we had been promised all day. So, we waited out the storm a bit (which didn't take long)-- I walked around in the rain (with an umbrella) and went into the nearby shops while Lisa waited to feel comfortable enough to drive. And then we headed back to the hotel.
Our final dinner in Arizona was a family-owned Italian restaurant, Adela's,
where I had penne arrabbiata and Lisa had baked ziti.
And then, we went back to the hotel to pack because we were flying out the next day.
Saturday, May 16: Farmer's Market and Heritage Square
Our flight out was mid-afternoon (2:50 pm), so we had some time to kill. In the morning, we went to the farmer's market that's held in the parking lot next to Phoenix City Market Cafe (which was smaller than the website made it sound, but was still a really nice market) and then went to Heritage Square, a city square developed as part of a 98 block project in 1870. Heritage Square was block 14.
What we really wanted to do was tour the Rosson House
built in 1895 (and then restored in the 1980s after the area was allowed to go to ruin in the 1970s-- when 19 people were occupying the house), but we didn't have time to do that (tours only started on the hour and we got there after 11:15) and make our flight.
Instead, we walked over to the Stevens House, which you can walk into at any time
and received a really nice tour of that smaller home from the docent there. This house was built in 1901 by Constance Stevens. Two sisters lived there-- which is largely remarkable because they owned the house at a time when women had a hard time owning their own property.
It's a bungalow style home, and the interior architecture is in that style.
Behind the house is the Lath Pavilion (above-- pretty obscured by the trees, but the sky is so pretty in this picture)-- it was built in 1980 and is basically an event space.
The Burgess Carriage House is the visitor's center
and then a couple other buildings have also been converted. For example, the Baird machine Shop is now a pizzeria and another restaurant occupies what was the Silva House.
Heritage Square was our last stop before heading back to the airport to drop off our rental car-- in which we logged more than 1,200 miles driving around the scenery and rock of Arizona.
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