5 posts tagged “arizona”

We're back from a one-week visit to Phoenix to see my folks. They were sick with colds the entire time we were in town, but We had a wonderful time regardless. And thankfully, neither of us seems to have caught anything from them.

It certainly wasn't as busy a trip as the last time we visited - no big road trips to Vegas or the Grand Canyon - but then again, we didn't plan for that anyway. We were only there for one week and we just wanted to relax. Mission accomplished! We shopped, we sat by the pool, we ate out, we drank wine. What more could we ask for?

We did manage to get in a few trips to the big city (My parents live about 30 minutes south of Phoenix).

• We traveled in to do some shopping - and found surprisingly few deals. I would have thought, with the economy the way it is, shops would be falling over to get customers in their doors.
• We paid a visit on my Aunt and Uncle (on my father's side, from Alberta). They also winter in Arizona - nearer downtown Phoenix. It was nice to see them - I don't see that side of the family often enough.
  
• We checked out the Tempe Festival of the Arts - and saw some fantastic things that would look great above our sofa.
• We got to see our first ever Cirque du Soleil show - Cavalia. Acrobats on Horses!
  

I think though, for me at least, the highlight of the trip was the Desert Botanical Garden. Normally I'm not a huge fan of such things - plants don't really do it for me - but because this was all outdoors and featured mainly cacti and desert flowers, this had a lot going for it. What pushed it over the top though was that artist Dale Chihuli, who works in hand-blown glass, was commissioned to add dozens of sculptures in amongst the plants. The vibrant colours and vivid shapes were gorgeous, and so well suited tot he landscape. These beautiful works of art really helped make the gardens an experience to remember.

Check out some of our photos from the trip.

Okay, we've put this off long enough. We've been home for a week now and still haven't finished off the trip blogging. It's just kind of a pain to add descriptions to all the photos we took.Anyway it's done.

There are two other portions f the trip to tell you about. After a day of rest following our Las Vegas/San Diego journey, we took a little day trip to Nogales, Mexico. It's about 2 hours drive south of Casa Grande. What a great place! South of the border you'll find cheap crafts, jewelery, and liquor, as well as great food, and tons of friendly Mexicans! Would have been nice to stay the night, but we're very happy just to have had the opportunity to see for a day.

While the main purpose of the trip was Mexico, we also stopped at an old Spanish mission south of Tucson, and an artists colony in Tubac, AZ -- near the Mexican border. Check out a few pics below:

And lastly, to cap off a fully packed two week vacation, we took an overnight trip to the Grand Canyon. On the way up we stopped at Montezuma's castle -- a national historic site of ancient cliff-dwellings -- as well as Sedona -- one of the most beautiful parts of Arizona. After an evening in the town closest to the Grand Canyon national park, we got up and did a three mile hike into the Canyon. What an awesome experience! Check it out!

Wow, what a great vacation. A perfect balance of sight seeing, and sitting around the pool. The weather was perfect the whole time we were there. Couldn't have asked for a better experience, and we can't wait to go back.

Actually, we can't wait to retire so we can go down there for like 5 months a year!

Sunny but windy that is. Today we made a trip down to Nogales, Mexico where we had a fantastic time, but we're not gonna tell you about that yet. We're trying to keep this in chronological order. Here are a few pics and descriptions of our visit to San Diego.

San Diego is nice, but I don't think either of us is too keen to visit again any time soon. We took a trolley tour there and, compared to the one we did in Boston, there was just not as much to see in San Diego. Which makes us think we'd likely choose another Eastern Seaboard city for the next US tour. Prolly New York, but I'm sure Washington and Philly both have their history.

For now, we present San Diego!

...On the edge of the Desert.

No drugs though. Unless you count the non-drowsy generic Sinutab that kept Melvin awake on our second night in Vegas. Or the copious amounts of alcohol that one is served while sitting playing $1 roulette.

We managed to get away from Casa Grande for a few nights last week. We drove to las Vegas for two nights and then on to San Diego before heading home. More on San Diego later.

We walked the strip in Vegas and took in the sights at all the big casino hotels. We also took a trip down to old Las Vegas and managed to catch the Fremont Street Experience -- a recurring sound and light show that plays on a dome covering about two city blocks. pretty cool. While we've been told the show has been better int he past, we were both pretty impressed by the music and animation presented. Youtube has many videos showing past shows, but here's the one we saw -- an advertisement for a new musical playing nearby! Love the groovy tunes!

And once you've had a look at that, you can check out a few additional photos from our trip to Vegas here:

Well, We're here and we love it! Arizona is a fantastic place -- clear skies, crisp clean air, and shorts weather! That's a good enough reason to come down, but there's a lot more to see yet.

We're heading for Las Vegas today for a couple of days and we'll hopefully get to see some of the beautiful landscape in this part of the world. In the meantime, check out a few of these photos from the park where Mom and George live.

It's a senior's community, but it's well set up for us to have a good time. Most of the residents go to bed early, so we can take over the pool/hot tub area and games rooms in the evenings!

Here are a few preliminary photos: