Traveling in Your Own Back Yard!

As "adventurers" we tend to seek out places far and wide to visit, but often times forget what we have in our own back yard.  It's easy to do.  I never gave it much thought about it before as my career as an Event Planner made it my job to see and do everything "tourest" in San Diego while I worked there.  Now that I'm no longer working, and now live in Arizona, I have a new "back yard".  

My birthday was yesterday, and so I decided that with the weather being so beautiful right now, it was a good excuse to explore Phoenix a little bit.  We have only been there for business reasons and never have taken the time to see anything fun, so I asked Jack to take me to see the State Capitol and the Japanese Gardens - two of my favorite things to visit when we travel.  So, he made the plans for the day!

First stop, the State Capitol.  Seems, like a lot of places, it got to small, so they built larger "wings" on either side of the original building and then moved in there, making the original building into a museum.  

It's a pretty building, not as fancy as some, but not drab either.  Four stories with a rotunda and topped with a lovely copper dome (AZ is the copper state) and it also has an unusual feature in that the angel on top is also a wind vane!  She's called "Winged Victory" and is actually older than the state of Arizona.  It was purchased in 1898 for $150.00 at the time the Arizona Territorial Capitol was under construction.  She sits on a rotating pedestal and spins when the wind hits her wings.  She's 17' tall, so it's easy to see her.  It's actually pretty cool to watch.  

 Inside they had several displays.  The ones I enjoyed the most were on the WWII Japanese American Interment Camps (I have visited the one in California at Manzanar).  I didn't realize we had two in Arizona.  One in Butte Camp - Camp Rivers and one at Poston in Yuma.  

The other display was on the Merci Train.  It was a great display of gifts from France & Italy to Americans, in response to the trains that we sent to them full of food and other items during the aftermath of WWII.  It was so interesting to read the notes and see the sweet items that people parted with from their heart in hopes that they would be shared with the people of America.  Each item was precious and given with love.  I'm sure the same was sent the other way, as we were in a great depression and any food we gave was food off of their table, out of their own pantry, knowing that they too were starving just like us here.  They too had lost husbands, fathers, sons and brothers - all were sharing the same loss, the same tears.  It was a very heartwarming display.

 There were other displays of art, and one large one of a 6.8' by 10.25' LEGO Arizona State Flag made from 113,998 blocks, including custom colors shipped from Denmark just for this flag!  ;-). 

 

Outside the Capitol is the Governmental Mall where a number of various statues and memorials are.  It's quite impressive, actually.  I only stopped at a couple as we were anxious to move on to the Japanese Gardens.  I did pause at the (very large) Navajo Code Talker's statue as I have a fondness for those people.

 After leaving the State Capitol, we went to the Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix.  I'm fond of Japanese gardens and have visited a number of them around the states as I find them not only beautiful, but so peaceful and soothing.  

This was quite a small garden, but the fact that they are in the heart of Phoenix and still thriving, says a lot.  To be able to create an oasis, albeit small, is quite a feat here in this desert city where the temperatures can reach upwards of 110 degrees in the summer months. 

The first thing you see when you enter is a large Kasuga Lantern (which makes for a great photo opportunity).  From this lookout point, it is easy to view the three defining elements of the Japanese gardens: stone, water and plants.  

The Koi Pond is visible from everywhere in the garden and holds 550,000 gallons of water which is filtered in a closed system through their nearby pump house.  It holds hundreds of koi fish and many western mosquito fish. 

They have a Tea House here as well, but it's only open for their monthly chanoyu experiences.  It's tucked in an area they call the Roji style garden that's like a small forest with a meandering stream.

Along the pond are several features - a lush waterfall surrounded by hand-picked boulders brought from Congress AZ.  The largest boulder weighs 25 tons and the water cascades from a height of 14'.   There is also a Beach Region which depicts the classic landscape of pebble beaches found along the island coasts of Japan.  Their beach represents a sand bar jutting out into the sea, with the stones meant to mimic the scales of a koi fish.  

The pond itself has two bridges - a curved bridge called a talko bashi, which resembles a talko Japanese drum and the zig-zag bridge called yatsuhashi, and is a famous motif in Japanese literature, art and garden landscapes.  

Throughout the garden were meandering pathways filled with trees, both flowering and pine, various grasses, statues and pagodas, wonderful birds to listen to and places to just sit and take it all in.  We even watched a mother duck with her babies for a bit.  All very enjoyable and peaceful in this busy city. 

After all that walking, we were hungry!  Jack had pre-picked out our restaurant and headed right for it.  A popular city eatery called The Arrogant Butcher where we promptly enjoyed a birthday drink!  I had something called a Blood Orange Paloma, a very refreshing drink that had Tradicional Tequila Plata, Blood Orange, Fresh Lime, and Fever Tree Grapefruit Soda.  Yum!  Then we settled down to a nice lunch...Jack said his hamburger was "the best ever!" and I enjoyed a club sandwich (which I couldn't finish) They treated me to an apple cobbler which I took home to enjoy.  ;-). 

No RV was needed, but much "adventuring" was enjoyed!  As we are aging, our trips are getting less and less, but that hasn't stopped us from seeking out places to discover and short trips to enjoy.  As the "snow birds" fly out of our resort to their other homes, the amenities here become even more enjoyable as they are less crowded.  We've become true "Desert Rats" as the saying here goes, and that's alright.  

Until our next adventure...Marie

 

...more pictures on my flickr account, if you like...

 

Traveling to Tombstone!

 Our first RV trip of the new year!  For a retired couple we sure do keep busy, or so it seems anyway.  Every time a camping trip comes up, we look at our calendar and see if we can fit it in!  Our RV Club had this short little trip to Tombstone and we barely had time for it, but we squeezed it in anyway as we really wanted to get away for a few days and hadn't for quite awhile.  

The week before we left here the weather had been fantastic, in the low 80s and clear.  Wouldn't you just know it, the week of our trip, everything changed completely - here and there!  Temps dropped by 20 degrees and windy!  Dang.  Out came the Ugg boots and sweats to pack!  Threw on the flannel sheets and comforter and packed the extra heater just in case.  ;-).  Bought extra soup and hot tea...I was covering my bases!

We hadn't packed up in quite awhile and I was just hoping I hadn't forgotten anything, but decided we had done this for so many years, "aw, we got this!".   We had friends joining us that had just purchased their first RV that were really excited about making their first trip, that were going to caravan behind us.  We gave them the "leave time" as we each had a specific check-in time at the campground due to their unique location (right downtown on the main street, so didn't want to block traffic).  We calculated the drive to be 3.5 hrs.  So, we were all set, ready to pull out...and waited, and waited, and 45 minutes later...we finally got on the road.  Ok, it takes some people longer to do things...we made a note of that....

Tombstone greeted us with cold, blustery winds and low 50+ temps!  To people who have lived in Surprise "year 'round" our bodies have adjusted to higher temps...that's COLD!  Getting together...outside for Happy Hour was fun, sweet and short!  Our Wagon Master, Cheryl was hoot, so full of energy, enthusiasm and even had goody bags for each of us.  Of course there was more food than we could all eat, but that's what makes it great.  We had 21 rigs plus 2 extra folks staying in hotels, so a total of 43 people at this rally!  I probably knew only about 6 of those, so this was a whole new experience for us, and that was also true for most everyone else as well!

The following day Cheryl had several tours prescheduled for us to sign up for ahead of time.  We had already been to Kartchner Caverns as well as the OK Corral several times, so we just decided to walk around town and browse.  It turned out to be "First Friday" so many of the shops had extra stuff happening like music and food and wine, which was fun.  We got to chat with a number of shopkeepers and folks and ended up really enjoying ourselves.  

That evening Cheryl had arranged a group dinner at the Longhorn BBQ Restaurant for all of us which was fun too.  Great food and good company.  Our "instructions" were that we were to sit next to people we didn't know...well, that was easy!  We met Mark & Lori who are both musicians and Mark plays the Sax at a number of locations around Surprise and Phoenix!  Super fun couple and very interesting.  They are only renting this year, but I do hope they return next year.  

Saturday, we had signed up to do the Bisbee Copper Queen Mine Tour and the Bisbee Gin Tour.  We didn't bring our Toad, but our neighbors, Jeff and Nancy volunteered to drive us as they were going as well.  Both of these were new to us.  

We'd been on mine tours before, but this one was quite different from the others.  We first were gathered together for an overview of what to expect, then given our "gear" - a bright vest, a hanging flashlight and a protection helmet, then off we went to the "train" that would take us down, down, down into the mine itself.  Our guide was very informative and knowledgeable about what miners in the early days and what they had to go through to mine the copper out - the long hours, the equipment they had to use, the lack of light, and air, the small wages (.25 a day), the loud noise the machines made, etc.  He demonstrated many of the things he talked about, including how they had to drill or pound out the holes so they could blast the walls.  It really made you appreciate your copper pipes and copper pans!  The mine operated from 1915 until 1975 and was one of the most successful copper mines in North America until the price of copper just bottomed out.  

 

We then went over to the Old Bisbee Brewing Company and met Brendon who is the Brew Master.  You could tell he absolutely loves his job!  It's a small beer distillery, making about 6 types of beers at a time, only serving them locally in Bisbee.  They have a tasting cafe where you can buy it by the crowler or growlers to take home as well as their Bisbee Blue Gin.  The Gin is actually sold in Phoenix and Scottsdale as well.  

We tasted all his products and, as I am not a beer drinker, I found two of them quite good because they didn't really taste like beer to me!  People who do like beer, found the other ones quite good as well.  I'm not a gin drinker, so all I can say is that his gin, tasted like gin.  I did see quite a number of bags leaving the tasting cafe, so many of our group liked his products!  They also serve hot dogs, chips and popcorn - which many of us purchased and enjoyed.  All in all, a delightful visit!

While we were hanging around Bisbee we had a few minutes to take a look around and I spotted a walkway between a couple of buildings that caught my eye, so walked over there.  It turned out that all along the wall on one side and the fence on the other, people had hung (screwed in) art work!  This went on for several blocks!  It was really quite something to see.  All sorts of art too.  Fascinating.   Also caught an old "ghost ad" on another wall, which are always fun to see.

 

The following morning was to be our group potluck breakfast.  Since it was so very cold, Cheryl had scurried around and found us a building that we could use so we could be indoors!  Such a sweetheart!

So off we went, bringing our goodies down the street, along with our folding chairs, to a great old building to have a marvelous big breakfast!  All 40+ of us!   After filling our tummies, we all shared who we were, where we came from, etc. and some stories about other rallies past and future to encourage the new folks to not only continue these trips but to consider being a Wagon Master themselves.  

Later that day, Jack and I talked, and with the weather so cold and windy, and the fact that we had already seen Tombstone before, along with the fact that I needed to be at a luncheon at home by 11am the next morning...we would go ahead and leave later today rather than super early tomorrow.  Turned out our friends felt the same way, so we all arranged to leave at 1pm and they would caravan out with us as well.  

So, at 1pm we were ready to leave, and Jack walks over to help them back out...well...1:30 we finally got out of there.  ;-). 

It was a fun trip and I'm glad we went!  So nice to meet so many new people and am looking forward to traveling again...where and when, we are not sure...but, that seems to be our "M.O." these days!

 Back at home in Surprise....for now!  Marie

...more pictures on my flickr account, if you like...