After a busy travel schedule, the "
rellies" have returned to Alberta
😞
They're Not in Arizona Anymore...
Sat. Feb 3
Robin and Carole left Phoenix at 8 am where the temperature was just below 50F (9C) and expected to rise to about 80F (27C) and returned to snow and a daytime high of -18 C (0 F) in Calgary!
Fri Feb 2
Today was Robin and Carole's 27th wedding anniversary so we treated them to a "Cruise"! Well, it was in a boat, on Canyon Lake, and for about 90 minutes of sunny scenery sailing through canyons created by a dam!
Part of the day's adventure was the drive up Apache Trail, a road built to move supplies to a major dam build in the early 1900s. Typical of any commodity-driven road through mountains, it is narrow and full of rolling twists and turns. Before the boat trip we lunched at
Tortilla Flat, a tourist stop with live music at the outdoor eatery. The Tortilla Flat Band was a great hit with all of us!
They do love photography!
Thu Feb 1
We took Robin for a stroll and climb through the desert and up to the "Praying Hands" (in the left background) in the Tonto National Forest just east of here at the base of the Superstition Mountains .
Robin, in particular, was thrilled to hear the "Mighty Wurlitzer" theatre organ at Organ Stop Pizza this evening. We ate pizza and stayed for several performances - always a fun outing!
Weds Jan 31
Our trip for a tour and lunch at the Queen Creek Olive Mill was charming - an entertaining tour guide told us about the farm that started in 2005 and helped us understand buying and using good olive oil and we followed that up with a wonderful market lunch featuring local food products.
Since it was still early in the day, we decided to take them to the Casa Grande Ruins National Historic Site. It's an area of mystery with an extended network of communities and irrigation canals, where an Ancient Sonoran Desert People's farming community and four story "Great House" are preserved. Whether the Casa Grande was a gathering place for the Desert People or simply a way point marker in an extensive system of canals and trading partners is but part of the mystique of the Ruins which are estimated to have been occupied around 1400.
Tues Jan 30
Robin and Carole had a solo day in Phoenix. Robin, being an engineer by profession, chose to visit the Arizona Science Center while Carole, a horticulturist, wandered the campus of Arizona State University and the historic neighbourhoods.
Mon Jan 29
Off to the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix. We lunched together outdoors at the restaurant in the gardens and then Carole, the horticulturist, set off to explore the flora and fauna while we rode bicycles on some of favourite routes for a little more than two hours.
Robin rents a "Lime Bike", one of the local bike share companies
Sun Jan 29
With an early start it was off to the Boyce Thompson Aboretum State Park for a guided walking tour of these historic experimental gardens. William Boyce Thompson, owner of a local copper mine and considered the richest man in America at the time, established the Boyce Thompson Southwest arboretum in the 1920s within his 400 acre Superior area property; the initial mission was to study the plants of desert countries and make the results available to the public.
"Winter" is just ending so we were happy to see an early cactus bloom
The family lunching at the Sun Flour Market in Superior
We were happy to be indoors after our two hour outdoor tour!
Sat Jan 27
After their quick trip to the Grand Canyon (they arrived in Phoenix on Thurs early), we were happy to pick Robin and Carole up and take them to a citrus orchard for a BBQ lunch at Jalapenos Buck's, a restaurant we had just seen listed as a fine local BBQ joint. It was!
We were all happy to pick out some local citrus - navel oranges and Rio Red grapefruit. The oranges were a great success but the grapefruit have nothing on the red grapefruit that grow in Paul's Park and in local orchards in Brownsville.
