Things that bug me

Sixteen ounces: $27.99 at Shoppers in Victoria, $10.99 at Walmart in Scottsdale. Made in Ontario.

Adding insult to injury, we went to Costco this afternoon and the 20oz tub was $6.98!

Complacency

We’ve been in Scottsdale often enough that we take things for granted. I find I am even getting a bit irritated by the distances between my favourite places. Greater Phoenix is a huge geographic space and everything is 30-45 minutes from somewhere else. Having said that, it’s easy to get around as long as you pick the right time of day. And speaking of huge, the shopping areas are ginormous. We are having some difficulty communicating with our GPS because it will look for the administrative address of a three block shopping precinct while we are looking for a specific place within that.

Something I don’t take for granted here is art, which is everywhere.  Sculpture abounds in our part of the city; truly magnificent pieces on street corners and in front of commercial and residential developments.  I mean magnificent pieces. Maybe it’s the flatness of the surrounding desert or the beigeness of the terrain but people have created memorable focal points.

pigs do fly

We haven’t managed a photo of the concrete walls that line the freeways around the city, but many of them are beautiful. There are sweeping coloured and three dimensional desert scenes, long and languorous stone lizards, red polka dotted prickly pear; the detail is astonishing. The result is that driving along some of the freeways, aside from the occasional bumper-to-bumper tie up, is pretty impressive. And there doesn’t seem to be any desire to vandalize the walls with graffiti.

We went to the Broadway touring version of Wicked last night at the ASU Gammage Theatre. It’s a Frank Lloyd Wright building which looks a bit like a wedding cake with ramps, or a carousel. We managed the excursion well, being versed in avoiding the madding crowds, but we came out the opposite door at the end so wandered the parking lot for five minutes till we decided there must be two of the ENORMOUS ramps into the upper levels (under one of which we were parked). Which there are. We had front row seats that I bought only two days before the show.  And they were perfect! I’m not sure I’ve ever sat in the front row for a show before, and there are a lot of theatres that it wouldn’t work in but the Gammage was great. We were at eye level with the stage, no heads in front of us, and with perfect sight lines. The show was spectacular with possibly the most interesting costumes and set I’ve seen and a very green witch. We expected a bit more action from the dragon, but he loomed really well.

Jim is playing golf with a PEI friend today at the TPC course which is just down the street from us.

The east coast has come west this year, from Jim’s brother and sister-in-law to 2 separate groups from PEI, and on Sunday Alan and Sally arrive from Ontario.

Sunny Topical (sic) California

It’s an interesting sate. First of all it’s big but secondly it is extreme on many levels. Texas may think they’ve got intense covered but California gives it a run for its money. I wrote about the food production last year – over the top miles of orchards and huge stockyards. This year we were more aware of how compartmentalized the agriculture is. We stopped in Corning on the way south and Corning is all about olives. Other places grow almonds, or pistachios, or raisins (grapes not for wine if you can imagine that!). Some other places only grow windmills for power or oil wells.

A dense strip of oil wells in the midst of cattle country.

Thousands of windmills outside Palm Springs

Even the desert is sectioned off. In Joshua Tree National Park the various flora thrive in specific places. Cholla (choya) in one area, Joshua Trees somewhere else. It’s tidy but odd. Population is the most odd. There are MILLIONS of people and cars in the Los Angeles and San Francisco neighbourhoods and absolute emptiness for miles and miles and miles.

Cholla Garden

Some Mormon settler thought this looked liked Joshua raising his arms in prayer

Big Horn Sheep! (Joshua Tree NP)

Big Sur

Big vista

Big surf (San Simeon)

Big mountain (Shasta)

big impact (Skull Rock, Joshua Tree NP)

It was 19 and 20 degrees as we traveled along, and then 6 as storms ripped through if we were high enough up. There are rain forests and deserts, ocean and alps, dead flat plains and rolling hills. And that’s not even mentioning the politics and the demographics. It is a fascinating place which means neither good nor bad – just fascinating. We went out to the coast and traveled down route 1 from Monterey to Cambria stopping at San Simeon where William Randolph Hearst built his castle. I was shocked to realize that there is virtually nothing at Big Sur. Who hasn't heard about the place and there is nothing more there than you would find on Hornby Island or Sombrio Beach.
We are in Palm Desert for a few days enjoying a family reunion and seeing the sights.

Paul, Cathy, Jim, me Pete, Betty