The Bad and Beautiful

Today is our last day in AZ, only a week here this time, and it has been interesting as always. Last night we decided to make a quick trip to Sedona for lunch because it's always a good idea to go up there. Traffic on the 101 Loop was busy and our GPS has been determined that we use that road virtually every time we leave the apartment because of our location. Once on 17 heading north it thinned out and we made good time. The desert is astonishingly green this year because it's been a wet winter. I don't know what that might mean in terms of the indigenous flora and fauna but it certainly looks different to us and there is actually standing water in some locations. Some of the pleasure of going to Sedona is to pass through an area with thousands of saguaros on each side of the road and then up to the high desert plateau above Camp Verde. Place names like Horse Thief Basin and Bloody Basin evoke the old and wild west.

Sedona was busy busy unlike our first few times there, but still beautiful and with a great sense of serenity. People seem to speak more softly and not hurry. We had lunch Uptown at the Cowboy Club and for the four of us it was a titch unsettling that one of the servers was wearing a holstered pistol. AZ is an "open carry" state but it feels like a movie set when you actually see it in action.

Yesterday we went to a Cactus League ball game: AZ and The Padres. We thought The Diamond Backs were going to romp away with it but in the 7th and 8th innings, to quote Ian Hyde-Lay, they managed to "wrestle defeat from the jaws of victory". The game was at Salt River Stadium, part of the Talking Stick Resort, a very nice design and apparently no bad seats. Only 5700 people at the first of a double header set but the evening game was sold out.

After the game we went to Old Town Scottsdale for the Thursday evening Art Walk which was a Native American theme complete with a fashion show. I wish someone could explain to me how tottering on 6 inch heels is attractive because for me it just isn't. If I were any one of the designers I would have insisted on a heel that allowed the model to walk gracefully. I guess I'm officially an old codger. 

A couple of random pics here: Arizona Mills is an enormous outlet mall that we usually manage to spend a little money in. Not his time though for some reason like maybe a $.75/$1.00 ratio. The mall has changed a lot and add a Legoland feature for entertainment. This is a giant octopus outside making it easy to remember which exit to use. 

 And just in case we forgot we are in the desert, I did say it is surprisingly green this year, here is a reminder:

Off to Vegas tomorrow which all the craziness that implies but also a bonus hook up with Paul and Sue Griffith, there this weekend too from Halifax. Yay team Griffith!