Day 11 - Phoenix

We slept in late this morning and woke up to noise coming from the bathroom in the room next to us.  Apparently there was a big problem, one so severe that they had to move us to another room.  Once we got settled into our new room, while Randy went online and bought our tickets for an art show under the stars, I searched online for an Asian restaurant.  I was craving Chinese food.  Luckily for us, there was a large Chinese Cultural Center there in Phoenix just a few miles away.  Based on their website, it looked like a large mall and office complex and there were a couple of restaurants inside.  I felt certain that we could find a good, authentic meal there.

We arrived at the Center right at lunch time and went inside.  The place was very crowded which is usually a sign of good food.  When we ordered, I ordered rice and an entree.  The waiter asked "What soup" ? I replied that I didn't want soup and he said, "It come with meal". I said, "But I don't want any."  He said, "It come with meal. Won Ton or Spicy?"  Feeling that I wouldn't get ANY food if I didn't order the soup, I said, "Spicy".

We waited and remarked about some of the sites we had passed on our way to the restaurant.... a club that advertised "naked women", miles of palm trees, and then there was Bill Johnson's Big Apple Restaurant....

They advertised a 72 oz. FREE steak. The catch is that IF you can eat it all, it's free.  Now that's a lot of steak! His motto is "Let's Eat"... just that simple. What a tacky little place it was, but I'll bet the food was good!

Our food arrived and the waiter placed the soup in front of  me. Randy began eating his and I pushed mine aside. The waiter came back by and put it back in front of me. By now it was becoming funny, this little guy insisting that I eat the soup, so I pushed it away again. I told Randy that I was afraid they were going to come and force feed me the soup that I didn't want before they would allow me to eat my meal. We even joked that the cooks in the kitchen might be so well trained that if they don't serve the soup and have it consumed, it makes the workers grind to a halt, not knowing what the next step is.

The waiter got busy and didn't come back by again.... thank heavens.  

We left and drove into Scottsdale, a Phoenix suburb. They have an arts district and we walked around looking into the windows. They have a Thursday evening Artwalk that would be held that night, so most of the galleries were closed in preparation of their late night. The temperature was pretty warm, but as they say, it is a dry heat.  Dry or not, it is still hot. I had spied an ice cream shop when we parked and we went there for something to cool us down. The Sugar Bowl is an "old school" ice cream shop where you can get more flavors and combinations than you care to imagine. They will make any kind of milkshake you want and as many scoops of ice cream as you can stand. After our one scoop of ice cream, we headed back toward our hotel and strategized how long it would take us to get to the botanical gardens for the art show this evening.  

Our art show tickets were scheduled for 4pm so we had a nap and made sure our camera gizmos were charged up. The artist whose work we would see is Dale Chihuly. Please click on his name back there and you can see how his work is done because it is amazing stuff. We got to the Botanical Gardens and started walking around. The plants were amazing and the show was beautiful.  

8

We left the gardens in the moonlight and there was nearly a full moon but tonight it wasn't as splendid as all of the glass we had seen. We headed back to the hotel for a good night's sleep because tomorrow we would be heading to Tombstone, AZ.

Day 8 - Grand Canyon

We got up early this morning and had breakfast in the hotel.  It was sunny and windy and the air was cool, in the upper 30's so we wore our fleece jackets, packed our camera/ipad and binoculars.  Before we  headed to the canyon Randy got a cap (the first time I had ever seen him wear one) and we were afraid that the wind would blow our hats off our heads.  We searched in vain for one of those croaker hat clips that they sell at the beach.  I could just imagine the wind taking a hat and one of us falling off the side of the canyon trying to catch it!

It was a very short drive from the hotel, maybe 10 minutes, to the entry gate.  They charged $25 per car for a 7 day pass.  We drove straight in to the Grand Canyon Visitor Center at Mather Point.  There is a shuttle system that will take you to the various overlook points as well as a walkway for those in good physical condition.  We started here, walked a ways and then once we had formulated our plan, we got on a shuttle to catch the eastern part of the park.  Mather point was our first glimpse of the canyon.  It was unbelievable.

The canyon is so huge, so vast, so beautiful, that it looks unreal.  It looks like an illusion or dream.  It makes you wonder how it is possible for that tiny river, way down there at the bottom could possibly cut away so much ground to hollow out such a canyon.  The canyon is some 277 miles long, as much as 18 miles wide in some areas and one mile deep.  Water can be a powerful thing!

At the park entrance there were signs saying that it is not only dangerous to feed the wildlife in the area, it is also illegal.  Still, it was hard for some to resist feeding the chipmunks that were so used to visitors that they would allow people to get close enough to touch them in exchange for a piece of apple.

We took the bus to Yaki Point where we could see hikers and donkeys heading down zig-zagging trails into the canyon.  You'll have to click on the photo and enlarge it to see them.

 

The landscape along the rim is fairly flat but rocky, with ponderosa pines, sagebrush and various cactus type plants.  

We took the shuttle to the Grand Canyon Market Plaza and had lunch.  There was a gift shop and we were able to find gifts to bring home to the kids - cactus plants.  After lunch we took another hike along the rim toward the Bright Angel Trailhead.   By this time it was getting near 3 pm and Randy wanted to book a helicopter ride for the next day.  We went to the room to do that and rested for a little bit then took the car back to the GC Market and picked up the Cactus plants.  We hunted down the laundry facilities and washed some clothes and then had dinner in the hotel.  Our helicopter ride was scheduled for 9:00 a.m. and we were both EXCITED!