Michel: Shockingly, despite being the son of an immigrant, no one asked to see my papers.
Elizabeth: Perhaps the sheriff was otherwise occupied. Anyways, we were delighted to learn that Phoenix is a beautiful, well-kept, and vibrant city with tons of great food and amazing things to do. But even if none of that were true, Kathleen and Mark are there, and that's really all that matters.
Michel: Also, it's warm there.
Elizabeth: Perfectly so at the moment. The happiness I felt at being able to walk outside into the sun in shorts or a sundress was near overwhelming. I was seriously bummed on Monday, coming back to single digit temps in the arctic tundra of Chicago. Anyway, Kathleen and Mark had a packed weekend planned, so here are some of the highlights.
HIKING!!!
Elizabeth: Because Kathleen and Mark live right next to a giant park thing with small mountains/large hills, man-made lakes (a.k.a "Community Fishing Water"), and the Phoenix Zoo. It's pretty awesome. So on our first morning, we embarked on what Mark said was about a 6 mile hike through their "backyard".
Weird
Arizona Thing #1: Sandra Day O'Connor's childhood home was relocated to
this park. It is not open to the public but is available for events.
Roadrunner!
The rare and elusive Dos Equis in its natural habitat.
The Palo Verde is the state tree of Arizona.
Weird
Arizona Thing #2: Arizona's first governor is buried in this pyramid
along with his family members. It is appropriately named Hunt's Tomb.
Phoenix Zoo
Michel: The hike culminated with a climb up to a rock formation called Hole in the Rock. Elizabeth and Kathleen were content to hike no higher than the level of the eponymous hole. Mark and I, however, decided to climb even farther, resulting in roughly an Everest-esque free climb.
Elizabeth: At great peril to your lives, which Kathleen did not hesitate to point out multiple times.
Michel: We saw no fewer than six other climbers fall to their deaths attempting the same climb as us.
Elizabeth: Yet the most successful climbers tended to be children under the age of 10.
Michel: Those were Sherpas.
Michel on top of the Hole in the Rock
Mere
seconds before this photo, I was spread eagle, clinging to the sheer
rock face and fearing for my life as Kathleen pulled and Michel pushed.
Unfortunately Mark did not take a picture or there would be
photographic evidence of my near-death experience and success in scaling
the rock to this extremely high ledge.
Saguaros
(pronounced sa-WAH-ros) are everywhere and basically serve as apartment
buildings for birds and other small desert animals.
Weird Arizona Thing #3: We don't actually know what this is, so we named it Stonehenge West.
Elizabeth: Our second morning, we hiked in the other direction, heading over toward Arizona State University and the ASU mountain. It was another gorgeous day for a hike, and we headed off through the park in another direction, starting with the horse tunnel, crossing under the highway and across the man-made lake (which now boasts "water-front" property) to ASU and Mill Street, ASU's main drag.
Michel: This hike featured far fewer people falling to their deaths than the hike the day before. We did, however, encounter a giant iguana-like lizard that had failed to procure a sufficient water source.
Rule
of Thumb: It's probably not a great idea to step inside a random
ceremonial rock circle thing you stumble across while hiking.
Fortunately Mark has not been struck by lightning or turned
blue...yet...
We
did actually discover some never-before-excavated Native American ruins
that dated from around 1100 or so. They consisted of several houses
and a kitchen area and clearly have not been excavated by ASU
archaeology students. You should expect our report of our exciting new
findings in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.
Natural land bridge across a natural lake
The mill for which Mill Street is named.
ASU
Mountain. Upon discovering we were a bit short on time as we still had
to see the Musical Instruments Museum, we decided to forgo climbing ASU
Mountain and just explore Mill Street a bit instead.
Mills Street is lovely and absolutely delightful.
Obligatory SRD picture: this building used to host Masonic meetings.
Elizabeth:
At the end of our wanderings we decided to stop into Gordon Biersch, a
charming-looking brew pub and the namesake of this post, for a quick
refreshments.
Michel:
Based on the inviting exterior and the use of the word "brewery", we
expected to be in for a delightful beer drinking experience. Alas.
Elizabeth: Kathleen and I opted for the
peach and raspberry ice teas. It was at this point the experience began
to go downhill. I watched in open-mouthed horror as our very nice
waiter filled our glasses a third of the way each with thick,
unnaturally colored peach and raspberry syrups and then poured regular
iced tea on top. My fear was confirmed when I tasted the most
disgusting peach-adjacent iced tea ever. However, the sun was shining,
the environment inviting, and the company excellent. Not all was lost.
Michel:
Around this time, about three quarters of the way through my okay pale
ale, Elizabeth looked over and said, "There's lipstick on your glass."
Sure enough, I was drinking beer out of a dirty glass.
Elizabeth:
The lipstick was hot pink and sparkly, in case you were wondering. We
decided that was the end of our Gordon Biersch experience. Our shocked
waiter kindly comped our iced teas, and we all headed off to better food
and beverage experiences. Which brings us to:
Kathleen and Mark pulled out all the stops in sharing the amazing food of Phoenix with us. Friday night, we had pizza and dessert at their favorite (and very Austin-y) pizza place, La Grande Orange. It was delicious, and corn and goat cheese should be on all pizzas! Brunch on Saturday was at The Henry, a gorgeous loft-meets-colonial-British-pub style restaurant with a perfect patio and excellent cocktails. Mark definitely won brunch with his chicken fried chicken, but we all were super happy with our tasty choices!
Our final dinner before heading to the airport was at The Vig (Best slogan ever: Let's just go to The Vig). The food and cocktails were, again, delicious, but what made this super fun was the great patio with live music and games on the tables. It was a perfect way to end our visit!
However, my favorite meals were probably the ones at home. Mark made us fabulous baked omelets for breakfast (a Barefoot Contessa recipe, natch), and Saturday we had Spanish dinner, a tradition in Kathleen's family that she introduced me to in college and is now a favorite of all of ours. Honestly, there's nothing better than eating good food with great friends!
Awesome Places to Visit!
Our first big "sightseeing" stop was on Saturday afternoon when we went to the Desert Botanical Gardens. It is gorgeous! It's no wonder there were at least 10 weddings there that evening. (Ok, maybe 5.) The garden is set up with several different paths that take you through different desert environments and themes. There's even a Quail Trail path where quail actually run. The only path we didn't visit was the wildflower path, which will be blooming later in the spring.
A saguaro
I think these are called snake cacti because they look like caterpillars.
Elizabeth:
My favorite succulent. I don't know what it's called, but I now have a
baby one on my desk at work. I did not get it here, though.
Apparently, my office now has a "succulent lady" who covers all of our
desk garden needs.
Michel: It's called a Giant Asparachoke. It's a hybrid-plant designed for health-conscious giants.
Elizabeth:
My new goal in life is to have a succulent garden, the centerpiece of
which is a Giant Asparachoke. Mainly because I don't think I can kill
anything cactus related.
Michel: I believe in you.
Elizabeth: Thanks. That means a lot.
We're adorable.
These weren't even the tallest saguaro there.
The barrel cacti are Kathleen's favorite. This one fell over.
Mark and the barrel cactus have just given up.
A saguaro skeleton.
On
one of the paths, they had examples of traditional dwellings of various
Native American groups who lived in the area hundreds of years ago.
One dwelling group had a grinding stone set up. Kathleen decided it
would be fun to see who could grind the most seeds the fastest.
Mark said my smile at this moment wasn't very genuine. I can't imagine why.
Kathleen won.
Michel: Not pictured-me absolutely killing it in the milling competition.
Elizabeth: Not true.
Mark and Michel had fun playing with the panoramic setting on my phone camera.
Michel: Also vacationing in Phoenix, the Golden Age Michel from Earth-2.
The Chihuly pieces left from last year's exhibit
And
our other major site-seeing stop was at the Musical Instruments Museum
on Sunday afternoon. Fun fact: According to Trip Advisor, this is the
number one thing to do in Phoenix. I can see why. I have no hesitation
saying that this is one of the best museums that I have ever been to.
Kathleen had described it as "this musical instruments museum? We don't
really know much about it, but we thought y'all would like it." It's
incredible.
Michel:
It's the type of museum where you could spend days and not really take
everything in. Just about every country and people is represented.
Elizabeth:
Unfortunately we only had a few hours. Each country exhibit showcased
traditional instruments, costumes, and other musical paraphernalia along
with a television screen that played examples of that country's music,
which we listened to through headsets. We were able to spend quite a bit
of time in the Africa, Middle East, Europe, and North America rooms.
We sped through Latin America and Oceania and just walked through Asia.
We were disappointed not to have left more time for the museum, but
it's just another reason to go back to visit!
Michel: 6 out of the 7 continents were very well represented. The museum dropped the ball a little on Antarctica.
Indonesian Gamalan
Bolivian pipes
Opera singer Joan Sutherland was represented in the Australia exhibit...as she should be.
The first Steinway piano. Mark was nerding out.
One of Ella Fitzgerald's costumes
