(Sunday, April 8 – Sunday, 15, 2018) – One Saturday morning in early April, before heading out to shovel another 4-6″ of snow, I checked the 10-day forecast for Minnesota and found the high temps in the next 10 days were either in the 20’s or 30’s (degrees Fahrenheit) with 5 more days of snow in the next 10 days. Curiously, I then checked the 10-day forecast for Arizona and found the high temps would be in the 90’s and sunny (and 0% chance of snow)! We quickly remembered that there were also plenty of outdoor swimming pools in Arizona (from our previous trips in 2014 and 2016). About two (2) hours later, Linda and I had planned a week-long trip to the Valley of the Sun for an April Adventure!
Today we took a guided tour of Taliesin West, the winter home of one of America’s greatest architects – Frank Lloyd Wright. The story of Frank Lloyd Wright’s life and the history of Taliesin West is quite remarkable. Established in 1937 and built by Wright and his apprentices, the 500 acre site is nestled into the side of the McDowell Mountains. It is currently home to students that enroll in the Frank Lloyd Wright school of architecture for a three year program and they live on the grounds in the winter. Five of the original apprentices, in their 90’s now, still live on the grounds as well.
After an amazing tour at Taliesin West, we enjoyed a wonderful meal at the Blue Adobe Grill (delicious Mexican, Tex-Mex Sante Fe Grill)!
A delicious Monday morning spent reading was followed by a Segway tour in Old Scottsdale, Arizona. We found out that Scottsdale, once called “Orangedale” in it’s history, is a very affluent community – considered to be the “Beverly Hills” of the valley of the sun. The two-hour Segway tour was awesome – along with the weather (mid-90’s and low humidity). The parks in the town square were beautiful – with flowers and water features that were picture perfect!
Tuesday, our third day on our trip – took us on another adventure, a hot air balloon ride at sunrise. This adventure made for an early morning – setting the alarm for 3:45 am – yikes! The balloon ride was very fun and exciting, and never seemed scary or unsafe. The scariest part of the whole experience was reading item #2 on the liability release form that described all of the things that could possibly happen (we thought that some might run screaming from office building after reading, but no one did). We were loaded into vans that had trailers attached with the balloon/basket and took about a 20 minute ride to a location north of Phoenix, in the desert. The balloon was made ready in about 20 minutes and the 12 of us climbed into the basket. The pilot then “gave the gas” and the flame made the balloon float into the air. It was so peaceful and amazing floating above the ground (up to 4,000 feet in the air). It was definitely worth ignoring the item #2 language on the liability waiver!
It was time to head back to the hotel for breakfast and a delicious nap after a morning of adventure! Later in the day we enjoyed some of the best pizza we’ve ever had – at Barro’s in Surprise. We first had pizza from Barro’s when we visited Arizona in 2014. At Barro’s the thin crust pizza = regular crust and the regular crust = deep dish. We enjoyed the thin crust – very yummy!
On Wednesday, we spent some delicious time in the morning relaxing and reading before heading to Papago Park in Phoenix. We visited the “hole-in-the-rock” geologic feature at the park, and also Hunt’s tomb, which is on the National Register of historic places (it’s where a former mayor of Phoenix was buried) and offers a nice view of the valley.
We moved to new accommodations later in the day – Linda found a great deal on a four-star Wyndham resort that has a great pool, so we’ll stay there Wednesday-Friday.
We were supposed to fly home on an Allegiant flight on Saturday, April 14th, but a pending blizzard in Minnesota put the flight in jeopardy of being cancelled or delayed/re-routed. We decided to rent a car and drive the 1700 miles home and we’re glad we did! It added a day to our adventure and we were treated to some of the most visually stunning landscapes along the trek through eight states (Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota).
We landed overnight at two locations on our 2-1/2 day journey home (Grants, New Mexico and El Dorado, Kansas). We marveled at the beauty of the country as we drove through the various states. We were surprised/alarmed to see so many vacant and abandoned homes and businesses in small towns along the rural highways along the way – almost ghost town-looking places.
We arrived back home to winter again – on April 15th, with the remnants of a fresh 12″-15″ of snow and a blizzard lingering to make travel through the Twin Cities hazardous. Goodbye to the warmth of 90 degrees and sunny skies, for now – but you can bet that we’ll be back again someday for another Arizona Adventure!
Great pictures! It was a fun trip just going through the pictures.