Back on a river

What with trips, an unusually cool spring (which I'm not complaining about), prodigious amounts of pollen, etc., it had been quite a while since I'd been paddling.

So I was glad to be able to get back in the kayak seat last weekend. 

In addition to some remarkable wildlife sightings (more about this later), the flowers were pretty spectacular. Lots of bluebonnets along the roads leading to our put-in, and then these lovely "arrangements":

I was particularly taken with the vibrantly colorful poppies...

At the other end of the size scale, I enjoyed these lovely little blue guys, too...

I didn't see nearly as many turtles as on our last paddle, but this rather healthy specimen has to be one of the largest I've ever seen on our local rivers:

But that's not the wildlife I was referring to above. 

You'd be right in guessing that birds needing that large a nest would be impressive specimens. And indeed they are. Our national bird, in fact.

These are two juveniles that haven't quite learned to fly yet. (Henry has a better picture of one of them flapping his/her wings here.) Unfortunately we never saw the parents, but, what a treat to see the young 'uns!

Although the trip was a little longer than I usually like to take (justifying a very lazy recovery day on Sunday), it was great fun. The weather was perfect: air not too hot but river water just cold enough to be refreshing. And the spring river scenery can't be beat...

Out and about in Phoenix

I want to finish up my Phoenix-Spring Training posts with a miscellany of interesting glimpses of the town. We weren't there for long, but got to see a good bit of the city and enjoyed the mild weather and the occasionally quirky sights.

it's pretty easy to tell where they irrigate...view from the plane on the way in

nice view of downtown from the plane on the way home...
the stadium is what I still call "the BOB"*

we had an appropriately cool rental car...

...that was almost the same color as the green cabs we saw all over

I thought the "Sky Harbor" airport was very nice...
here's my nephew riding the tram to the light rail with me upon my arrival

street art on the platform...waiting for the light rail (the real feet are mine)

more neat public art...a stylish caduceus

handsome church and ubiquitous palm trees

nice fountain in Scottsdale

and a very nice restroom...who knew they have awards for things like this?!

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*It's now the really lame-sounding Chase Field, since Bank One got taken over. Bank One Ballpark gave it a so much snappier nickname, don't you think?

Wordless Wednesday: scary sky at the bus stop

Phoenix Phood

A great part of any vacation, no matter how mini, is getting to eat out a lot, sampling the local cuisine without fear of weight gain...since vacation calories don't count, right?

Yes, we decided to give In-and-Out Burgers another chance in Arizona. You might remember that we were singularly unimpressed with our visit to one in California last summer. Happily, we discovered that our previous experience must have been an aberration. Our meal in Tempe was really scrumptious. In addition to this yummy cheeseburger and exquisitely crispy fries, Joan's chocolate shake was one of the best I've ever tasted.

This particular In-and-Out-let definitely deserved the long lines and heavy crowds we saw there. The crew was kept hopping, but they sure managed to keep the quality up...

These burgers were the last meal we had in the Phoenix area. Our first was a delicious Ariz-Mex experience at the Mariscos Playa Hermosa [seafood beautiful beach] where we also were able to eat outside in the very pleasant evening air.

I decided not to go for the seafood specialties of the house, but rather chose a Tex-Mex staple, in order to make comparisons with home. My enchiladas verdes weren't bad at all, even if the sauce was a little spicy and the rice was un-fried...

One of our best meals was at the Morning Squeeze, a popular Scottsdale eatery not far from the Rockies stadium. Brunch before the game really hit the spot.

They specialize in a variety of types of Eggs Benedict; I chose the "Billy Bob Benny," which substitutes biscuits for English muffins and sausage for ham. Plus, look at all those hash browns ... YUM!

The half-inside, half-outside ambiance of this restaurant, as well as the general decor, was quite charming. We didn't mind having to wait for our table and the food was worth it. Here's a cute wall of mugs that greets you as you enter:

I unfortunately didn't get pictures of the ballpark food we feasted on, but since we had such good meals outside the parks, we didn't have to eat much inside. A delicious cup of noodles and veggies served as lunch at the Giants game, though, and I should have snapped a picture of that. On Sunday, after our Morning Squeeze brunch, we didn't have room for much at all at the Rockies game.

Given that I was traveling with my sister Joan, we naturally spent a fair amount of time in Starbucks, and I was glad, again, that they have such yummy pastries. Here was my Tuesday morning coffee cake:

A final nice meal was a surprisingly generous and delicious salad at the Phoenix airport. You know you've hit the jackpot, vacation-food-wise, when your airport meal is worth blogging about!

A "who knew?" moment

I love when you travel to a new town and serendipitously discover an unexpected tourist attraction, to add to the things you knew you wanted to see there.

While doing some Google-map exploring in Phoenix, checking on the locations for the various stadia we planned to visit, I happened upon Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard in Scottsdale. And right off this thoroughfare was Taliesin West, his desert companion to the famous house in Wisconsin, designed to fit perfectly with its surroundings.

Since the house wasn't too far, in Phoenix terms at least, from Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, we made a quick visit after the Rockies game.

We knew we were too late for the last tour, but we enjoyed visiting the gift shop and taking in the house exteriors that we could see. Everything looked fabulous in the late afternoon Arizona sunshine.

I'm sorry I can't tell you much about what's represented in these photos, but we thought what we could see was fascinating even if we didn't know exactly what it was...

part of the house, with embedded rock walls

a handsome statue and cactus

looking down the walkway into the house

a close-up of the very odd, but lovely, carving at the front "gate"

A special treat was getting to take pictures of some of the impressive saguaro on the property. I showed you some of these in an earlier post, but you can never see too many of these fabulous plants. Here are some more shots...

This is definitely a place that deserves a closer look. It's on our list of non-baseball activities for our next visit.

Wordless Wednesday: A major award*

*Not anything like this.

Best seats in the house

As I indicated in my last post, although we saw lots of neat things, and did lots of neat things, over our long weekend in Phoenix, baseball was the primary attraction.

Not surprisingly, the weather was perfect, as you can see above. And we thoroughly enjoyed the games, the parks, the fans, and just the general spring-time surroundings. When every team, it seems, is a potential pennant-winner.

Our first game Sunday was at Scottsdale Stadium, spring home of the Giants (which alert readers will note we saw last summer in their real home in San Francisco. The weather was much more pleasant this time, even if the views were not as spectacular.)

nice, but not exactly San Francisco Bay

We opted for both games to buy lawn tickets, not only because they're the cheapest in the park, but also because it's fun to sit out there. (Price was definitely an object at the Giants game; we feel that they charge unconscionably high prices for everything. From $7 bottles of water to $25 "seats" on the lawn! By contrast,

the Rockies' lawn "seats" were only $11. And the water was only $6.) I mean, I can't remember when I last walked barefoot on grass. Ours at home is usually not all that comfortable, even when it's been recently watered.

The Giants park had one huge amenity that, perhaps, almost justified those sky-high prices: trees. As you saw in my last post, it was just about the pleasantest thing in the world to lie back on the grass and look up at the trees in between innings. Even though the view was somewhat obstructed when there was action going on:

Although it's not as bad as this picture indicates. All you have to do is stand up and you can see the field just fine. And standing up occasionally is a very good idea for old joints and bones that aren't used to sitting cross-legged for lengths of time.

Plus, it was most crowded early in the game...

...in the later innings, when a lot of the not-real-fans had left, we moved forward to the front of the berm and had both shade and a view.

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The Rockies' park the next day (which they share with the D-backs during the spring) lacked the trees, but in all other respects (including prices) was a much better experience.

What a gorgeous place! And the lawns are about 4 or 5 times as big. Plenty of room for everyone, with no crowding; and they're steeper, too, so there's virtually no view-obstructing.

The rest of the park was equally well-designed and fun to stroll around in. There was imaginative and lovely landscaping...

interesting native plants adorn the batters' eye

the yellow foul pole looks perfectly matched with the Palo Verde blossoms

...all they need to do is plant some trees out on those expanses of lawn!

The stadium is officially called Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. And unlike some other stadium/team names with "at this" and "at that" in their names, this time it actually makes some sense. It's part of the Talking Stick resort that's on Native American land, specifically the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Community. (You might

notice on the website a motto: "Two Tribes, Two Teams, One Home," that refers to the fact that the Rockies and Dbacks share the facility.) 

One of the other attractions on the property is a very nice-looking hotel that we are considering using as a base of operations for future spring training trips. There's also a couple of golf courses, and what looks like a full calendar of events when spring baseball isn't happening there.

(I was a little disappointed and surprised that the park's website didn't have more information about the tribes and the location's uniqueness. There's a little more information in this Wikipedia article. But they do have a nice marker out front that identifies the tribes and explains what a "talking stick" is. Here's the ever-helpful Wikipedia article on that subject.)

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Watching the fans is always an attraction by itself at ball games, and spring training games are especially good people-watching venues. Most of the folks at these games are real fans, and they aren't shy about showing their loyalty...

Giants fan with appropriate-colored hair

Rockies fan (his face was covered in purple, too)

Giants fan who might need to watch the ballpark calories

Giants fans taking selfies

It's great to see baseball fans from all over the country, coming out to support their teams. But these were my favorite fans...I really appreciated being included in this burgeoning spring tradition of theirs!

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Stay tuned for more about our non-baseball Phoenix activities.