Good-Bye Columbus, Hello Phoenix

5/22/2018

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On Thursday, May 17, Tom and I were back in the Columbus airport, (see posts from 4/29/2018 and 4/30/2018),

...with Tommy, Emily, and Callie, here at the airport Bob Evans,

...eating breakfast,

...then catching a nap,

...before catching our flight to Phoenix, Arizona.
Our ultimate destination was Wickenburg, Arizona for the Quinceañera* of Claire's husband Miguel's sister-in-law's younger sister.
Miguel and Claire.

     Our whole family was invited by Miguel's family, so we all decided to go.
     Our plan was to meet up with Maria, Justin, and our grand daughters, who were flying in from Los Angeles, in Phoenix in an Airbnb that Maria had reserved for us, spend the night, then the following day drive to Wickenburg and meet up there with Claire and Miguel.
    Which is, in fact, what came to pass.

After we arrived in Phoenix and had picked up a rental car we decided that the first order of things would be to seek out some lunch,

…which we found at a place we came upon called Uncle Bear's located in a pretty strip mall,

...pretty, thanks to the palm trees that adorned the parking lot.

For some reason Arizona has particularly pretty palm trees and lots of them.

Uncle Bear's was a dog-themed pub,

...with long, bone-shaped tables,

...and walls lined with pictures of pups.

And though, as everybody knows, I am not a dog person (see post from 7/28/2017), still I had to give the place snaps for the food if not the doggie decor.

The garlic Parmesan fries we shared as an appetizer were hot, crispy, and awesome,

...as was Emily's better-than-usual pizza,

...my fajita salad,

...with the grilled steak and onions served on the side,

...and everyone else's sandwiches.

After lunch Tommy and Emily headed for their hotel in downtown Phoenix while the rest of us headed for our Airbnb.
We drove along brown desert hills,

…down highways and streets lined with palm trees,

…and cactuses.

…until we reached our Airbnb, a big, desert- hued house,

...in a neighborhood in which the all the houses and yards were shades of desert,

…on a street that dead-ended in a mountain,

…that took on a surreal glow at sunset,

…as did all the mountains in the area.

     As it turned out the keypad lock on the front door of our Airbnb denied us access. We contacted the owner of the house who admitted that she’d been having problems with the keypad and would need a few minutes to figure out how to get it functioning, but asked us to stand by.
     However, it being 1:30 in the afternoon, 98 degrees, and the Phoenix sun beating down on us Ohio folk like a demon, we opted to seek refuge and air conditioning in a nearby Target until the owner got the door issue squared away.
      Our trip to Target in fact turned out to be an auspicious one, as while wandering the toy department I discovered that LOL dolls, now so wildly popular that they are virtually unattainable in Los Angeles and Columbus, Ohio, both cities where I’d recently sought them out (see post from 4/26/2018 ), have not yet found a following in Phoenix:

…there was at that Target not only a finity of LOL dolls,

…but also of the even rarer LOL L’il Sisters.

And the LOLs here were several dollars cheaper than in either L.A. or Columbus. I grabbed a couple of each for my (very lucky) granddaughters.
By the time we returned to our Airbnb the owner had apparently ironed out the kinks in the door’s keypad lock as Maria and family had already arrived, and were happy to see us, as we were them.

The house was beautiful and spacious,

…with four bedrooms,

…and a lovely yard,

…provided one (unlike myself) has no aversion to potential visits from scorpions and other desert critters.

The house had a welcoming feel (once the keypad was repaired), was well-equipped for one’s comfort and convenience, and we quickly settled in,

…and began enjoying the house’s amenities,

…including the house toys.

The LOL dolls I'd bought at Target were a phenomenal hit,

…and fortunately lifeguard Auntie Theresa was patient about periodically rescuing the tiny dolls and their infinitesimal accessories from the bottom of the pool as required.

When dinner time rolled around Maria and Justin went out for a date night at a nearby resort, Callie and Theresa opted to stay home, watch TV and forage among the house snacks we’d acquired from Target, and Tom and I took the children out for dinner. Other than fast-food, the restaurant pickings in these particular environs were slim; however we did come upon an IHOP, which we figured the girls would enjoy.
And perhaps they would have, had it not taken over an hour for our orders to arrive, piecemeal and incomplete – the tired-looking, harried-looking waitress informed us that that our grand daughter’s egg had fallen onto the floor and advised us not to even attempt ordering another one. In exchange she wouldn’t charge us for the children’s meals, also in gratitude for the girls not having morphed into wild things during the wait for their food, such as it was by the time it arrived.
We made a mental note not to attempt to go out for breakfast around here.

Rather, the next morning, Friday morning, Tom and I made an early expedition to Fry’s, the local Kroger’s affiliate,

…but with a much more beautiful view than I’d ever seen from any other Kroger’s parking lot,

…where we purchased fresh-from-the-oven bagels, pastries, fruit and cheese, which was greatly appreciated by our housemates, much more, we assumed, than would have been a foray to the local IHOP.

After breakfast Maria, Justin, Tom, the girls and I drove to nearby South Mountain,

...for a hike in the desert hills.
In this part of Arizona at this time of year hikers should start out early - ideally no later than 6 am, though we didn't quite meet that deadline - because the heat becomes so intense so quickly that by late morning heat stroke becomes a danger.

There was a sign at the beginning of the trail warning hikers to hydrate well before starting out and to turn back before their water supply was half depleted.
All of which we did.

At times the steep, rocky trail reminded me of the trails Tom and I hiked along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain (see my Camino blogs: https://pattiliszkay.weebly.com/ and https://www.andlightenyourpack.com/),