Living the life in Phoenix

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Day Ten through Day Twelve Phoenix

We took Friday "off", staying at Mary's wonderful home and doing laundry, washing the car, baking, and shopping and making dinner. We walked the mile or so to Trader Joe's in the warm sun and saw almost no one on foot anywhere...

On Saturday, we did the tour of Mary's real estate, past, present and future, visiting her office, downtown Phoenix, and the suburb of Avondale. Because of all the rain this winter, (which has made all of Arizona very green) the Salt River is running very high and we had a few detours to avoid flooded roads. On the way home, we had drinks at the Wigwam, an old resort once far out in the desert and now surrounded by houses.

Sunday we got up early and went for hike with a friend of Mary's who lives out at the edge of a wildlife preserve with a view over Phoenix. He has designed and built his own house....We didn't see any snakes (rattlers are out now) and the wild flowers were wonderful! In the afternoon, I walked around the area by Mary's for a few hours (looking for a Value Village), and then we went out to the Biltmore (a Frank Lloyd Wright building from 1929) for drinks and a bit of mingling with the rich. We had a great salmon dinner (I got the salmon on my walk after Mary saw it advertised, and it was "wild caught, harvested in the USA, product of China" and packaged in Seattle!!) and then started packing up and preparing for another sad departure, made even worse by a weather forecast of snow by Wednesday along our route. Hard to say goodbye to Mary and to the warm sunny weather....

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Photos

Mary's old church
Mexican style artwork inside

Inside the Wigwam
Remington sculptures on the mantle

At the "Farm"
We had a brunch here after the hike. It's an organic farm that leases space to several restaurants.

Phoenix
From the south

Comments

[Carol McClain]

Travels
As usual, your travels and your blogs are very entertaining. Some of the photos reminded me of the scenery in Death Valley I saw in January. It has been recommended to us to retire to Palm Springs. Were you there long enough to form an opinion of it? We leave in a week for East Germany.