Blogs from Scottsdale, Arizona, United States, North America

From 2011, the Spring after the Giants won their first World Championship in San Francisco. Having been to Arizona style Spring Training many times, I can tell you that having the World Champion San Francisco Giants in Scottsdale is a big deal. I distinctly remember the year after the A's won the World Series in 1989. The following Spring was filled with fans, baseball writers, and young players trying to crack a solid roster. The Giants are in much the same situation. The only rookie with a decent chance to make the team is First Baseman, Brandon Belt. The Giants hope he is the Buster Posey of 2011. And Belt is a perfect name for a ballplayer, much like Buster. Baseball and Spring go together like ham and eggs. Like Maris and Mantle. Like Mays and ... read more

Perhaps, it should say in the AIR again! Per CNN: Spring break is here and people suffering from a year of cabin fever are throwing caution to the wind. Saturday marked the 10th straight day on which more than 1 million passengers traveled through American airports.The url=https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tsa.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2Fpassenger-throughput%3Fpage%3D0&data=04%7C01%7C%7C30d7819803f1499272d108d8ed33cd4d%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637520154149193693%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=qN7FhKx9uRuL9ef5nkGycbLC0TbStG43jV5jqM3jO%2Bg%3D&reserved=0TSA reported 1,369,180 travelers passed through security checkpoints Saturday, a day after air passengers set a new pandemic record, when 1,468,516 traveled... read more

I always thought Arizona was a little different. Let's see why. The first McDonald drive through opened back in 1975, revolutionizing fast food, eating on the road, and that awful smell in your car for weeks! The London Bridge is here, owned by the city of Lake Havasu City since 1968. You can thank Robert McCulloch for buying the antique bridge for $2.46 million. Why on earth would they film the movie, "Oklahoma!" here in Arizona? Filmmakers could not find enough undeveloped land in OK. Many great national parks and monuments along with the Grand Canyon. Make sure to visit Antelope Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, Organ Pipe Cactus, Montezuma Castle, Vermilion Cliffs, and Walnut Canyon, among others. Oatman, AZ is famous for its burros, which are descendants of of animals used by miners, then abandoned. They ... read more

Geo: 33.494, -111.921Today we celebrated our 35th anniversary by hiking Cholla Trail up one side of Camelback Mountain, and down the other side on Echo Canyon Trail. The entire hike was just over 3 miles but parts of each trail were straight up and down, and we were basically just climbing rock faces. Both trails were listed as extremely difficult, but it might have been a little overstated.At the recommendation of a friend, we had our anniversary dinner at LON's at the Hermosa Inn in Paradise Valley, AZ. We had a fantastic dinner and evening.... read more

Geo: 33.494, -111.921In the winter of 1938, 70-year-old Frank Lloyd Wright purchased 160 acres at the foot of the McDowell Mountains in present-day Scottsdale to transform into his winter home and studio. Inspired by the southwestern landscape, Wright sought a ‘nobly simple' architecture in Taliesin West. Primitive but elegant, Taliesin West's monumental masonry feels as much an ancient ruin unearthed from the Sonoran desert, as the twentieth-century icon of modern architecture that it has become. It is also the home of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and Taliesin, The Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture.Wright's beloved winter home and the bustling headquarters of the Taliesin Fellowship, Taliesin West was diligently handcrafted over many years into a utopian world unto itself. Deeply connected to the desert from which it was forged, Taliesin West possesse... read more