Mid-March 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona

Once again, I'll keep text to a minimum and let the photos do the talking.

3/11: Phoenix Mountain Preserve: Most of the hikes on Piestewa Peak in the preserve were too challenging so we took an easy one that still had views of the city skyline in the distance. The craggy peak was named for an indigenous female Army soldier killed in the Iraq War.

A stroll around nearby Granada Lake was more our style!

Shots of our walk in our Tempe neighborhood that night:

A local resident must have been a huge baseball fan to share his card collection with others on the light pole!

3/12: Rio Salada Stroll & Desert Botanical Garden:

When we visit our older son and his family in San Francisco, we see the odd self-driven car but we've seen hundreds of them since arriving in the Phoenix area almost two weeks ago. I don't remember what brand those California cars were but all the Waymo self-driven cars here were Jaguars.

A view across Tempe's very dry Rio Salada through Leonardo da Vinci Window by Thomas Strict:

Photos from a most enjoyable afternoon spent at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix:

We felt momentarily we'd lucked out and been transported back to Colombia as the garden hosted several sculptures by that country's famous Fernando Botero whose career spanned over 60 years.

With over one-third of cacti at risk of extinction, they are the fifth most threatened living things. Cacti aren't only found in hot climates like Arizona's Sonoran Desert but also in coastal and high-altitude deserts.

Imagine how much prettier this cactus would look in a another week or so when it bloomed!

Botero was an acclaimed painter before he turned to sculpting.

If you are ever in Phoenix, make sure to while away a couple of hours in the fabulous desert garden. You'll be glad you did!

3/13: Pima Canyon Hike:

This stacked-stone vaulted toilet and ramada or bbq area below had been constructed by the 'CCC boys' during the Depression-era public works program.

Walking along the park's flat and easy Pima Wash allowed me to take my eyes off the ground for a bit and savor the beauty around us.

In all our hikes in the Phoenix mountains, this was the first time we'd come across a park steward.

Murals in the nearby town of Guadalupe:

Photos from that night's stroll in Tempe's Wilson Art & Garden Neighborhood: The modest homes were built just after WW II for returning veterans and people moving to Arizona. It was disconcerting to see so many homeowners apparently oblivious to climate change and still using massive amounts of water to irrigate their yards in the parched desert climate.

A refreshing change: an almost all xeriscaped yard and a tiny house.

Most homes had limited landscaping - this one was a real treat!

3/14: Papago & Wilson Neighborhood: Why couldn't Denver and other city planners be more imaginative and spruce up major thoroughfares like we saw in Phoenix?

We found it impossible to resist the lure of returning to Papago Park and its huge variety of hikes around its many buttes.

Is it a roadrunner, a pheasant, a ...? We didn't know but saw plenty of the tiny animals scurrying in the park's undergrowth.

What homes have you seen that had a garage door as pretty as this one in Tempe's Wilson neighborhood?

I just 'itched' to walk through this gate and enter the oasis inside.

Steven and I had never before seen these water control boxes (?) but we came to appreciate their exquisite mosaic patterns.

3/15: South Mountain Park's La Lomita Trail: South Mountain Park, purchased by the city of Phoenix from the federal government in the 1920s, contains over 16,500 acres. Several other mountain parks have since been added to the city for preservation, the same situation as in Denver.

Ironwood trees were a common sight in the Sonoran Desert landscape, reaching heights up to 35 feet. The tree's wood is so dense that it cannot float in water. Unlike other trees, toxic chemicals in ironwood trees prevent them from decomposing. 

Steven and I were thrilled that our youngest, Zachary, and his girlfriend, Noora, joined us for several days in Tempe from Denver.

If this doesn't make you think of the Wild West, what does!

What a difference a few days made in springtime Phoenix with more and more flowers blooming day by day in the harsh desert.

During a morning squall, we escaped into the park's Environmental Education Center which had a good exhibit on the 'CCC boys.' Two camps were opened and operated at South Mountain Park between 1933 and 1940. The young men blazed trails, graded roads, hauled boulders, and built the park's former entrance and administration building. They earned $30 a month and were required to send home all but $5 which could be spent for candy, tobacco, and souvenirs at the camps or in the local towns. 

Close to the museum were some petroglyphs pecked into the natural rock face by ancient peoples but they were tough to pick out.

As we walked toward Tempe's Rio Salado that night, we passed the city's only adobe home we've seen in the Phoenix area. Adobe construction is the norm in much of New Mexico but not in Phoenix.

Several bridges spanned Tempe Town Lake aka Rio Salada, just a mile from our condo.

Tempe's Pedestrian Bridge was a fun one to cross!

3/16: Disc Golf at Eldorado Park & Scottsdale's Old Town:

Another fun morning was spent walking for miles along the Indian Bend Wash in Eldorado Park located in the upscale city of Scottsdale outside of Phoenix while dodging flying frisbees!

Onto to swanky Scottsdale:

Established in 1933, the Old Adobe Mission was the first Catholic parish and oldest standing church building in Scottsdale. It was built by hand by the first Mexicans who settled in Scottsdale in the late 1910s.

The very chichi Scottsdale farmers' market was interesting to walk through but I felt out of my element.

I wonder if I'm becoming too sensitive to political correctness - this Indian cigar store stereotype seemed way out of place to me in this day and age.

3/17: South Phoenix Mountain Park's Warpaint Trail:

Steven and I made sure to take Zachary and Noora to one of our favorite hikes in the South Mountain Park system while they were in town.

I can see how this trail is a favorite for cyclists but each time we hiked up this relatively steep portion of the trail with no view ahead, it was like taking a leap of faith, not knowing if a cyclist might come roaring down the hill with no warning and slam into us! All too often, cyclists failed to ring their bells or notify hikers of their presence.

3/18: South Phoenix Mountain Park's Pima Canyon Trail:

 

Our recent hikes showed how far we'd come in the last three weeks in Phoenix after initially only walking on paved city paths!

At sunset in the distance, Tempe's Hayden Butte Preserve:

Posted on April 16th, 2024 from our home in Denver's suburb of Littleton. Wishing you and your loved ones peace and especially good health.

Next post: Springtime in Phoenix in late March.