A partial weekend recap and some scavenger hunt photos

Hi blog friends!

♥

Carrie and I met some friends for breakfast yesterday in downtown Phoenix. After our meal she suggested a walk and I was able to capture a few photos for Rinda's Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt. What better way to break my blog silence than with a few photos from my weekend.

Matt's Big Breakfast had been featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives so we met our friends there for a yummy (and big) breakfast. It was a late breakfast and by the time we were done it was pushing 11:30 a.m. and it was hot outside (107°F / 42°C). But Carrie wanted to feed her fitbit, and it's not every day that we get to see the sights in the downtown area - so off we went...

I've blogged about the amazing murals in downtown Phoenix before (here and here). Most of them have changed since my last visit there, but it was too hot to go back around and take more photos. Carrie and I vowed to come back in a few months when it's cool enough to walk around. We headed in the opposite direction, toward the downtown ASU campus...

#6 - An urban street scene ~ Not a whole lot of people action on a Sunday afternoon. Eh-hm...could have been the heat...

#17 - A lamppost



#12 - A mascot - see it on the lamp post sign? Arizona State University's mascot is a sun devil, affectionately known as "Sparky."

 

We walked toward the Westward Ho - a famous hotel in the downtown area that was built in 1928. Carrie searched for information on her phone and proceeded to read a list of all of the famous people who stayed at this hotel back in the day. John F. Kennedy, Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, Lucille Ball... The list goes on and on. It was the hotel back in the day. And in a place with that much history, it's said to be a bit haunted - you can read more about that here.

 

In 1980 the hotel was converted into a subsidized housing complex for elderly and mobility impaired. We really wanted to go inside - not only to check out the lobby but also to cool down a bit - but we were not allowed inside. Security is tight.  

 

In 1949 the steel tower and antenna were added to broadcast the first television show in Phoenix. It's crazy to think about how far technology has come - and how much Phoenix has grown - in such a short time! The flags flying in the photo above are: the American flag, State of Arizona, and Arizona State University.

Me with some more mural art. You know how you can look at photos and remember how you felt at the time? Like, when Carrie and I look at some of our England photos we remember how cold we were (especially in Liverpool). This one will always remind me of how hot I was.

Anyway! That was our couple of hours in downtown Phoenix. We headed home, went our separate ways and I finished out the day doing exciting things like laundry and making roasted cauliflower that was not nearly as tasty as all the Pinterest posts would have you believe. And then it rained...

We had an awesome monsoon storm blow through in the late afternoon that was pretty wicked. Our giant eucalyptus tree swayed and bent and held fast, but our neighbor's tin storage shed was not so lucky. It was lifted out of his backyard and flung into another neighbor's yard. Doug, the good neighbor, helped him disassemble it and load it into his truck for a trip to the scrap metal recycling place today. And wouldn't it be nice if that storm had cooled things down a bit? Yeah, it would have been nice, but instead we have hot and humid today which really makes us desert folks whiney and crabby.

 

Add that to Monday morning and you have yourself someone who needs a trip to the yoga mat and probably one more cup of coffee before getting ready for work. ;o)

 

Have yourself an amazing week, my friends!

♥