Phoenix: “Wintering” in Southern Arizona, Part 2

Lost Dutchman State Park

If you haven’t read it already, check out Part 1 about why we decided to “winter” in southern Arizona. I have to be honest, we did not like Phoenix nearly as much as Tucson. It was fine, we did lots of fun things, but we probably won’t be back for a long stay. We did really like the area we stayed in, Chandler. It was a nice residential area, about 15-20 minutes from the South Mountain Preserve, which had decent hiking trails (but wasn’t as pretty!) and we had plenty of shopping/restaurants near us. Photos from the local hiking are in the Rockstars and Cacti post.

One of our favorite places in the Phoenix area was Papago Park, which houses the Botanical Gardens, a great zoo, and a handful of interesting trails/rock formations. The Phoenix Zoo had really great exhibits that were large and obviously set up for the health and happiness of the animals. Photos from the zoo and trails (see captions):

The big buttes

Random amphitheater behind the big butte.

He’s staring at me….

HELLO! Check out the burrowing owl peeking out.

The awesome big cat enclosure.

The big kitties could walk from one area, over this bridge, and

Into this other enclosure area!

Pretty Kitty.

Also, sleepy. Obviously not fussed by the humans.

Giraffe in the distance - their pen was so big, we never got closer.

Are we watching the lions, or are they watching us?

Early in our trip in Phoenix, we went to an event at the Botanical Gardens - “Bottles & Bites,” which they described as a tasting adventure, with curated cocktails and food pairings. Their partner, SanTan Distilling, primarily built the cocktails for the event around their craft bourbon. I was suprised how fun it was and how much I enjoyed the bourbon drinks. I wrote up a post about the event and our subsequent trip to the tour the distillery - check it out.

Another fun adventure - the nearby Superstition Mountains was a fantastic day trip. The mountains themselves are very interesting, and were a Lozofsky favorite, but the folklore around the mountains and the fabled lost Dutchman gold mine really add panache. Here’s the story:

The Superstitions are said to get their name from the Akimel O'odham people who told stories about strange sounds emanating from the mountains, people disappearing, mysterious deaths, and an ongoing fear of the mountain. The tales got taller with the addition of the famous Old West tale of the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine, where rumor has it there's "gold in them thar hills!" Jacob Waitz, the Old Dutchman, was rumored to have found a huge vein of gold in the area, but he made sure that no one ever followed him back to it and died without telling any one where it was, sparking years of searches for the lost gold. More about the Old Dutchman:

Those signs are from the (very small and unincorporated) town of Tortilla Flat, which is just a block of old timey store fronts on the Old Apache Trail (Route 88) through the Superstitions. The drive there is gorgeous, so windy you can only go 15mph in some places, and eating at the inn is so much fun. We managed to catch the Saturday afternoon BBQ and music with the local weekend warrior bikers. It was glorious. This is the way to do winter!

And, what is the point of being in Phoenix in the winter without enjoying SPRING TRAINING! We attended one of the first games of the season and their Innings Fest music and baseball festival. The Camelback Ranch stadium for spring training is shared by the Dodgers and White Sox and is REALLY nice. It had an amazing assortment of food, quite the beer selection and I don’t think there was any seat without a good view of the action. We watched the Dodgers play the Guardians (they’re still shitty! #IYKYK).

The festival was a lot of fun. Good music and a decent venue - ratings:

• Music: A

• Logistics: B- (they had 2 main stages, but the music never overlapped, so it felt like almost everyone was moving back and forth every hour)

• Food: solid B

• Fellow attendees: B+ (no one lives up to the JazzFest audience, but everyone was having a good time and properly chill)

We really enjoyed some of the bands that we thought we knew well, but must have evolved over time. Eve 6 for example, was really funny in addition to putting on a great show. They had come in from somewhere very cold and stormy (remember, this was February) and talked about how they had never played anywhere so….pastoral…(we were on a grassy hill by the “river”). They also described their new music, as LARPing as a punk band 😂.

Sublime also played at the festival - I didn’t post photos for two reasons. First, this is what my view of the stage looked like 🙄 (sometimes so frustrating to be short and yeah, we were there first). Second, I saw Sublime with Rome a few years ago and he was totally fine, really had the spirit and the sound down. Unfortunately, the new replacement guy really isn’t any good. It was sad. Moving on…

Another post retirement goal has been to check out more college athletics. We attended an ASU gymnastics meet - it was so much fun to see more than just the clips you see on TV, to check out the logistics of the meet and see the family/friends/alums just loving the action. I think my favorite part was watching the local aspiring gymnasts enjoy the show and the athletes supporting each other (though it was weird to see them doing the same moves on the sidelines while one the gymnasts was doing her floor routine - see below!). See photo captions for more.

Loved the walk in pomp.

Again, the teammates were shadow dancing the floor routines!

Action Shots!

So impressive.

Craig and I agree - we would never, never do balance beam.