Do we hafta go home?

It's been such a great vacation.  We don't want to go home!!

We've been relaxing and enjoying the weather and having a great time.  Here's some hot air balloons that were flying by the condo the other morning.  Pretty cool.

We enjoyed our ride over Phoenix a couple of years ago and we hope to take another one the next time we stay overnight in Sedona. 

Food, Food, Food!! 
Oh my, what fun we had the other night at Sushi Station.  I've never been to a place that has the revolving sushi bar before.  It was so interesting to watch all the unique dishes go by and just pick off the one that interested you to try out.  The food was super and we thought cheap!!  For a great dinner with about 10 plates, including jello for Craig, it was $22!!  That's cheap for delicious!  Check out the pics on the restaurant's site since this is not the best one. After dinner we saw the movie Rush with Chris Hemsworth.  We already saw him in Thor, the Dark Side this week as well.  Rush was the better movie in our books.   

Dogs and more dogs
I thought it may be of interest to share what we see with dogs here.  They are accepted in to stores and at outdoor tables at restaurants.  I was shopping in DSW (Designer Shoe Warehouse) and there were three dogs in there - a white maltese, a grey small poodle with pink bows in her hair to match her pink harness, and a man with lovely Weimaraner.  Not all the dogs you see in stores are small.  One evening a few trips back there were four dogs in Home Depot with their owners.  With the heat here you cannot, and absolutely should not, leave your dog in the car.  We have even seen volunteer workers checking cars for dogs left in them in parking lots.  It's serious stuff, as it should be.   With all that said, it makes us miss our fur-kids a lot!  It's nice not to have to walk, feed etc but it is so much a part of our daily routine we miss it.  

The other interesting thing we see here for dogs is most are left outside 24/7 with a pail of water and some shade.  People are less limited to time away from their homes here with pets with the weather.  We don't like to see them out in the extreme heat but most seem to care enough to bring them indoors to cool off on those days.  

Wrap up
Today is our last day here.  We have done all the sights we wanted and visited with new friends here.  A couple of odd jobs around the condo were done so all that is left is to do the final laundry and clean the house.  We are already talking about things we want to do on our next visit.  We don't feel so pressed to do a whole lot when we visit now since we know we will be back.  

Here's a short video from Sedona and the Pink Jeep Tour - as you can see, you go out in the middle of nowhere and could only get there by Jeep.   Craig and the tour guide hit it off and talked non stop.  I think he had a great day!!  I know I did too. 

 

And another of us coming out of the tour and heading back to town.  

See you all soon!!  I hope you enjoyed the blog.

Lynn

We're Official!

After two trips to the DMV, a vehicle inspection, phone calls, emails to get a letter  from Mazda USA and an emission test, our little car now has an Arizona licence plate!  horray!  What a process but so glad that's done.

We were off to Cave Creek for some gluten free crepes and great coffee for lunch. Nothing like a quiet view of the mountains with some great food.  I had a savory chicken crepe and Craig went for a chocolate raspberry one.  It was so cute and had a happy face on it in chocolate - but Craig downed it before  I could get out the camera!  It always seems like such a quiet place but they must be doing well since they are expanding in the new year into a larger location.  We will definitely continue to be regular customers.  Cave Creek and the Village Coffee Shoppe is usually one of our first stops after we get in but this time it took us six days before we got there!!  Here's some neat shops - I'd bring a lot of things home if they would only fit in the suitcase!  The lamps made with cactus skeletons are amazing, especially the floor ones that are full size.

Love the outdoor cactus pans below....in the right spot, they would look great!

Before I forget, it may be hot here during the day it's cool at night - about 60F or so or even less.  They don't heat swimming pools here so they lose the heat and are not very warm for swimming.  The pool is probably 65F.  Craig was hot from working around the condo so he went for a swim.  He told me he went in twice.  Once to cool off and once to find his testicles!! LOL!!  What a guy....

Well, even on vacation there are things to do and maintain.  The windows are all washed now and there is a nice new back door light that will be great when we BBQ.  The outside is low maintenance and our automatic sprinkler seems to be on enough to keep our cactus and aloe plants going.  We didn't even have to rake our faux grass this time but it looks like friends may have done that recently. 

Enjoy your day - we will!!

Sedona and Pink Jeep Tour

Yay! It's Pink Jeep Tour day!  We had a lovely drive to Sedona and lunch at our favorite restaurant, The Wildflower Bread Company.   They have the best soup and sandwiches.  We were in time to take the noon Diamondback Gulch tour - and it was just the two of us and our guide.  Perfect!!  It was  a fairly long ride to get to the start of the trail but it was just beautiful.  It's rare to have any clouds in the sky so the blue with white wisps added a wonderful aspect to the views. 

 Here's a view of our road.  We only saw two other jeeps in the couple of hours we were out there.

There has been no rain so it was a very dusty ride and when we stopped we would get a cloud of red dust following us.  Everything we had on will have to go into the washer.

And I got to play driver!!

This was a great tour but our favorite is still the Broken Arrow Tour.   There's still another two or three tours we still have to check out.  After sampling some ice cream and having a browse along the main street we went for an early dinner at Picazzo's Organic Italian restaurant.  It was wonderful and we found out there are a couple of more locations in Phoenix.

On our way out of town we stopped at an incredible shop - they dry and make the pepper arrangements.  You could feel a bit of the spice in your eyes and nose but what a sight!!  The place was huge and they had a couple of chiminea's  lit throughout the huge grounds of the store - learned that the hard way after  I touched one!!

 

We are tired after such a great day in the sun and wind so we are watching a movie and heading for some shut eye.  Tomorrow is another day!!

g'nite all!  I hope you enjoyed the photos.

We're baack!! Fall Trip 2013

We left the dreary grey weather behind on Thursday and are now enjoying the sunshine!!  It's been 80's and 90's here and in the sun over 100 - just perfect.  Cool in the morning and evening but daytime temperatures are lovely.

The little Mazda that Craig's Mom gave us is here permanently so we did some running around on Friday and it's now insured here and had an emissions test.  Yay! it pased!!




One more piece to the puzzle and we will get an Arizona licence plate!!  It's not a bad little car  and gets great mileage.  Taking the shuttle from the airport is actually faster than getting the rental car so it's all good.

We have already had company for dinner and have done groceries a few times.  I love the selections at the grocery stores here and the suitcase is already getting some gluten free treats packed in it.  We also have some food set aside for the plane ride home.  Nothing worse than being hungry on a plane.  

Craig had to go to a motorcycle shop so I took the opportunity to be dropped off at The Container Store.  Such neat things and fantastic organizers.   Fell in love with these waste baskets - too cute!!

I bought exciting things like more hangers and some cedar blocks for the closets.  I did get a really cool lunch bag where the bag itself is the cooler pack.  It says it lasts for up to 10 hours but I give it maybe 5 hours in a car in the Arizona heat! 

Live and Learn
With the heat in the condo over the summer we have found that it affected some things like food and candles.  Food can go "off" even in the package and it smells and tastes like the packing..ugh!  Not good.  Candles become the leaning candles and kinda go in a puddle.  Guess we either don't have them or put them in the fridge for the summer!!  A good dusting of the outdoor furniture and the outside is fine - at least that is easy care.

Plans for this trip
Our plans are we have no plans!  The condo is "done" except for some renovations we would like to do and that probably won't happen for a few years so we can just enjoy now.  We do plan to go to Sedona one of our days to do another Pink Jeep Tour.  We will pick another one we have not done yet.  It's probably going to be the Gulch tour.  We also hope to go to Jerome at some point and I am hoping the glass blower's will be doing their thing this time.  We will find a nice place for lunch with a view of the valley - it's such a neat spot. 

Enjoying today!
Well the Mr. is off to meet some friends and then off for a day motorcycle ride so I am on my own today to do some retail therapy.  First up is what appears to be a nice wool shop in Scottsdale.  Hopefully they will have some nice selections that we don't see at home and some different patterns.   The biggest dilemma I had, since I don't need to pack clothes for here, was which knitting project(s) to bring along.  Of course I wish I had brought the "other" one but I did get a hat started on the plane ride which I will finish here.  Weird to be knitting for the cold when you are in the heat! 

Well, I have had a very busy day of retail therapy so I think that's it for now.   Leftovers for dinner and then a movie tonight.

ahhh....love it!!