Road Trip: Southwest

Day 2: Wednesday, April 23, 2025 - Phoenix, AZ

Day's statistics:
Weather: lower 90s, sunny
Steps: Steve 16,608 Linda 11,994
Travel: 187 miles

Breakfast was a grab-and-go deal. There were prepackaged foods, some fruit, and K-Cup® Dunkin'® coffee.
We each had a cup, and grabbed a coffee cake for each of us. I also had a granola bar (no pictures).
The hotel had a restaurant - which wasn't open yet for the season - and some outdoor seating. Rather than go back to the room, we sat outside - also because it was so nice out - in the "shadow" of a couple palm trees, near the pool.



Linda thought the four unique chairs around this table was unusual.

The patio area also had a "tiki bar". Outdoor bar, perhaps?

After breakfast, we returned to the room, brushed, finished packing, and headed out.
After loading the luggage into the car, I decided to get another shot of the preinstalled dents on the side of the car, from a better angle, and in the sunlight.

Our first official stop of the day was at Papago Park, which wasn't too far from the hotel - we even passed it the previous night too.
The main feature of the park was called "Hole In The Rock" (HitR). It was a large rock - supposedly a couple hundred feet high - with... a hole in it.

We began the walk to the access point behind the rock (this was off to the side, not of the HitR).

We also grabbed a selfie on the way.

The end of the trek was a little too steep for one of us, so the other continued to the final destination.
A panorama from the HitR, and a separate shot to the right that couldn't be added to the panoramic.


HitR is a destination and people were taking the obligatory selfies all over the place. While trying to get to the actual hole, I paused so as to not photo bomb a picture being taken on the right. Only to have someone on the left say "excuse me". I said "Sorry" while pointing to the group on the right. It was momentary and I moved on.
There were rocky steps up TO the HitR, and then steps actually in the hole area.
I took a brief scan of the city from the HitR.

After I took the pictures and video above from the lower level in the HitR, and on the way back, there was a mother trying to take a picture of her [assumedly] husband and children, assembled on the narrow staircase to leave the area. Then someone else asked if they could take a family shot of them and she joined the group. At this point there were now five of us waiting to leave the area. It took a couple minutes but the point was environmental awareness... after what seemed like ten minutes (it was likely just a couple), the person taking the photos asked "Do you want one more?" Someone waiting to leave may or may not have yelled "NO!"... The picture taking stopped as they turned around to see a group of people waiting to leave. They dispursed, and people departed.
A picture was taken of your humble narrator as he made his was back down to rejoin his lovely wife.

We returned to the car, and headed out.

Right outside the park we saw an interesting rock formation, with the Camelback Mountains in the background.

We headed to Piestewa Peak, a few miles from the Camelback Mountains above.

We drove the nearly half-hour to the park. We started off at what we thought was a visitors center, but was just a pavilion. We used the restrooms, and headed to the trailhead a wee bit down the road, over there to the left.


The drive to the parking lot down the road a bit was brief, then geared up, and started our trek up the mountain.
There was some signage, cacti, and views of the city that improved the higher we got.






We only made it a few hundred yards up the mountain as it was less than smooth for hiking, and we, well, aren't real hikers. This really wasn't a trail for noobies. But we did at least give it a try.
The trail continued up the mountain, and the bearly-visible red shirted person is maybe half way up too.

After returning to the bottom, we took a brief break under a pavilion. An older gentleman had just come down from the peak, and was cooling off and replenishing his water. We chatted with him briefly about the hike and his experience. He told us that it took him almost a month to get into shape to hike the whole thing. Well that was good - at least we didn't think we chickened out. Plus, as the sign above shows, the trail IS rated "Extremely Difficult". So there's that...
We decided to try a lesser hill to take a hike. So we got back to the car and drove down the street to South Mountain. After getting out, we started our trek. It was a little too steep too. A fellow hiker called this route a "real bun-burner". We asked her about another trail and she suggested driving "around to the other side where the slopes aren't so steep." So that's what we did. It was considerably more level, and a more casual stoll.

We didn't walk as much as we would have liked, but still spent some time being active, and before long it was time for lunch.
Our destination was Los Taquitos.

Linda had the Trainer Salad (not actually listed on the menu), and I had a 3 taco combo with pollo, carnitas, and pastor tacos.

It was a good lunch, and the first of a number of Mexican themed meals we'll have on during our trip.

After lunch we drove the few miles to Saint Mary's Basilica.

We found a small parking lot at the rear of the Basilica, and walked around to enter in the front.
The picture of the altar shows the keys and the ombrellino, signifying the designation of the basilica.





































After spending some time inside, we stepped out. I also ran across the street to get a full picture of the front.


Then we walk back around the right side (from the perspective of the front) and through the garden with a fountain area that also had some sculptures in it.

Our next destination was at the Phoenix Art Museum.
We parked where we could, and made our way toward the entrance, taking a selfie just before going insude.



Wednesdays after 3:00 PM the museum runs a program called "Pay What You Wish". Even with this feature, there was an additional section that required a fee too - we opted to skip that section based on the description (it was described as a fashion collection from Anna Sui).
We made a contribution, and entered.
The museum had a non-consistant / non-contiguous layout. We tried to do the "always turn to the right" approached, and it worked fairly well - until one spot we had to go downstairs. We should have just continued on the floor we were on, but we went downstairs for a bit, then realized our error and went back upstairs to continue on that level.
In the entry hallway, there was a display called "Black Cloud", or "Nube Negra", by Carlos Amorales that was thousands of black butterflies all over the walls. And the ceiling.





We headed up to the second floor and started our tour.
From the balcony next to the elevator, we may or may not have been able to see some of the Sui collection...





A collection of miniature diarama rooms were on display. These were similar to other miniatures we saw, such as that at the The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures in Kansas City last year.
One of the bigger differences was what was visible looking out the windows of these diaramas.
The displays were behind glass and I did the best I could but there are some reflections.










There were quite a few [other] artifacts and themes including Native American, Asian, Western, and more. There was even a Monet, and a Picaso.
These are the ones we thought were most interesting and or appealing for one reason or another.




























In the corner on the second floor of one of the wings - which could only be accessed in one spot because the entire layout was not contguous (as mentioned above) - there was a photo collection from Richard Avedon.
Admittedly, Linda got a little more out of this collection than I did. And again the glass was playing havoc with reflections.













In one corner of the Avedon display was an overlook sitting area that had this statue.

We left the photo wing, went downstairs, and came across a two-story-plus tall work adjacent to the elevator, a quote on the wall, and a large gem stone with glassworks.



We were done with our more-than-two-hour tour at the museum, and stopped by the gift shop.
We saw some postcards on display, and that's when I remembered we missed the Buddha statue. I told Linda to wait on the sofa right outside the gift shop as I run down to the Asia wing.
Right at the opening to the wing was the Buddha statue - much smaller than what we saw at the RISD a couple years ago - and to the right was a "local artist" wing. I visited the local wing first, then passed through the Asian wing before returning to Linda on the sofa.










Our time at the museum, and in Phoenix, was up, and it was time to head to Tucson.

It was supposed to be about a two hour drive to Tucson.
We got a shot of the city skyline on the way out too.

We got a couple shots of some mountains, but they didn't really come out too well - and they looked more impressive in person than in pixels, but I guess these were more "hills" than mountains anyway.

It was Wedneaday. And we usually have pizza for dinner on Wednesdays.
While we weren't that hungry, we decided to stop for a bite anyway.
Using our current location - there wasn't cell service everywhere - we were able to find a location nearby. We exited the highway and a couple miles down the road, in a town called Casa Grande, we located Barro's Pizza.

The order is placed at the counter, and is brought to the table with the appropriate tent number.

The restaurant had more of a sports bar vibe to it as it had some video games, and ten or so TV with various games being broadcast as well as the NFL Draft.

We ordered a medium Barro's Special pizza, but probably should have ordered a small.
It was delivered, and we split it 2 : 4.


After our meal, we decided to walk a couple stores down the plaza to a Fry's Supermarket to get some wine. But also to get a few steps after the should-have-ordered-the-small-pizza dinner.

We returned to the car, and before returning to the highway, I filled up with gas.
I don't know if it was a newer-car feature, a Chevy feature, a rental car feature, or an absent-minded-previous-driver featrure, but there was no gas cap on the car. Of course, like the dents, I took a picture of this so I could show that it wasn't there when I filled up, based on the timestamp of the picture.

It was getting dark when we left Barro's, and was dark by the time we got back on the road. So there were no more pictures from any sights we saw - because we didn't see any sights.

We arrived at the Baymont Inn, and I checked in.
We parked, grabbed what we needed to out of the car, and headed to the room.

After relaxing a bit and having some wine, we washed up and went to sleep.

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