Monday, January 28, 2013

Mon 28 Jan - Scottsdale, AZ

More rain overnight, but after breakfast, the weather had improved so we went for a longer walk (almost 10 km in the end) in the neighborhood.

Outside Vineet's gated community, there is this cleverly disguised mobile phone "tower". Blends in well...

There are some beautiful cacti around. This one now looks like it has parts of bananas coming out on top, but these will apparently later turn into red, pink, turquoise colored flowers.

We did investigate hikes up the hills at Scottsdale's McDowell Sonoran Preserve, a huge reserve that will eventually make up a third of Scottsdale's city limit with some additional future purchases of land.

Here is Hans at the Preserve's information center with a huge cactus growing out of his head and with the McDowell Sonoran Preserve in the background. It appears have some excellent hiking with proper maps and models on display for the punters to get an idea what they get themselves into before they take off. We have to come back.

A dry river bed on the way back to Vineet's place. Just love the atmosphere.

This is the gate to Vineet's gated community...

...and this is a little reserve on the way to his house. All looks very nice.

After a Pizza and Salad lunch at home, we went for a drive to Old Scottsdale. It is a bit touristy and kitsch, but never the less very pleasant. Not many people around on a chilly and overcast Monday afternoon.

Self portrait in the middle of Old Town. All buildings only have one storey here.

We were not sure what the horses at the water feature symbolized...
Hmm...

The five stooges...

We encountered Arizona Canal a block behind and some art project to beautify its concrete walls.

There were even patches of grass here in the desert. And you were allowed to walk on the grass. Compare that to Paris' Jardins...

This bloke was getting ready to get down and dirty in the canal. All in the name of art.

Di liked this shark...

This is a bridge across the canal, which reminded us of one of the bridges over Yarra River in Melbourne.

It is bit too cute sometimes...

Public transport is almost non-existent in Phoenix and Scottsdale, but there are a handful of buses that go through their centres (and apparently a metro from Phoenix Sky Harbour Airport to downtown, but we haven't seen that one yet). Despite that, the Old Scottsdale bus stops are very pleasant and artistic.

Then the weather took a turn for the worse yet again, temperature fell to about 5 degrees, it became windy and it started to rain again.
 
We went back to the car and Vineet took us closer to Camelback Mountains, a famous mountain range here, through Paradise Valley, a very posh neighborhood where both Alice Cooper and Nils Lofgren live. We didn't track down their houses, but Hans has the addresses stored somewhere.
 
After that, back to road 101 north and home to Vineet's place. A most pleasant afternoon again.

 

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