Whose Life is This?: Arizona in December

Two weeks ago Don and I went to Scottsdale, AZ. The weather in OK was getting really cold and we were hoping for a warm AZ. That didn’t happen. It was cooler than usual in Scottsdale. But it was a lot better than OK.

This was one of the first times that we had family go with us to one of our timeshares. Paula and Raymond (Don’s sister) joined us. They live in Safford, AZ and drove up to spend a wk with us.

12/2/11 Fri They picked us up at the airport and chauffeured us around all week. They took us to Paradise Bakery for lunch and it was great with free WiFi. We were excited to give Paula her tablet and played with them all week. Each of us showing each other what we had learned.

We were staying at the Westin Villas in Scottsdale. We each had a 1 bedroom and they were next to each other. After unpacking we headed out to find a dinner spot. Lots of shopping and restaurants very close to our home for the week. We choose a Mexican fast food grill and it was great! We had passed the “Talking Stick” casino on the way to Scottsdale. It caught Raymond’s eye. We decided to check it out. Large nice casino, tons of people on a friday night. Raymond set up a time with Paula to be back at the front door. He left us, Paula and I walked Don to a lounge area because he didn’t want to gamble any. Paula and I decided to spend $10 each(big spenders). We checked all the slots out slowly and then tried a few. Not doing any good. On my last spin I won $19 dollars. I was the big winner between us and we never learned how Raymond did. After deciding the plan for the next day we retired to our rooms.

12/3/11 Sat We got up to a cloudy, misty day. We were up & out the door by 8:00 to the workout room. It was very busy so we cut it short and went to the market/coffee shop for some coffee and visiting. As we were enjoying the morning Santa came by to visit.

Santa was trying to find out if they had been naughty or nice??????

After cleaning up we went to Johnny John’s sandwiches for lunch and then hunted a few geocaches. We had arranged for an appointment to go through a timeshare sales pitch at 3:30 because we knew it was going to be a nasty day outside and they were going to give us a $100 AE gift card. Just say NO! Just say NO! We didn’t buy anything!

Our big plan for that evening was to watch the BIG OU vs OSU game. We decided to go to Zipp’s sports bar across the street to eat and watch the game. Great place, great burgers but not so great game for OU. I think we were the only ones watching the OU/OSU most were watching the Michigan game. We left at the half and went back to the room and to watch the sloppy 2nd half. OU lost big.

Paula and Raymond

12/4/11 Sun Out the door by 8:00 to workout. Paula had researched and picked out a trail that was moderate without much elevation. Don is having troubles with his feet so he needed to not do too much climbing. It was about a 5 mile hike round trip. Very nice day for it and tons of hikers out on a pretty Sunday afternoon.

Stopped at the Blue Adobe for a great lunch/dinner. Went by Best Buy to pick out bags for our tablets and then spent the rest of the afternoon geocaching.

On one of the caches we saw these beautiful birds nesting in the cactus. We took pictures and Paula and Don went to talk to one of the neighbors. He told them they were African Peach-faced lovebirds. They have multiplied and now large numbers are in this neighborhood. Beautiful birds. Paula is a birder and it was like hitting the jackpot!! when we found these.

Also a very unusual cell phone tower in picture below. It looked like the real thing!

12/5/11 Mon Got up early to go to the Westin complimentary breakfast(best I have had at a timeshare) where they introduce local activities to the guest. We signed up for a hot air balloon ride on Thursday. Yippee

I wanted to drive to Surprise, AZ to Happy Trails(retirement RV community) and the retirement communities of Sun City, etc.. We got started about 10:00. Drove to Cabella’s in Glendale.

We shopped for a while, found a few caches, walked around the shopping center in front of the huge football stadium, & ate some great BBQ for lunch/ dinner.

Drove on to Surprise but got there a little late in the date to tour any houses in the retirement communities. The RV park wouldn’t even let us drive around in it.

Paula had a friend that she taught with in Safford & he had moved there and she called him(Kim). He was out geocaching and came and met us for some more caching. Very interesting to see how he kept records on his caches.

Great day and didn’t even get caught in rush hour traffic. Stopped by a frozen yogurt place for desert.

12/6/11 Tues Out the door to workout by 8:00. We went to check out the hotel workout/spa. It was bigger, had great locker room and free Starbuck’s coffee.

Activity for the day was to tour the Frank Lloyd Wright home “Taliesin West”. It was different. Built for a hot climate with raw materials and is an architectural school still today.

We then went to Pinnacle Peak for a short hike. This was in the Carefree & Troon area. It was pretty cool hiking because we were on the shade side of the mountain. Trail was very busy.

Paula and I went shopping during the evening.

12/7/11 Wed Worked out at the hotel again, today. This was mainly a geocaching day. We found about 10. Found several on a walk along a nice canal and golf course.

Don had to find these tools (in the bushes) before we could reach this geocache. Certainly a more challenging cache than most, but fun.

I wanted to go to Costco and Paula needed to do some Christmas shopping at ToysRUs. Lunch/dinner at Paradise Bakery again.

12/8/11 Thurs Early to Rise for the hot air balloon ride. We all layered our clothes so we wouldn’t freeze. It was in the 40’s that morning.

Drove to the Deer Valley Airport to meet up with the “Hot Air Expeditions” tour group. We met at 7:15 & drove us in vans out in the desert to the launching pad. I took lots of pictures!