Visit in "The Beverly Hills of the Southwest"

Back to Scottsdale, for the third year in a row, staying at our friends' beautiful home. We are so fortunate, to have friends like them and a place like that to stay! It's been just the right thing to do after more than three weeks on the road and we finally got some rest.

The weather was anything but perfect: we had clouds, we had frost at night, we had some sun and we had one full day of rain – didn't need our shorts and sandals – but, nevertheless, it was peacefully calm and comfortable, we had good conversation, great dinners, excellent steaks and met with our friends' friends.


One day we explored an indian village and a western town nearby Scottsdale, hiked in the McDowell Mountains (see pics), explored Phoenix and Tempe, checked out a couple of "open houses", went shopping, walked Harvey, the dog, in the neighborhood, and, also, worked at least a couple of hours each day to get our soon-due proofreading of a book script done. In the desert - where we hiked - shrubs and cacti were just getting buds and it won't take too long anymore that they'll start blooming, especially now, after they got rain.

Yesterday, we had a tour with the curator in the "Western Spirit - Scottsdale's Museum of the West Museum", just open since January. Besides the spectacular architecture (a "green building", which is LEED Gold certified, see pic), the exhibitions are well worth being seen. They don't have a permanent collection, but all artwork is on loan from private collections and other museums. There are always several exhibitions at the same time and they change frequently. Very nicely presented Western Art (old and modern) under certain topics, a great collection of saddles, spurs, bites etc. and great sculptures in the inner courtyard. Also, the shop and the café are worth a visit!

Explored Old Scottsdale a bit after our tour. Since (baseball) spring training was about to start, the shops, galleries and restaurants were packed and it was hard to get parking. Concluded our last day in Scottsdale with a good dinner in a mexican restaurant with our friends – we will miss company and good food!

These were our final four days in the U.S. and we are right now sitting at PHX Airport, waiting to board our plane to Houston. Fortunately, we are flying out of Houston, directly to MUC – probably a good choice considering that the East Coast is still drowning in snow. Our rental van, rather a "bus", proved to be comfortable and not too expensive: gas milage was about 25 mph and considering cheap gas prices, we didn't even spent $ 100 for the whole trip of about 1350 miles (2160 km) on gas.

"The Duke" and Old Tucson

Twelve miles west of Tucson, surrounded by Tucson Mountain and Saguaro National Park - a scenery like out of a western movie: Old Tucson, film setting and entertainment park in once. It all started in 1939 with Columbia Pictures and the movie "Arizona". The Tohono O'odham - the local indian tribe (see pic) – then assisted in production, primarily by building solid adobe style buildings for the set, which are still existing for the most part. Only a couple of years ago, their merits were recognized and an indian village was added to Old Tucson to show people how the native people, the original settlers of the region, lived.

In the 1950ies the "Last Outpost", "Lone Ranger", "Cimarron", later "Rio Bravo", "El Dorado", "Zorro", "Billie the Kid","Tombstone" and series like "Bonanza", "High Chaparral, "The Little House on the Prairie", "Gunsmoke", and others were produced here. John Wayne, "The Duke", became a regular in Old Tucson, starring many movies. Still today, Old Tucson is a popular film location.

Robert Shelton had taken over the film set in the 1960ies and transformed the complex into an attraction to make it more profitable. Nowadays 75 buildings and a typical Southwest Main Street, a saloon, a hotel, a town hall, a mission, a sheriff's office, a civil war fort, a ranch, an historic locomotive, are to be seen here, as well as the Old Tucson Story Museum with costumes, posters, photos etc. – 70 years of film & movie history compressed into a small space.

Besides a visit to the museum, there are regular tours, Old West shows, gun fights, stunt shows, saloon dance, gold panning, trail rides (see pic), a carousel and rides with a small train through the desert for visitors as well as an excellent restaurant, called Big Jake BBQ. We thoroughly enjoyed our morning in Old Tucson!