Not so sunny Arizona

Tuesday - our flight connection in San Francisco, coming from Reno, was tight, but we made it on to Phoenix, even with our luggage, on a pretty bumpy flight. A rain front was going through Arizona, and still is now. Arizona shows its cold shoulder. For the last days we had a lot of rain and temps went down to 40 deg. F, roads were flooded. 

Each time the sun came out for a little bit, we went out, so, these first photos were taken on an evening walk with our friends in the Scottsdale area, when the rain had stopped and a rainbow showed:

 

Wednesday we went on a shopping spree to the Phoenix Premium Outlet Mall in Chandler (left), and, lateron prepared German potato salad and Greek tzatziki for dinner to go with chicken thighs. When the rain stopped in the evening, we still drove out to Fountain Hills, another wealthy neighborhood in the Phoenix metro area, famous for its fountain in a lake (surrounded by a park), which is one of the world's tallest man-made fountain, the second tallest in the U.S., and fourth tallest in the world. Sunset was nice there!

 

On Thursday we drove into Phoenix to visit the Phoenix Art Museum (right/below) and the Heard Museum (further below). We especially love the Heard Museum with all its fantastic beadwork, baskets, weavings, Hopi katsinas (photo below, right), jewelry, paintings. Especially interesting and very instructive is the permanent exhibition "Native People in the Southwest", about the different tribes in the Southwest, and another one about Indian Boarding Schools.

 

 In the evening we ate in a nice Mexican restaurant, "La Pinata", in Phoenix before we visited Old Scottsdale for the weekly "Art Walk".

Friday - the weather has improved (at least it didn't rain anymore!), though temps were only in the 45/10 deg. F/C range. We drove for a 4-mi hike to the McDowell Mountains, and had lunch afterwards in one of the many bars/saloons in Cave Creek - a little Western town on the northern edge of Paradise Valley. 

 

 

From Sears Kay Ruin, our next stop, we saw the snow-covered peaks of the White Mountains.  The area was home to the Hohokam culture, ancestors of the O'odham tribes.  The prehistoric Hohokam built villages and fortifications like this one, called Sears-Kay Ruin (photos below), located atop a desert foothill in the Tonto National Forest. It was built around 1050 AD and abandoned around 1200 AD.

At sunset we drove to Spur Cross Ranch, a historic ranch property. Still, many horse farms there and wonderful old Saguaros.

And, after having hiked about 8 miles, we called it a day with some house-made pizza:

Saturday: after more rain all night long, we explored the Uptown Farmers Market (huge!) and drove on to Cosanti. This is an interesting gallery/store, built by Paolo Soleri (1919-2013), an Italian-born architect, urban designer, and philosopher, with a foundry and a pottery and famous for its wind chimes.