Mesa, Surprise & Jerome, AZ

Great overnight visit with my high school friend and first room mate, Susan Glazer. Hadn't seen each other for over 40 years - yes, 40 years. I found her on Facebook and we became reacquainted. She knew we would be in the area and invited us to come spend the night.

We had such a fun visit and it was so nice to meet her husband, Jordan, who is a prince.  Guess we were both lucky with the husbands we got.

They took us out to their favorite restaurant, Red, White & Brew. The next day they took us on a lovely lake boat ride that was so scenic.  We even saw a Big Horn Sheep.  We had such a good visit, lots and lots of talking.  Wish we lived closer.  Thanks for your hospitality and let's do it again, sooner!!!

After dinner smiles with leftovers for later

Desert Belle

Lake Saguaro

Beautiful rock formations around the lake

The boat ride was filled with beautiful scenery

Nice air conditioned inside seating

Beer, coke, popcorn

The Mountain Goats are along the ridge

They were so hard to spot - a little left of the middle at top

Marina below where you could rent boats

Hard to say good bye

After goodbyes, we headed to Jerome, AZ.  We had ridden our motorcycles to this little gold and copper mining town back around 1979 (tried to figure out date, just can't.  I'll have to find my photographs in storage).  Once mining died Jerome dwindled down to 50 residents.  If you haven't been check it out, a fun day trip.  http://www.arizona-leisure.com/jerome-arizona.html

In the 1920, there were 10,000 residents.  The 2010 census shows 444 people.  Artist colony started in the 60's by the hippies.  A great tourist spot in Arizona.  The copper deposits discovered in the vicinity of Jerome were among the richest ever found in any time or place.

Little town on a hill

Founded 1876

Little Daisy Hotel - vacant

So sad to see this beautiful building just sitting up there on the hill

 Over $125 million dollars worth of ore was hoisted to the 

surface with the help of the mighty Audrey

Deep, deep, deep

Audrey

Built on a hill

You can see for miles from Jerome.  It was a bit overcast
 on this day.  Writers, artists, artisans, musicians find inspiration
 in this little town

This lovely place is a B&B

We had lunch here, truly perfect hamburgers

The next photos were along the way in beautiful Arizona.  I gained a new found love of Arizona.  There are many facets to this state and it is so different from Tucson in the South to Sedona in the North.

 Pueblo was built by the Sinagua people between

 1125 and 1400 CE.

Our Spring trip awarded us with so many blooming 
cacti and wildflowers

This grass is amazing. It grows along the side of the 

road. It is lavender color and looks silky. The wind is 

blowing it over to the right. We had to take about 20

pictures to get a decent one, and this picture doesn't really 

do justice to seeing it in person. It is so simple, so pretty.

Surprise, home of Sun City West retirement paradise.  

We thought it was going to be a tiny little AZ town.

Surprise!!!  

Pretty lined up palms

Lovely historic hotel - many 

famous people have stayed here. 

Had to make a U-turn to get this picture.  Cell tower 

camouflaged as a palm tree.  The guys were just installing 

the tree.  Made us laugh.

Made a stop at White Tank Mountain Regional Park

Almost 30,000 acre area, picnic areas, hiking.

 I took a short hike up to see the petroglyphs

The saguaro flowers once every year, typically in May and June. Not all the saguaro cactus flowers bloom at the same time; several per day will bloom over the period of a few weeks. Saguaro blooms open at night and last through the next midday. Each flower blooms only once.

Many saguaros were in bloom. John got this great picture.

We were so lucky to see so many cacti in bloom on our trip

We had a pretty thorough trip seeing parts of Arizona we had not seen before.  What a great time we had.  Now for new adventures up the road.  Sedona, a place people have told us we needed to see for years.  I felt we just had to fit it into our trip and it would have been unforgivable if we had missed it.  A true gem and one of the most moving places I've ever been.  

So tune in to my Sedona blog and photos when I get that one done.

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