xoxo, xenophile: Arizona

Arizona desert and blue skies

In the winter of 2008 I went on one of my first trips outside the Midwest. My sister, my dad, and I flew into Mesa, Arizona to visit my grandparents, who spend their winters there. I absolutely loved the desert and blue skies of Arizona. We did a lot of driving around through the desert and mountains, and took plenty of pictures. I definitely recommend just taking a drive through the desert there. The trip was the first time I'd ever seen a palm tree or cactus, the first time I'd seen signs written in Spanish (which I'd just started in school, so I enjoyed trying to decipher what they said), and I think it was a large part of instilling the travel bug in me for future trips.

While there, did enjoy visiting some tourist-y places. We went to Goldfield Ghost Town, an Old West mining town converted into the best tourist trap on the Apache Trail. There we met an entertaining fiddling prospector named 'Garbanzo' with a wife named 'Chickpea,' panned for gold, visited Arizona's largest live display of venomous reptiles and invertebrates, and purchased some handmade pottery as souvenirs for our loved ones back home. There was also Tortilla Flat, an "authentic old stagecoach stop," where we tried prickly pear ice cream, explored the gift shop with typically Southwestern souvenirs--scorpions in crystal, pottery, turquoise jewelry, etc., and decorated a dollar bill to add to the hundreds from other tourists lining the walls of the restaurant there.

A unique place we visited was Organ Stop Pizza in Mesa. My sister and I were hesitant to go, as it was a favorite of the retirees who winter in Mesa, but it was actually very entertaining. The pizza was excellent and the pipe organ more impressive than expected. The organ player knew dozens of songs, and took requests. My personal favorite was when he played Under the Sea and they had bubbles as well as music filling the room!

The Mesa Southwest Museum was a very nice natural history museum, filled with Native American pottery, dinosaur bones, Old West artifacts like a replica jail, a stagecoach, and a place for panning for gold, and other unique artifacts like a suit of conquistador armor. We also visited the Roosevelt Dam, which, at the time it was completed in 1911, was the world's tallest masonry dam. There is also a rather interesting bridge just behind the dam and across the lake.

I loved the desert and scenery of Arizona, and my absolute favorite place that we visited was Tonto National Monument. The Salado Native Americans lived in the area between about 1150 A.D. and 1450 A.D., and they left some really fascinating cliff dwellings behind them. We visited the lower cliff dwellings, and the hike up to them (and view from them) were absolutely beautiful. We met a very nice park ranger, and she went with us to the top and gave us a little more information about the place. Combining beautiful views of the desert, hiking in excellent weather, history, and culture, this was definitely the culmination of everything I enjoyed about my time in Arizona.