Vacation Our Way

Well we are back from our mini-vacation...

We left on Thursday early am from Garden City and flew into Tucson. We spent Thurs through Sat traveling throughout eastern AZ (Northern and southern) and then spent Sat night through Mon late afternoon in Scottsdale/Phoenix area. 

We left for vacation with somewhat of a plan, but allot of it we played by ear, which is not always the norm for us. We usually travel with some sort of a lap top or access to Internet, but this was our first trip without, so it made for some interesting days!  We navigated our ENTIRE trip using a good ole trusty paper map! :)

We had a rental car booked and a hotel booked for some of the nights of our trip and not for some.  We decided to tour all around eastern AZ, as neither of us have spent much time there.  We got to see true "old west" towns like Tombstone and Bisbee AZ.  Tombstone was a tourist trap to say the least, we were approached by so many people trying to sell us stuff (mine tours, horse back rides, horse carriage rides, tours, etc) that it kind of made us want to run into stores just to get away from them.  And some of the characters approaching us, sure were not your ordinary people you would expect to approach you!

We were walking along the main street area, and a guy who was smoking and had not many teeth was leaning against a pole and started to talk to us in a sort of a whisper. Then he asked if we had seen one of the mines, and we told him no. Then he got excited and said oh you should see this one...blah blah blah..turned out he worked for them and was trying to sell us on going there. I didn't see that coming from that gentleman, but I guess it was part of the "rustic" charm of tombstone!  Tombstone was pretty, but we didn't stay there very long.

After Tombstone we ventured onto Bisbee, AZ, and it is a beautiful old town.  We ate lunch in old Town Bisbee at Screaming Banchee Pizza. It was a delicious gourmet pizza place, and we got to sit on the patio and people watch. It was fun seeing Benjamin and all of his faces he made when all different sorts of people walked by. I enjoy people watching, but especially with him. I think being from southern CA I am used to seeing all kinds of characters and not allot surprises me anymore, but it is fun with things surprise him.  During lunch I still was dealing with an annoying cold, and was stuffed up and couldn't hear his whisper, and when I answered back I thought that I was "whispering", but apparently I wasn't and so we ate allot of our lunch in silence with the occasional odd l0ok at one another. :)

After lunch I got a delicious coffee from a Cuban coffee shop and we walked the streets of Bisbee.  We came to this Honey shop and tried all sorts of unpasteurized local honey. These bee ladies don't breed (if that's the word) their own bees, the get called out from people all over AZ to come and remove bees from buildings, farms, etc., and in the mean time they harvest the honey from those bees.  It was delicious, and I am not much of one to enjoy honey in the raw form.  There was one honey that was a cinnamon honey that we tried with pretzels, AMAZING!  The shop that this lady sells from is in the tiniest space I have ever seen, I think that most people's closets are larger than her shop!

I didn't get to buy any honey cuz I didn't know how I would get it home, but we enjoyed interesting (to say the least) conversation with the bee lady.  The most interesting part of our convo with her was when she said that AZ has the best honey because their queen bees are lesbians, and then she stared to say more about how that makes for the best honey, but she was using terminology that made me very lost. We kindly smiled and nodded and when the conversation was over and we went along our way. We asked each other what she was saying, but realized that she lost us both towards the end of the conversation.

Overall, Bisbee was a very fun little town, I would definitely go back again.

Saturday we drove through most of North Eastern AZ, and it was so gorgeous!  There were "mountains" in west AZ when we lived there, but the Mts and rock formations in NE AZ are some of the most beautiful things that we have ever seen. I took a few pics, but kind of forgot that I had my camera with me until the end of the trip! 

While traveling through all of these towns, it sure made for interesting moments when we were trying to decide who was right in reading the map! Perhaps a GPS would of been nice to have settle the score a bit! :)

On Sat, one we were heading towards Phoenix we didn't have a hotel booked...so we decided to go to a verizon store.  I distracted the sales people with silly and dumb questions while Ben hoped on one of the minilap tops or IPads (not sure which he used) and booked us a hotel room online on one of those sites where you get it cheaper.  I kept trying to look over at him to make sure he wasn't getting caught, cuz we were sure that we were going to get thrown out. Once he text me when he was done and with the hotels address, he came over to me and we together asked some more silly questions to the sales people.  Well, to Ben they were silly questions, but in all honesty I don't know much about smart phones so I was really asking questions I didn't know the answers to, but shh don't tell Ben! :) 

After "borrowing" Internet from Verizon we then took an hour to find out hotel because hubby swore he knew where it was at, once he looked at the map and realized that I was right that we were a tad bit too far north, we turned around and found our hotel.  The hotel was gorgeous!  It was an older "resort" in Scottsdale but so well kept up. It was on a 40 acre plot, with a number of pools, and had many amenities.  We settled into our room, and went to dinner across the street.  

The next day we swam all morning, and then in the afternoon headed to our second hotel for the weekend (which we had booked ahead of time). Looking back if we were smart, we would of canceled Sunday night's hotel and stayed at the one from Sat for 2 nights. We attempted to swim sat evening in the new hotel's pool, which was a "resort" too ,but it was like an apartment complex all cramped together with way too many people.  Monday am, we woke up, put on swimsuits, and snuck back into one of the pools at the resort from Sat.  There were showers in the bathroom near the "villa pool" that we were using, so we cleaned up in those showers and headed to Tucson late Mon afternoon. 

Along the way to Tucson, we stopped in many different parts of AZ that I had never been to.  While in Chandler, we decided to find a Panda Express...we called 1-800-FREE-411 and got an address, and after searching for about 10 mins found a different Panda Express that was a few doors down from a Trader Joe's.  So, we ate lunch, and then I got to take Ben to a Trader Joe's. Needless to say he was not nearly as excited about it as I was. I LOVE LOVE LOVE trader Joe's. I think their prices are about the same as a regular grocery store, but such better quality of food. He thought it was just another "healthy and organic" store. But, for those of us who have picky tummies and like to cook Trader Joe's is a very accommodating place to shop (just saying)! :)

Along our  journey through AZ without any form of Internet, a paper map and not much of a plan, we learned that we probably should venture into getting smart phones soon since most of the rest of the world runs off of technology, that we still enjoy vacationing together, that neither one of us is always right (and we sometimes have to admit the other person is right), that you have to laugh when plans don't always workout, and most of all that AZ is home. 

The moment we landed in AZ we both were very excited to be back in AZ! At first I think we both thought that we were just so excited because of having a vacation together, but once we were in Scottsdale floating the pool we both admitted to one another that we just feel like we are at home!  For me, home has always been where Ben, family and friends are (which is all over the US). But, for the first time (I think) since we've been together being in AZ on this trip felt like "home" for us as a couple. Perhaps its because its where we fell in love, got married and began our journey of life together.   I'm not exactly sure how and when we'll get to be back "home" in AZ, but I truly believe it is where our journey will someday will take us again.

Pool at the resort we snuck back into on Monday!

I miss palm trees, aren't they so pretty!

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