Phoenix/Scottsdale

The month spent in Scottsdale was interesting, to say the least. Mary Ann's glad she got time to spend time with her two best friends from high school, Rika and Ty. They were her cheerleading and best running buddies.


M A,and friends Rika and Ty

We had a great visit with my cousins, Wayne and Marilyn, while they were in town for The Fiesta Bowl from their home in Wichita, and we got to visit some other friends as well and an occasional dinner or movie with Don and Greta. As it turned out, we spent the better part of our visit to Scottsdale exploring the area on our own. So here are our thoughts.


Hiking right in town! (Phoenix)

Being mostly attracted to eateries that steer away from the norm, we found that we had to travel mostly away from the more touristy areas to get what we wanted. Almost all of the Phoenix area can be considered touristy...After all, it is a major winter destination. But it seems like the places we liked best weren't right in the middle of the ritzy/chi chi parts of town. That's ok by us! We found La Grande Orange Grocery and ended up going back several times, mostly for breakfast. It takes up the better part of an entire strip center. Based in Santa Monica, California, this Arizona outpost of the chain also includes the pizza place next door, a party space across the street, and the bakery inside the grocery part, which really isn't a grocery at all. It's more a take out/sit down, inside/outside bustling eatery that has to be visited in-person to be understood fully. The coffee and bakery goods are really above average. The negative is that lots of the salads and sushi are premade and looked to be sitting around a bit too long. The place has lots of character (that word again!). The next winner we found is Rusconi's American Kitchen. This place perfectly exemplifies what we mean by "weren't in the middle of the ritzy/chi chi parts of town." If choosing restaurants by outside appearance only or address is important to you, Rusconi's could be skipped. If you are adventurous enough to step inside, the interior is beautiful...and most important, so is the food. This chef run place produces dishes on par with any we've tried anywhere, and was the best meal we had in Phoenix, period. Table 56, Becketts Table, and Ncounter in Tempe were all pretty notable too. We did a little hiking, some shopping, and had a good time checking out some areas of Phoenix we hadn't seen before. We stayed at the Fort McDowell RV Park in East Scottsdale until January 2, 2013, and headed to Palm Springs for two weeks off the road, using some of our timeshare time and attending the Palm Springs International Film Festival for almost two weeks of new foreign movies....heaven for us (in fact, the photo used on our header is Mary Ann and H2 in front of one of our timeshares, The Palm Springs Tennis Club)! We saw movies from Germany, Ireland, France, Holland, Norway, and Sweden, and managed to get in a few games of tennis in between screenings too! We always try to connect with cousins Marilyn and Steve, who split their time between PS and their boat at Newport Beach. We had a good catch up visit at our Shadow Ridge timeshare clubhouse, again in between screenings. As far as food goes in Palm Springs, we've been so many times now we seldom eat out, but we did hit a couple of favorites. We always manage a meal at Tylers in downtown PS. 5 star burgers! (You'll probably see somebody famous there.)

Tylers Burger..mmmm!

 

Spencers, the restaurant connected to our timeshare, The Tennis Club, is always reliable for a wonderful high end meal, and we had a great lunch there. After two weeks in Palm Springs we moved down to Escondido, California, for a third bonus week at the Welk Resort,

...with aLawrence aWelka

which Mary Ann found at the last minute. While there, we mostly recuperated from the pace at the film festival by soaking in the hot tubs, sweating in the saunas, and walking the beautiful grounds. In case you're wondering, yes it's the same Welk as in Lawrence Welk !..."and a one, and a two!" He was a savvy investor and owned lots of good real estate..this being one of those locations, a real 4 star property. From Escondido, it was time to get back home to H2 (we were really ready to be in our rolling house!), and we headed to a town in California that many natives have never even heard of, Aguanga. It sits high in the mountains, northeast

Jojoba Hills pool

of San Diego, and we spent a month at an
Escapees park called Jojoba Hills. They have a nice clubhouse with a big pool, hot tubs, tennis courts, and shuffleboard courts. The closest town is about a 15 mile drive to Temecula. There's a Trader Joes, Sprouts, and a good Ralphs (Kroger) for food supplies, and it's big enough to have about one of any type store you need, so it was fun to be a bit off the grid in a nice location, but close enough to civilization. Anyone who tells you about perfect California weather though, must not be referring to Aguanga. We had some bitter cold nights, heavy rain, and strong winds during our month, most of February...punctuated by an occasional nice day. Aguanga is located at the high point of a triangle between L.A. and San Diego, so we took the opportunity to drive into L.A. a couple of times. We spent the night one time in Beverly Hills and ate at a couple of favorites there too, The Farm on Beverly Drive and Kate Mantilini on Wilshire.

Kate Mantilini..Beverly Hills

At the end of February, we headed east, toward a place we'd heard of, were curious about, and, as it turned out, had lots of misconceptions of. Stay tuned for our impressions of the western town of Yuma!