On The Road Again ....

Ok, so technically we flew to Phoenix, but the January 3rd final regular season game was the one we picked a long time ago for our road game trip this year. We were kind of wishing we could have stayed on for the playoff game this weekend, but now we all know how that turned out :(


The new stadium has a very interesting design, which you can read about here, but we found it ironic that they had the dome roof closed that day. The weather was 72 degrees and sunny, so they had to turn on the AC so people wouldn't get too hot. Huh?!?!?


The view from the freeway coming into Glendale .... where the stadium kind of looks like a big UFO has landed in the middle of the desert.


Again with the flames outside an inflatable tunnel. Must be a dome thing.


And as we all know the Cardinals hardly played any of their first string that day, so the Packers ran away with the game and the final score was 33-7. Too bad they couldn't repeat that today. What a heartbreak .... losing 51-45 in overtime. Oh well, it was a young team that went farther than most people ever expected, and there is always next year!

A Perfect Winter Getaway

Kudos to the Packer Fan Tours staff for putting us up in this fantastic hotel, which made our stay in the Phoenix area very enjoyable.


We're pictured here in the courtyard of the Mission Palms in Tempe. It's right on the edge of the ASU campus and just steps from the new light rail system. It's also just half a block from Mill Avenue, which is Tempe's equivalent of State Street in Madison. Lots of great shops and restaurants!


Our room was very nicely appointed and the entire hotel had a southwestern decor that wasn't too overdone.


Below is the view we had overlooking the courtyard from our third floor room at night.

Riding the Rails in Phoenix

Just opened in 2008, the new light rail system currently goes from Mesa to the north side of Phoenix, and you can buy an unlimited day pass for only $3.50 per person.


We got on in Tempe and headed north to check out downtown Phoenix. Here we were passing Chase Field, where the Arizona Diamondbacks play.


At the far north end we got off for awhile to watch part of the Fiesta Bowl Parade.


As we were waiting for the next train to take us back to the south end, this little guy saw me taking a photo and decided he wanted to be in it too!

Whoohoo, we finally made it!!!

Mark and I were convinced that we were the last two U.S. citizens who had never been to the Grand Canyon, so as long as we were already in Arizona we couldn't NOT go up to see at least the south rim!








It wasn't exactly the nicest weather, the light wasn't the best for photos and the trails were too icy to venture down into the canyon, but on the flip side we didn't have to fight hordes of other tourists at this time of year.

Sunset, Sunrise

We arrived at the park in late afternoon, and the rim trail was too icy to venture out on too far, so I took this sunset shot from the edge of our little cabin complex at Bright Angel Lodge. Below is virtually the same shot taken early the next morning as the sun was rising.

Grand Canyon Village Lodging Logistics

If you want to stay inside the park during the summer you have to make reservations a year ahead of time, but I was able to go online in early December and get a cabin in the Bright Angel Lodge complex for only $111 per night. All lodging inside the park is managed by a company called Xanterra.


The cabins are a step up from the rooms in the main lodge buildings, but they are all duplexes or four-plexes with paper thin walls so you can hear the people next to you when they sneeze! We were only there for one night though, so it was cool just to stay so close to the rim at a relatively inexpensive price.


The view inside our cozy little cabin, which also had a mini-fridge and coffee maker so we had everything we needed.


Of course we found a Trader Joe's before we left Phoenix so we were stocked with plenty of cheap wine and snacks!


The other lodgings in the village that are right on the rim include the old El Tovar Hotel and the Thunderbird and Kachina Lodges, but even in winter the rooms start at almost $200 per night. Who wants to spend that when you're only there for what's outside anyway?!?!?

Winter in the High Desert

Tips for the budget-minded traveler ...

I'm not sure how much you come out ahead on hotel costs when you factor in the gas for these RVs, but we sure saw a lot of them throughout the park.


If you're really looking to save money I'd say check out this rental company!


When it comes to rental cars, I'm all about cheap. I always go through a website called CarRentals.com and no matter where you're going or how far out you make the reservation it never fails to bring up the best deals available. I booked this one back in October right after I purchased our airline tickets, and we got this little Chevy Aveo through Fox Rent A Car in the Phoenix airport for only $69 for three days. It was so new it still had a temporary tag and it only had about 500 miles on it, which we more than doubled before we turned it in!

Scenic Overlook Overload

Probably the best thing about visiting the park in winter is that you can drive all the way out to the Hermit's Rest on the west end of the south rim, which you can only access via shuttle bus or a seven-mile hike along the rim during the summer.


This is the Lookout Studio, located not far from the Bright Angel Lodge.


Here I'm just attempting some artsy-fartsy kind of shot because by this point I'm thinking how many vista shots can you take?!?!?


Last, but certainly not least, we stopped at the Desert View Lookout Tower before leaving the park at the eastern exit. I made a panorama shot of the view from here, which is included in another post.

Standin' on a corner of a trail outside Sedona ...

On the way back to Phoenix we spent two days in the Red Rock country around Sedona, and everyone who heard we were going there said we HAD to take one of the Jeep tours.


There are at least four or five different companies that offer these tours, but we ended up going with A Day in the West and we had a great time.


It was especially nice to have Mario as our driver, because his stories about how the Native Americans used the various plants for food and medicines were really interesting. His other stories and jokes were pretty funny too!


Just a couple pretty pictures of the scenery on our sunset ride.

Hey, hold my beer and watch this!

Here is where we really headed off the beaten path .....




Buckle up tight and hang on to your sunglasses!




Just kidding about the beer in the title of this post, but wouldn't that be a perfect name for a Jeep tour company in northern Wisconsin?

And here I was rudely cut off .....

For some reason Blogger has decided to truncate pages with too much content, and apprently I exceeded the quota of photos for one day. Since I archive monthly on this blog, I moved the last few posts to December. If you're still interested in seeimg more pics from the Sedona area just click on the archives for December 2009 in the right hand column. Thanks!