My weekly update is a full two days late by now. Our Phoenix trip took a whole extra day, so instead of writing an update Tuesday, I was still driving through the desert. Then yesterday was devoted to all the chores and errands that piled up during our trip. Today, finally, I get to relax a bit and post pictures of the big trip.

It started with a very long drive through the desert. Downtown Phoenix is nearly an eight hour drive from here, most of it through the middle of nowhere. Some of the scenery out west is pretty epic but most of our drive looked like this:

Yellow grass and scrubby little bushes. Over the years I’ve made a couple dozen road trips through Idaho, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and even a bit through California and Colorado. No matter what amazing vistas they show on TV, driving through these states usually involves hours of landscape exactly this boring. I have driven past more yellow grass and scrubby little bushes than I can possibly count, so we were pretty excited to see the pine forests and cacti of northern Arizona appear. Don’t get me wrong, most of Arizona is also scrubby little bushes, but these bushes are watched over by interesting cacti, which makes the whole experience much more exciting.

We got to our hotel on Friday night but our team’s first game wasn’t until Saturday afternoon, so we got to wander around downtown for a morning. We were kind of in a historical district, so nestled among the modern banks and hotels there were a lot of beautiful historical buildings. I love that highly decorated art deco architectural style, and I really wish modern buildings would throw up more gargoyles and frescoes. It can’t be that hard with modern technology.

We also saw some cool statues and visited the Japanese Friendship Garden, dedicated to Phoenix’s “sister city” of Himeji, in Japan.

We also got to eat some great food downtown, including delicious ramen (unrelated to the Japanese garden), Bad Ass coffee from Hawaii, and Cornish pasties. We saved some crumbs from lunch to feed the pigeons. We named our favorite pigeon Stumpy; even with no feet he looked happy and unafraid to push for his share of food.

After that, the weekend mostly featured the freeway to Glendale and the insides of various gyms. The girls did their best and won some tough games, but with one of their best players unable to make it, they didn’t place as well as usual. My daughter did get to climb on a roof to retrieve a lost ball, though, so she considers the tournament worth it.

The tournament ran so late on Monday I realized I couldn’t drive the whole way home that night, so I booked us an inexpensive hotel room in Holbrook, just about halfway home. Holbrook is where you stay if you’re visiting Petrified Forest National Park, and it seemed a shame not to see it while we were there, so we spent an easy Tuesday morning exploring the park and eating ice cream before finishing our trip home. The park has a lot of petrified wood, of course, but also a historical diner overlooking some beautiful scenery.

Our morning at the park meant we didn’t get home until dinner time a full day after we thought we would, but it was worth the extra time. All in all, we had an eventful trip and got to see and try a lot of new things. We’re glad to be home and settling back into a cozy winter routine for a couple weeks before the next big events, though. Until next week. –Corvus