Casey and I had the opportunity to take an extendend weekend vacation to Phoenix recently.

As I previously wrote about I had the chance to meet The Pioneer Woman when we first got in to town.  Unfortunately, the first night in Phoenix went down hill from there. 

When we arrived at the JW Marriott Resort & Spa in northern Phoenix we were greeted by a less than desirable situation.  They explained that the hotel had been overbooked and that they wouldn’t be able to accomodate us.  The front desk clerk, bless her heart, tried to offer a free nights stay at a Residence Inn half an hour away.  It was already 10 PM and we had a golf tee-time at the resort early the next morning. 

To put it simply, I wasn’t having it, ANY of it.  We had planned our vacation around staying at the resort including golf, dinner and spa reservations.  Through a somewhat lengthy negotiation process we ended up in a luxury suite for all four-nights without shelling out a penny. 

The golf course at the Marriott had just been reseeded with their winter grass.  It didn’t look the best but we hadn’t played in so long it was great just to get out and swing the clubs.  The weather was perfect for our stay, low 80’s the entire time.   

Casey must have just parred the previous hole, look at him getting all sure of himself!

The next day we went up to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesan West and then drove North to the quaint towns of Carefree and Cave Creek.  We ate at this great restaurant called Tonto’s Bar and Grill in Cave Creek.  If you’re ever there try their Tontoritas, you won’t be dissapointed! 

And then there’s a whole story behind THIS picture.  But considering that anyone can read this blog (including rental car companies) we’ll just leave it at that.

We also got a chance to visit our good friends Brett and Sarah and their family in their beautiful new home in Mesa.  It was really amazing at how long it had been since we’ve seen the kiddos, who incidentally are little mini-versions of Brett and Sarah!

It was hard to say good-bye to the warm desert but we couldn’t wait to see our little bubby.  This was the longest time that we had been away from him, four whole nights!  We do feel very lucky that we were able to get away though, many thanks go out to Grammy Pat and Papi Ron! 

Incidentally, Casey and I couldn’t help but notice the stark difference between our lives in the Pacific/Pacific Northwest in comparison with desert living.  Although we were there during a relatively cool period of the year we couldn’t help but notice a different mindset towards water usage.  Granted we live in one of the more progressive areas of the country when it comes to environmental attitudes.  

Perhaps it was this great i-max video we watched last summer that really got me thinking about the use of the Colorado river as a water source for the Southwest.  The coincidence wasn’t lost on me when I stumbled upon this blog post a couple days after I returned.  Thoughts?