Arizona 2024!

[Adapted from email travelogue, sent Wednesday, November 13 at 5:51 pm.] Sunday, November 10: Burton Barr Public Library In recent years I have developed interests in touring both State Capitol buildings at state capitols where I have not yet done so; and library buildings—especially Central Library buildings—if they have cool architecture. This trip to Phoenix, Arizona allowed me to do both. After being fairly delighted by the Toronto Reference Library last June, it occurred to me to look up Phoenix's central library to see if it might be of interest. Indeed it is! Scott and Linda picked us up at the Phoenix airport Sunday afternoon, and at my request, on the way back to their house in Peoria we stopped at what is called the Burton Barr Central Library. It opened in 1995—nine years before Seattle's current Central Library building—and has five floors with a combined floor area of 280,000 square feet. Shobhit's impression of it was that it housed far fewer books than the Seattle Central Library, but Burton Barr contains 1 million volumes, which makes for 3.6 volumes per square foot. For comparison, Seattle's undeniably larger, 11-floors and 363,000 square-foot Central Library houses 1.5 million volumes, a 50% larger collection in a 30% larger amount of floor space, making for just over 4 volumes per square foot—relatively comparable to Burton Barr, actually. Anyway! Scott took this group selfie of the four of us before we went inside. Liinda in particular took in the library very enthusiastically—they had never been to it; she uses her local branch library in Peoria (with a delightful unicorn library card). It seems we got Scott and Linda out to check out local things they never thought to explore, and provided some discovery for them as well as for us.

We made our way to the top floor and then worked our way down. The fifth floor has an incredibly high ceiling—about 32 feet—and, considering how seldom buildings in Phoenix, especially outside of downtown, are very tall, provides for some very expansive views of the city.

Surrounding the elevator banks and the stairwell on the ground floor is something a bit unusual: an oasis in the desert, I suppose you could say—a water feature.

Sunday, November 10: Canal Convergence, Scottsdale We can credit Shobhit for this one: "Canal Convergence," an annual 10-day, immersive light-based art festival that happens to be going on currently, at—I'll put this in quotes—the "Scottsdale Waterfront." Shobhit found it simply by googling "things to do in Phoenix," and when he showed it to me I was like: hey that looks really cool! Scott had already recommended Old Town Scottsdale for exploring and shopping, and had even suggested going out there for dinner our first night. Perfect! (Even though it's a roughly 50-minute drive there from the house in Peoria—and god knows I'd never drive that far in Seattle just for dinner and shopping; but okay maybe for a worthwhile arts festival—but, much like living in Los Angeles, the sprawl here just makes that par for the course.)

This is perhaps the best shot I got of the light-based art pieces actually suspended above the waters of the Arizona Canal. This, incidentally, is a 50-mile-long canal, finished in 1885, running from the Granite Reef Diversion Dam northeast of Mesa, west though Scottsdale, Phoenix and ending in Peoria (where Scott and Linda live, although their house is a good seven miles northeast of where the Arizona Canal ends).

Sunday, November 10: Peoria Check it out, Scott and Linda's guest room has multiple appliances that glow in the dark! The larger one is a mini fridge, packed with everything from soda to juice to water (flat or sparkling, unflavored or flavored) to energy drink to espresso to wine bottles and even several mini bottles of liquor. Shobhit saw this and was convinced they must be renting out the room for AirBnB; Scott was like: "Nope, I just like my guests to be comfortable!" Apparently. This small snack stand also includes countless things to eat—sweeter candies mostly removed at Shobhit's request ahead of time, but still with a bag of rainbow gummies that Linda couldn't resist buying. There's even a microwave and, on top of that, a hot water pot (the other thing glowing in this photo) that I used several times to make tea from the three brands of Earl Grey provided (I only used Smith Teamakers, because it's the best). I texted my photos of all this to some other friends and told them they need to step it up.

Scott and Linda's dogs, both Miniature Pinschers, are now about 13 years old but with plenty of life in them yet—and quite happy to receive attention from visitors. Whenever Shobhit sat on the back patio with his coffee (he didn't bother with the instant coffee provided in the guest room, having access to the espresso machine in the kitchen), either one or both of the dogs would sit in his lap. I believe this one is Sam; the other is Jack. This is kind of funny because when Shobhit and I first got together, 20 years ago, he was terrified of dogs—he wasn't even too keen on small ones. (Apparently neither is a woman in Scott's neighborhood, who we were told once literally crumpled into sobs on the path they were walking these dogs, but clearly that's a woman who needs therapy.) Now, though, Shobhit loves giving attention to dogs, especially small ones no larger than our cats were. I am convinced that if we ever actually got a dog, it would be game over: I would become only the second love of his life.

Monday, November 11: Sedona Back in 2014, Shobhit and I took one day to take a day trip to the Grand Canyon. From Phoenix, that's about a four-hour drive each way, so there wasn't really time for stops along the way—although we did drive through Sedona on our way back; I got about 10 photos from the car and we stopped so I could get one shot from a parking lot. The idea of a day trip to Sedona came up with Scott for this trip and I was all about it. And he suggested this fantastic place to have lunch there, with seating alongside Oak Creek: Cress on Oak Creek, at a resort called L'Auberge de Sedona. In the photo above, you can see latticework to the left, fencing alongside the seating by the creek. Unfortunately, being a late Monday morning, Cress was not serving any of the tables down there, but we still managed to get some seating with a great view.

"Bell Rock," the one Sedona rock formation landmark we managed to make the time to hike around: we started Bell Rock Loop at 1:00 and finished it shortly after 2:00. I'd have been happy to stay in Sedona longer—there were at least two other landmarks we'd have been interested in—but Scott and Lina raved about the sunsets from the edge of their neighborhood and I wanted to see it. Being November, and with a roughly two-hour drive back, I said that if I had to choose I'd rather get back to Peoria to see the sunset, as this would be the last of our two nights at the house.

Bell Rock is so named because of its shape like a bell—from certain vantage points, anyway (including simply driving into town). From much closer to it, and on the other side, it takes on very different shapes.

Seen on our drive back to Peoria from Sedona, causing traffic congestion that added 35 minutes to the drive time: brush fires. Exciting! I took this shot from the car. If you look closely you can see actual flames. Should I give this piece a title? Arizona on Fire.

Monday, November 11: Peoria We saw multiple interesting sights from the car on the way back, even within the open spaces of northern Peoria—such as this parasailer (using a motorized fan) landing just as we drove by. We also saw hot air balloons going up to watch the sunset.

And here we are: the aforementioned sunset, seen beyond what I am assuming are the White Tank Mountains to the southwest, from the Agua Fria River Trail, at the end of Scott's street two blocks to the west. Side note: down a small hill from this trail is supposedly the Agua Fria River, which is completely dry even though Google misleadingly draws it as a blue river. But it only flows during occasional periods of rain.

Tuesday, November 12: Arizona State Capitol I had really hoped to get a guided tour of the Arizona State Capitol. I even got online and scheduled one! But then I got an email back saying they only do guided tours for 10 or more. I guess no one else signed up for the tour time I had signed up for, at 12:30. Oh well; you can still tour the State Capitol Complex on your own, and now this just meant we did not have any time constraint on Tuesday morning, allowing us to take our time before heading out. The Old Arizona State Capitol, seen in the above shot, has been converted entirely into the "Arizona Capitol Museum," since 1979. Prior to that, the building housed the Arizona Territorial and State Legislature from its construction in 1910 until 1960, and housed the state's Executive Offices until 1974. Today, the state House of Representatives and the State Senate have their own buildings, flanking the plaza in front of the old Capitol Building (now the museum), behind which is the "Executive Tower," standing 9 floors behind the original Capitol building. Somewhat ironically, given that we could not manage a guided tour at this capitol, my photo album for this self-guided tour has 73 shots in it, a record for of the 8 tours I've taken (guided or self-guided) at any U.S. state or Canadian provincial capital. But, given this one has a four-story old capitol building entirely converted into a museum, that yields a lot more photo opportunity than usual. I didn't even take any photos at the Martin Luther King Jr. exhibit on the first floor—its very existence a reminder that Arizona was the last state to make MLK Day an official holiday, having instituted it in 1992. Furthermore, there's a ton of memorial statues and monuments all over the State Capitol Complex grounds, including honors for law enforcement canines, a local suffragette, the Ten Commandments (!—so much for Separation of Church and State), and a Desert Storm Memorial that is truly garish and ugly, to name but a few of them.

We were told there was nothing to see in the Executive Tower, but in addition to the Arizona Capitol Museum, we were allowed to walk around both the State House of Representatives and State Senate buildings. In the galleries of both, something actually very cute: plush or figurine elephants or donkeys, depending on the party. In this shot from the State Senate gallery, if you look closely, you can see multiple elephants. (The Arizona Senate is Republican majority, 16 to 14 Democrats; the State House is also Republican majority, 31 to 29 Democrats. In true "purple state" style, though, their current governor, Katie Hobbs, is a Democrat.) Some of the Democratic desks have donkeys, a ridiculous party mascot if there ever was one.

Tuesday, November 12: Desert Botanical Garden Of all the photos I took on Tuesday and kept, I have 192 from that day alone—73 shots at the Arizona Capitol Complex, and another 71 from the Desert Botanical Garden, a point of interest recommended by Alexia, who grew up in the region. And 71 is also a record for my history of botanical gardens—I just can't put my camera down! And how many photos can a person take of cactuses, anyway? They're not even that interesting! Of course that's a matter of opinion. Museums aren't Shobhit's favorite and he gets bored at them easily; he was ready to go at the State Capitol Complex well before Scott or me. Plus, Linda was easily the most enthusiastic of our group but she had to work on Monday and Tuesday and thus could not join us those days—Scott had generously taken those days off, and drove us all over town. This all made Tuesday a day with more events but somewhat quieter. That didn't stop me from getting slaphappy with the picture taking! Besides, Shobhit does love a free ticket to just about anything: Canal Convergence is a free public event; hiking around Sedona is free (although admittedly trailhead parking is not—except on Monday, Veterans Day, it was!); touring the Arizona Capitol Complex is free. We didn't even plan it this way, but we also discovered when we arrived at the Desert Botanical Garden that tickets, which are usually $24.95, are free on the second Tuesday of the month! That's totally worth spending a couple of hours looking at cactuses (and succulents!). To the credit of Desert Botanical Garden, they also incorporate a great deal of integrated art, which I thought was very cool. These metal sculptures throughout the garden are actually themselves geometric light installations by Yelena Filipchuk and Serge Beaulie (oh hey—that guy's actually pretty cute), and will be on display at the garden through January 20. I'm actually kind of bummed now that we didn't go after dark. Oh well. Shut up Matthew, stop complaining, you unrepentant ingrate! WHO SAID THAT

I call this Portrait of Cactus with Scott. It's one of my favorite shots from the trip.

Tuesday, November 12: Phoenix I bet you thought that since Phoenix has an unremarkable skyline, I would not be sharing any photos of skyscrapers. Well, think again! (Side note: I was last in Phoenix in 2014, ten years ago this month—Shobhit still lived in Los Angeles then, so after I flew there, we drove from L.A. I checked my email travelogue from then, in which I did indeed share two Phoenix skyline or cityscape photos, but none of specific buildings.) Behold: what is only still known as Chase Tower because no one has given it a new name—Chase Bank moved all its employees to a new headquarters location in suburban Tempe in September 2021. That November, the Chase sign was removed from the top of the building, which has been standing vacant since. Shobhit and I were walking past the building when I took this shot, in which it quite looks vacant—the lighting on each floor practically makes it look like a giant parking garage. Finished in 1972, Chase Tower remains the tallest building in Phoenix and in the state of Arizona. It stands at 483 feet, with a floor count of 40—even though when trying to count floors myself, I can never get above about 37, which is driving me bonkers. In any case, at 483 feet, Seattle alone has 26 buildings taller than that; for comparison, Seattle's Smith Tower stands at 462 ft, only 21 ft shorter than this building.

Because Scott had an unexpected work trip with a flight headed out at 7:00 Wednesday morning, and Linda just got a job she started just last week—both of these developments occurred after Shobhit and I had booked out flights—Shobhit and I opted to stay our third night at a hotel, near the Phoenix airport. Scott dropped us off at the hotel and we were checked in just before 4:00 on Tuesday afternoon, so we later took a bus straight down E Van Buren St into downtown Phoenix—a roughly 25-minute bus ride—for dinner. We had considered some gay bars to check out, but this would have required a transfer onto another bus further north into central Phoenix, so we opted to stick to downtown. And we opted for a spectacular choice of one of the many super-authentic Mexican restaurants in the area: Céntrico Cocina Mexicana, just off the lobby of the historic Hotel San Carlos. We had the only two vegetarian options on their menu—Flautas de Papa and Tacos Vegetal—and both were spectacular. We also each had a margartia—Shobhit had the prickly pear and I had the watermelon—and both of these were delicious as well. The Mexican guy who owns the place was very chatty; he talked about how his family had to leave town for a month over the summer to escape the unbearable heat, with record days above 100°. I was like, "That's only going to get worse." That's me, always with the sunny outlook! Anyway. Should I get to the photo here? The building shown above is Luhrs Tower, a 1929 Art Deco office building, standing at 185 ft anf 14 floors. It stands about four blocks from Céntrico Cocina Mexicana (Chase Tower is merely around the corner from the restaurant). This was one of several stops we walked to after Shobhit suggested I look online for walking tours of downtown Phoenix—a great idea! I found a website with a walking tour map, and we walked around to most of the points of interest numbered on it—most of them historic buildings like this one. It was really fun, and revealed there's a lot more interesting architecture in downtown Phoenix than one might assume. Also: even for a Tuesday evening, although traffic was sparse, there was a fair amount going on, particularly in restaurants and bars. Hotel San Carlos, where Céntrico Cocina is located, is one of the stops on this walking tour map, so we just started there.

And finally, we come to the weirdest part of the visit—something we certainly would never have seen while visiting ten years ago: driverless cars. All over the place! Apparently a ride hailing service by Waymo, now operational. I'm . . . kind of dying to ride in one. Shobhit joked that he could run in front of one and get hit so he could sue them. I was like: "That wouldn't happen, the car would stop. That's the whole point." It's still a little creepy to see these cars rolling around town without any driver. I wish I could have gotten a better shot; I barely managed this one as the car turned past us during our walking tour of downtown Phoenix. On the other hand, it's pretty easy to see in the photo that there is no driver in there. We'll see how it pans out, anyway. We're about to slip back into an administration that is so brazenly anti-science that perhaps competent people will eventually get kicked out of design and manufacturing and then these cars will just start mowing us all down. Haha, just kidding! Climate change will get us first. But until then, I'm going to keep finding ways of having fun, even in the barren desert! This was a great trip, and we owe Scott and Linda a huge amount of thanks for bing an integral part of making it so.