Spring Break in Phoenix, AZ
March 2005

~Day 1~

March 22
Arrived in Phoenix.  Drove garish orange Mustang to Best Western in Chandler.

March 23
Day of exploring the city. Drove to Papago Park, climbed the rock where the imaginatively-named Hole-in-Rock is located.  Note to self:  do NOT take the adventurous way down the rock face next time!  Papago Park is also the site of the Phoenix Zoo and the Botanical Gardens, so we hit those next.
Papago Park and Phoenix Zoo
IMG_0597
Papago Park		 IMG_0598
Hole-in-Rock		 IMG_0601
Prairie dog		 IMG_0603
Unamused bald eagle		 IMG_0604
Sleepy rhinos

Phoenix Botanical Gardens
IMG_0605
At the Botanical Gardens:
assorted cuddly cacti in the cactus house		 IMG_0606
Saguaros, Cereus giganteus,
being their usual improbable
selves		 IMG_0607
More cuddly cacti, under a palo verde
tree		 IMG_0608
It's Brain on a Stick!
IMG_0609
Perfect cactus globes. Really should have been writing these names down.		 IMG_0610
An agave just beginning to send
up its flower spike.  A rainy
January caused plants to flower
here for the first time in decades.		 IMG_0611
Butterfly on the ubiquitous
brittlebush, Encelia farinosa
 IMG_0612
More brittlebush,
and Papago's famous
red rocks
IMG_0613
The same butterfly?
with lupine in the
foreground		 IMG_0614
More lupine		 IMG_0615
What passes for
a flower garden
in AZ

Had lunch at the Blue Iguana, and then were too exhausted from all the walking in the sunshine to do much else.  Returned to the hotel to remind ourselves why we don't shell out for cable.

Day 2