When we left for Phoenix, we did not realize that by driving 116 miles North we would be leaving the wonderfully warm sunny weather of Tucson and entering the desert furnace. I've always heard that it is dry heat, so it does not feel as hot as Dallas, but with temps over 100 every day we were here it was really hard to tell any difference. It was just hot as hell.

Phoenix is a big sprawling city like Dallas with lots and lots of shopping areas. The most significant difference was the number of massive RV resorts. Like Tucson, Phoenix is a prime snowbird destination so the RV parks and resorts and RV dealerships are plentiful. Our temporary home was actually in Mesa, a suburb of Phoenix and the third largest city in Arizona. Mesa Spirit, our home for the week, was mostly empty of people but more than half full of "park models". These are basically trailer homes (not much bigger than our RV) that have been permanently installed. They were well maintained and looked pretty nice, with porches, carports, storage buildings and landscaping. There were also a fair number of 5th wheels and Motorhomes that were covered up for the season. Seems some people just leave their RV here in the park and drive down for the winter.

As usual, we looked for hiking opportunities and chose Camelback and Cholla. They are opposite sides of the same small mountain, which we did on separate days. The trails are fairly short at 4 – 5 miles each round trip, but both are rated extreme, so they are tough climbs with lots of scrambling over the rocks. We have adjusted very well to sleeping in, so both days we hiked we did not get up early enough to avoid the heat. By the time we got all packed up and drove to the trail head (about 40 min drive) it was around 9:00am and over 90 degrees. Most people were finished or at least headed down. We enjoyed both, but Cholla was less crowded and started in Scottsdale at the Phoenician golf course. As we climbed, we had great views of the course and the massive houses that surrounded it. We saw the usual lizards, squirrels, butterflies, and I got pics and video of a hummingbird in action - sweet.

After our first hike we went to Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World to get a camelback backpack, so we could share the weight of all the water we need to carry. I also got hiking shorts, a hiking shirt and a broad brim hat. Slowly but surely Bill is getting me to wear unattractive sportswear apparel (I’m not just saying this to suck up but Dessa makes it look good). So far I have drawn the line at hiking boots. My running shoes are working pretty well, although I did slip on the sandy gravel during the climb down and got a couple of minor scrapes. Next door to Bass Pro Shop we spotted a Famous Dave’s BBQ. Score!! This was one of our favorite places to eat when Bill lived in Denver. It is great food, and my favorite part of the meal is the cornbread muffin. It is really like corn cake, so I save it for desert. Yummy!

One of the main reasons for coming to Phoenix was to attend their Comicom festival. Neither of us has ever been to a Comicon but we knew people dressed up. We were still surprised however by the sights. We considered wearing our Halloween costumes, but decided against it, mostly because we are both introverts and do not like to attract attention. We didn't even wear our super hero shirts, but we should have. Pretty much everybody was making some kind of statement whether it was a costume, clothes, or something they carried like an animal backpack, stuffed animal, pretend weapon or just their badge on a lanyard covered with Comicon buttons. Next time we will wear costumes. Even though many of these people put significant effort into the details and accuracy of their costumes, they are all willing to compromise the look they worked so hard to create to keep their cell phones in their hands. What else can you expect from a group of geeks?

We thought we might be a bit on the older side for this event, but we were totally wrong about that. There were all kinds of people, and it was a big family affair. Lots of kids, with the whole family dressed up. If you bring a kid, you probably get better pictures, because the people in costume love to pose with the kids. We look forward to the day when we can bring grandkids, and not just for the pictures. There were some amazing costumes that must have cost a ton of money as well as lots of time and effort to make. The sheer variety was astounding. Most had nothing to do with comics, but instead were characters. Khaleesi was popular among the ladies often accompanied by an Unsullied, but otherwise we were surprised there were not a lot of Game of Thrones or Vikings costumes.

For our male readers you may have imagined Comicon to be a bevy of nubile young things dressed in skimpy super hero costumes. I did. Reality unfortunately did not love up to expectations. There were a dozen or so women that fit the target demographic but the other 20,000 people there on Saturday appeared to come from the other half of the physical specimen pool. I did my best to capture photos of the appropriate dozen without too obviously looking like the creepy old guy that I apparently am. This is not to say that Comicon was a disappointment. What was lost in sex appeal was made up in creativity, variety and fun.

We spent a fair amount of time wandering the congress floor looking at all the stuff for sale and people watching. We also went to 3 of the 100+ panels/sessions on various (silly) topics that were scheduled. Bill had selected about 30 he was interested in, many at conflicting times but fortunately I kept him to just the 3. The first was on the evolution of the Imperial Storm Troopers where they had people in various (excellent) costumes and gave out prizes to those who could answer geeky trivia questions (we left early). We also went to a costume design panel, which was led by four prop designers that were far from amateurs. Finally, we went to a pumpkin carving session, which was not in fact a demonstration of carving but a talk by a very famous sculptor, Ray Villafane, who has worked in many mediums including sand but actually prefers pumpkins. He did a slide show of some of his work and it was truly amazing (during most of these sessions, Dessa was playing games on her iPhone).

There was a session on Rocky Horror that we went to that turned out to actually be a screening of the movie with some live actor accompaniment. We messed up the time and arrived too early but we did catch the end of Katee Sackoff’s Q&A session (for those that don’t know her, she was Starbuck on Battlestar Galatica and had some bits on Big Bang Theory as Howard’s bathtub fantasy girl). Rather than wait for the screening to start we decided to give the Haunted House a try. We waited in line for an hour and it wasn’t worth it. Maybe our expectations were too high but it was sort of lame compared to the haunted houses in Dallas around Halloween (of course this one was free). For lunch we walked to Alice Cooperstown, a sports bar meets rock 'n roll bar. Really good food and very cold beer. Comicon was lots of fun and we stayed all day. The event was actually 4 days long and we saw lots of people sporting full event passes. That would have been way too much for me.

I mapped a motorcycle ride for us up the Apache Trail through the Superstition Mountains looping back through Roosevelt and Globe. It was very hot and a Sunday so we had company on the road, in the form of trucks pulling boats up to Lost Canyon Lake (which we might have been doing if we had had a boat). This was sort of a drag but we really couldn’t have gone a lot faster given the road was so twisty. Part way up to the lake we were passed by a cop with his siren running and about 5 miles past the lake we came upon the reason. Some 20 something guys were sitting on the side of the road. One of them must have been driving a little too fast as one of their fast and furious type cars had slid off the road and ended up about 30 feet down the side of the hill.

A few miles farther along, the paved road came to an end with a sign that said gravel road for the next 28 miles. You would think Google maps would have mentioned this but obviously not. Given the paved road was narrow, very twisty and even had a couple of single lane bridges we decided to turn around. As it turns out this was a good thing. On the return trip we decided to stop in Tortilla Flats for lunch at the Superstition Saloon. We had their awesome Killer Chile in a Bread Boule while sitting at the bar on Saddle stools. The whole place was decorated with money that previous guests had written notes on or signed. The bartender said there was over $120,000 on the walls from about 25 different countries (we added our $1 bill). The bathroom had low saloon style doors on the stalls, with painted western ladies from the neck down on the doors and the heads on the wall behind the toilets. From the street, the building looked like an old western town, with a tiny schoolroom turned museum at one end and a general store at the other end. It was great stop that we would have missed if the road hadn’t turned to gravel.

Phoenix was too hot but we did not let that stop us. Next stop... The Grand Canyon. It’s supposed to be a lot cooler up there. I'm looking forward to that.


Higher resolution photos are available on Flikr:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bill_and_ dessa/sets/