Week 34 - Sunrise Trail Hike

Hiked up a new trail in North Scottsdale by 136th Street and Shea area - See my Arcadia Living blog for more photos and description.

JAlexanders

Tried out JAlexander Restaurant on Wednesday with Liz, Ames, Kelley and Carol. It is a new restaurant in the Borgata. The restaurant was very similar to Houstons (almost a direct copy) - but I prefer Houstons. I had the grilled vegetable platter with couscous. It was pretty good. Carol had the grilled chicken finger salad - that looked better!

Week 33 - Luke Airforce Base

I went to an open house at the base the night before Luke Airforce Base's big Air Show Desert Thunder. These are not my photos - but I did get to see the incredible "Wall of Fire" and a MIG flying and doing a pirotechnique show. (My camera batteries were dead :( )

I have lived in the Phoenix area for more than 30 years and had never been out to the base. It is the only F-16 training facility in the world and they have trained more than 55,000 pilots there. It was fun to see all the planes and I just couldn't get over how fast the jets fly. It is so impressive to see them fly in person.

Week 32 - Heirloom Restaurant

I recently ate at Chef Michael DeMeara's (from the Citadel) new restaurant up in DC Ranch called Heirloom. It is promoted as using all locally grown produce and organic meats. Well I guess there is nothing that is growing now, because they didn't have any produce on the menu. I had the tomato basil soup (which was very tasty) and the lobster (three bites on a plate) and we split a couple of deserts - a mango tapioca creme brulee concoction and the custard-filled home made donuts. I know they promote it as being able to sample several different courses (all of which were some sort of meat) - I am still thinking their small sampling is just a way to get people to spend more money. We had a reservation and still had to wait for about 15-20 minutes, but they offered wine while we waited. At least it made me think that the enconomy is not quite so bad when the restaurants are starting to be full again.

Week 31 - Ski Lessons

Not a great picture since it was taken with a throw away camera - but my friend Margaret Ann and I got free lessons from an old pro at Vail last week. His name was Bob Martin and he was a professional ski racing instructor for 20 years. He now volunteers his time at Vail as one of those information folks on the slopes. We must have looked like we needed help, because he took us all over the mountain for about three hours. It was a glorious day and we got in about 13 runs - perfect for the last day of the trip.