Holiday’s AZ Style
Every job transition has been different. Our first one we didn’t move locations, just to a new apartment closer to Amity’s clinic. Our second move we took over three weeks to explore the Oregon and Washington Coast, which we found was absolutely beautiful but way too long between jobs. This transition was a quick one. It felt like we were just in Washington looking at the Harbor Seals, and now we are navigating around the Saguaro Cacti while exploring the desert landscapes. One thing we did not expect, was how big people in the Phoenix area go for Christmas! The holiday spirit runs very loud and very proud here. With lights everywhere and events going on all the time, it has been easy for us to get into the holiday spirit.
Mile: 28,576
Quote of the Blog: “Aren’t you forgetting the true meaning of Christmas? Ya, know. The birth of Santa” - Bart Simpson
Song of the Blog: Carrol of the Bells - Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Prior to coming to Arizona, we had done some research into what was happening in the area while we were here. One of the events that popped up was Trans-Siberian Orchestra. If you haven’t heard of them, I bet you have at least heard them. They are an amazing blend of rock and roll guitar, Christmas songs, lasers, flames, Christmas carolers, more lasers and more flames! We have been to them once before in Spokane, and we loved it! We had to buy the tickets. This was our first weekend in Phoenix. The show was great! It really got the Christmas spirit flowing!
As we started to settle into our new place, we started to see that people really like to put up Christmas decorations here. So much, that we started driving around at night looking at them. Amity has even started running at night after work to be able to see the lights. We think it is because the weather is so nice here, that people can go out and hang as many lights and put as many blow up decorations in their yard without getting cold. Win for us! Over the past couple weeks, we have taken advantage of this multiple times and plan to continue to do so until they all start to come down.
Being in the new desert landscape, we had to find a trail to hike. Close to our rental is the Skyline Regional Park. This is a mountainous zone littered with cacti and other crazy/gnarly looking plants. We found a four and a half mile hike that included a summit. The trail was called the Turnbuckle Loop to Valley Vista to Mountain Wash. The area is really well maintained. They even had a small family hike going on at one of the trailheads for kids to do a short hike out to take photos with Santa in the desert. While hiking, we were immediately inundated with new and novel things. It is really amazing the variety of plants out there, and how gnarly the plants around here look. The views got better and better was we elevated. The 360 degree panoramic views from the top were worth every step! Another bonus for this hike, there were barely any people!!! Oh and it was 75 degrees out on an early December day. We are definitely going to take advantage of this!
An added advantage to being next to a city is the available nightlife. We took some time to research some Holiday Pop-Up Bars in the Phoenix area. Some of them are really hard to get into, and other are as easy as getting in line at the door. For our first night of Holiday Pop-Up’s we found the Blitzen Bar at Culinary Dropout in Tempe. This was close to the Phoenix Zoo, where they were doing their Holiday Zoolights event. The bar was super nice and the decorations were great. This set the mood for the holiday lights at the zoo.
We did not know what to expect, because we made the decision to go here about 45 minutes prior to going. It was awesome! The whole place was lit up with all kinds of different lights and decorations. Some of the more nocturnal animals were out and about. We saw Hyenas, an Asian Elephant, lots of species of birds and got to see one of the Lions and hear him roar. That was awesome! On top of that some of the best light displays I have ever seen; including a long tunnel of lights you could walk through. I heard someone say, “I don’t want to leave this tunnel.” Such a fun night!
Our next Holiday Pop-Up Bar night took us over to the Scottsdale area. We had made some reservations to a place Amity had found called, wcoiwfchjsf. Our reservations we not until 10pm, and we were really worried we would not be able to stay up that late. Funny how times have changed! In out hunt to find things to fill time before this reservation, we found a restaurant called, Salt & Lime, that was doing a holiday pop-up. We were not able to get a reservation, but by luck of the draw the waiting list at the front door was not that long. We ended up just waiting the 45 minutes in our car watching the Montana Grizzly football team play in the semifinals of the FCS national championship. This ended up being such an epic game, that by the time we were at our table having dinner, I had a hard time not yelling at the game celebrating with them. The décor at this spot was absolutely on point!!! All the way down to the bathrooms, there wasn’t an inch of this place that wasn’t decorated with holiday spirit! Even all the tvs had holiday movies on. I especially was stoked on the claymation Rudolph that was on! Food and drinks were equally on point! It was a great start to the night. We headed down to the area where our late night reservation was at to find another spot to get a drink. We ended up finding the party district, and hopped around to a couple spots. It is always insightful to go into the world of late-night 20-somethings. WOW!
We finally made it to our 10pm reservation. We were so happy to have a reservation! The line to go in at the door was already around the block. This spot is called 50 Shades of Rose, but was calling itself 50 Shades of Christmas for their holiday pop-up. It was featuring drinks and food inspired by Snoop Dogg and Martha Stuart. Needless to say, it was bomb, hilarious and awesome all at the same time! There were hundreds of Snoop on the Stoop’s everywhere and amazing decorations to go with it. A live DJ spinning music, and each of the drinks came in their own fun cups! This place was dialed in! We had a total blast!
Even with having a 10pm reservation, we were able to be done and gone by 11pm. Getting back home from Phoenix is actually really smooth and easy. We are definitely tired, but full of holiday spirit! Ready to celebrate the Christmas holiday with family in Missouri! Time to get some work done, rest up and fly out to Missouri for some gooey breakfast rolls, midwestern holiday fun and most importantly I need to retain my crown as champing of the dice game at Uncle Rick’s house!!