ARIZONA
Scottsdale Vacation 2020
Since half of this trip was spent drinking in the Airbnb pool, I’ll just condense it into one long post. I knew I wanted to meet up with my friend who lived in Austin, and we figured with COVID we could do a roadtrip and meet somewhere in the middle. Arizona fit the bill perfectly. One question was where would we meet in Arizona? Flagstaff, Tucson and Phoenix were all options. There’s a lot more to do in Arizona than I originally thought!
With a third friend involved and some research on Airbnbs, we landed on Scottsdale, which is right next to Phoenix. Even in October it was going to be in the 100s for the entire first half of the week. For total luxury our pool had heating, and we had a hot tub!
We left bright and early on a Monday morning and knocked the 12 hour drive out. Tuesday and Wednesday I think I spent a good amount of my days drinking Whiteclaw and floating in the pool. I also did some painting for Inktober and reading. Unfortunately I’m behind on both endeavors. I still need to read 12 more books in 2020!
Thursday it was going to be hot again but I really wanted to break up the days with a hike so we decided to hit Usery Mountain Regional Park because it was only 30 minutes away from the Airbnb. The Wind Cave trail was “only” 2.8 miles out and back but the elevation gain (~750 feet) is pretty brutal when it’s 95 degrees F out. I wore sunscreen and my hat but my 3L camelbak of water was empty at the top of the mountain. Even so, I do really love the views of the mountains around here.
The first section is relatively flat and has nice views of all the cacti.
The main thing to know about this trail is that there’s very little to no shade until you get nearly to the top. The top does have a cave (or, more accurately, a rock alcove) where you can cool off and enjoy the views before descending.
We saw a bunch of little chipmunks at the top, including this absolute chonk who appeared to be king of the mountain:
The shady cave:
The view:
I’m not totally sure what that green mossy stuff is on the mountain walls. I presume moss but, it does seem weird with how dry things are there’d be moss!
So we ate our snacks at the top and then powered our way back to the bottom. The way down was brutal, especially for my friend who is NOT an experienced hiker. I was hoping the hike wouldn’t be too hard on her but it was definitely less than ideal. We splashed water on ourselves in the park bathroom, and then drove to the nearest Walgreens for Pedialyte to get back some hydration and electrolytes.
The other hikes I wanted to do in this area but didn’t have time to do were:
- Camelback Mountain - I actually hadn’t picked out a hike yet but there are a bunch of options
- Peralta Trail - the trailhead was in the same neighborhood as our Airbnb
I realized if I wanted to do a longer hike I would definitely have to leave earlier in the morning though!
So I’ll skip over all the other relaxing activities we did and go straight to Sunday, when we checked out the Phoenix-Goodyear Airport. This popped up somewhere as a destination in Phoenix but all the websites for the airport kind of make it sound like… not a tourist destination. Technically you can drive down S Bullard Street to see all the airplanes stored there, but there are no tours, no parking, and you can’t get very close to the planes. We pulled off on the right side of the road and walked alongside the airport’s fence to get a decent view of some of the planes while I read fun facts from my phone.
The largest boneyard in the country is actually in Tucscon, only an hour and a half away. But with COVID the tours are all canceled and you can only see those planes with a tour. I’d say if you’re a commercial airline nerd this might be interesting. However, Goodyear (the town) is not a nice place. We got a flat tire right outside the airport. Thankfully a nice man helped us put the donut on and directed us to the nearby tire shops where we got a new tire put on with little to no drama.
So to keep this blog post short-ish, I really loved my trip to Arizona. With COVID it was a bit challenging, we had to skip Taliesin West for example. With my research on Flagstaff and Tucscon as well, I think there’s quite a bit more to see in Arizona. Hopefully I’ll get another chance!