Christmas in Arizona
The next morning, we hopped into the rental van, and headed to Yuma! I couldn’t get over how different the landscape was – I felt as though I was in a John Wayne movie! We all ate at a Cracker Barrel, I definitely did not know that it was a restaurant. It was very rustic, and interesting. Grits, biscuits and gravy to be had for all! We also went orange-picking, super cool! They grow things year-round in Arizona and being from snowy Canada, its a bit to comprehend.
From Yuma, it is only a short distance to Mexico. We decided to cross the border at Algodones, a little Mexican border town. In a four block radius, you can find pharmacies, doctors, dentists and optometrists in a large number. About 50% of the people who approached me were trying to sell me these professional services! My grandpa wanted to get a haircut there because a men’s cut is $3. Besides professional services, there were also artists who painted their wares in front of you – one lady used a plastic bag to paint! It was really neat. My mom convinced my dad to get his shoes shined, and as a teacher I think he really enjoyed talking to the little guy about school and sports. I bought a few things, but I found the quality of the products to all be sub-par and not really unique. We headed back to Yuma for lunch, then back to Phoenix for the night.
On Christmas Eve, we decided we wanted to do something together that was Christmassy, so we drove to the Arizona Celebration of Lights, a drive through light display. It was very similar to the zoolights here in Calgary, except you drove and tuned your radio to a specific frequency for the show.
We decided we wanted to do some hiking in the mountains (I feel weird calling them that because they don’t seem like mountains should be…). It was really nice – the temperature was around 20C, and there were no bugs or critters around. I guess that’s because it is their winter season, despite the temperature, and most creatures are hibernating.
We also wanted to spend some time in Scottsdale (downtown Phoenix) so we took the Light Rail into the city. They had a lot of historic buildings, some of which had been there since the late 1800′s/early 1900′s. There were a lot of touristy things, like this lovely old man playing guitar and singing, and horse-drawn carriage rides. There also was a man dressed to look like a statue – he would hold a pose until someone would sit next to him, and then he would turn his head and look at them. I tried to get my sister to do that, but she saw him moving before I could get her to sit next to him.
I had become quite sick in the last couple of days that we were in Phoenix, so I was quite glad to be on my way back to Calgary. All in all it was a great experience, and I would love to go back again!
Christmas season… with sweaters!
