First day in Arizona
Oct. 23rd, 2008 11:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fenchurchIt's been wonderful to finally meet and get to know ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rackham's aunt... since until now, we'd only ever managed a few phone conversations, which is really not the same thing. We spent the morning visiting with her -- not only had we never met in person before, but Rackham hadn't seen her since he was in his late teens, so we had a LOT to talk about. :-)
Around lunchtime we headed down to the Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall, grabbed a quick bite at the Paradise Bakery cafe (we'd scoped out the food court and it was the only local place there... and it was also the busiest, with a fairly long line but surprisingly speedy service and really good food), wandered around the mall for a bit and finally hit the P.B. Loco Cafe! MMmmmmmmm... fantastic!!! We sampled a bunch of the different types of peanut butter and finally got two Sampler Platters (our choice of three different types of peanut butter served with celery, carrots, pretzels and sliced apples). I ended up with Banana, Asian Curry and Cinnamon & Raisin (which is one I hadn't expected to like, but loved when I tasted it). The banana was probably my favorite... Of course, when I was a kid my favorite flavor of Koogle Peanut Butter was the banana (I think Koogle may have been a regional brand -- they made several different flavored peanut butters, including banana, vanilla and chocolate). We need to swing back by there and buy a few jars to take home (I don't know why we didn't just pick them up today, but for some reason at the time it seemed like a good idea to wait).
At that point, we decided it was too late in the day to appreciate a trip to the Science Museum or the Mystery Castle, so we looked up the closest Bookman's (which was recommended by a friend) and headed over to Mesa. Wow! What a fun store!!! Sort of like a really large Half-Price Books, with all sorts of other used stuff thrown in (like boardgames, comics, magazines, action figures and knick-knacks). We're thinking we may look at swinging by some of their other locations while we're here.
We managed to escape without going too deeply in debt (although Rackham nearly had to pry me out of the Physics section (I have this same problem at Powell's City of Books in Portland)) and in the end just bought a boxed set of Good Eats DVDs that look like they'd never been viewed. Squee!! Then I remembered thatnapalm_isis actually lives in Mesa, so I gave her a call and we decided to meet up at the Superstition Springs Shopping Center.
That was a blast! We ended up just wandering around the mall and chatting... and then we gave her a lift home and stood around there chatting for awhile, too. And, unlike most of the other times when I've met up with LJ friends, I actually remembered to get a photo of the two of us together! Yay! (I'm still kicking myself for not thinking of it when we visited withcuriouswombat and speakr2customrs or with gillo or with nutmeg3 or when we met up with queenofthorns or... well, you get the idea.) At some point, when I have a better method for resizing the photo at my disposal, I'll have to see about posting it!
Tomorrow we're planning on hitting the aforementioned Science Museum for the Narnia exhibit and the Mystery Castle... and just plain wandering around Phoenix, since we really haven't made it into the city yet, having mostly just bopped around Scottsdale and Mesa.
rackham's aunt... since until now, we'd only ever managed a few phone conversations, which is really not the same thing. We spent the morning visiting with her -- not only had we never met in person before, but Rackham hadn't seen her since he was in his late teens, so we had a LOT to talk about. :-) Around lunchtime we headed down to the Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall, grabbed a quick bite at the Paradise Bakery cafe (we'd scoped out the food court and it was the only local place there... and it was also the busiest, with a fairly long line but surprisingly speedy service and really good food), wandered around the mall for a bit and finally hit the P.B. Loco Cafe! MMmmmmmmm... fantastic!!! We sampled a bunch of the different types of peanut butter and finally got two Sampler Platters (our choice of three different types of peanut butter served with celery, carrots, pretzels and sliced apples). I ended up with Banana, Asian Curry and Cinnamon & Raisin (which is one I hadn't expected to like, but loved when I tasted it). The banana was probably my favorite... Of course, when I was a kid my favorite flavor of Koogle Peanut Butter was the banana (I think Koogle may have been a regional brand -- they made several different flavored peanut butters, including banana, vanilla and chocolate). We need to swing back by there and buy a few jars to take home (I don't know why we didn't just pick them up today, but for some reason at the time it seemed like a good idea to wait).
At that point, we decided it was too late in the day to appreciate a trip to the Science Museum or the Mystery Castle, so we looked up the closest Bookman's (which was recommended by a friend) and headed over to Mesa. Wow! What a fun store!!! Sort of like a really large Half-Price Books, with all sorts of other used stuff thrown in (like boardgames, comics, magazines, action figures and knick-knacks). We're thinking we may look at swinging by some of their other locations while we're here.
We managed to escape without going too deeply in debt (although Rackham nearly had to pry me out of the Physics section (I have this same problem at Powell's City of Books in Portland)) and in the end just bought a boxed set of Good Eats DVDs that look like they'd never been viewed. Squee!! Then I remembered that
napalm_isis actually lives in Mesa, so I gave her a call and we decided to meet up at the Superstition Springs Shopping Center.That was a blast! We ended up just wandering around the mall and chatting... and then we gave her a lift home and stood around there chatting for awhile, too. And, unlike most of the other times when I've met up with LJ friends, I actually remembered to get a photo of the two of us together! Yay! (I'm still kicking myself for not thinking of it when we visited with
curiouswombat and speakr2customrs or with gillo or with nutmeg3 or when we met up with queenofthorns or... well, you get the idea.) At some point, when I have a better method for resizing the photo at my disposal, I'll have to see about posting it!Tomorrow we're planning on hitting the aforementioned Science Museum for the Narnia exhibit and the Mystery Castle... and just plain wandering around Phoenix, since we really haven't made it into the city yet, having mostly just bopped around Scottsdale and Mesa.
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Date: 2008-10-24 06:00 pm (UTC)Also, have you seen anything about the Firefly installation at the Phoenix Museum of Art? It may no longer be there, but my other sister visited it a few months ago, and she said it was amazing - kind of like standing on the edge of the universe. I wish I could see it.
Continue to have fun, and my best to those newlyweds. :)