16: Adventures in Arizona

Hello "True Believers," and welcome to my travel series. This go around the family and myself ran away to Arizona to visit family.

We did a ton of adventures, which are:
1. Mon: Sedona & Mortimer Farms
2. Tue: Out of Africa
3. Wed: The Grand Canyon & Horse Shoe Bend
4. Thu: Tombstone (The infamous wild west ghost town)
5. Fri: Odysea (Arizona Aquarium)

Monday - Sedona & Mortimer Farms:

Sedona was great! For those that have been to the states (like California), Sedona is very much like Carmel and Santa Cruz blended together as one town rich in red rock all around the area. The main strip (or road) has nothing but shops like: jewelry, tarot readings, trinkets, clothing, and desserts. Other shops included restaurants like Mexican, Italian, coffee, American, and etc. You really can't go wrong where one went. The people are nice, and love to chat your ears off. The heat really wasn't a big deal, and is kind of a stereotype among most individuals. It really all depends on the humidity. For instance in these two places, the humidity was low, so the weather was 90 degrees out but felt like a cool California 70 degrees out.

Mortimer Farms is just down the highway on the way to Prescott. Its a cute farm place for kids. You pay $10 dollars for each person. Once inside, there are chickens and goats the children can feed and pet. A western playground: Car tires in the shade of horses that the little ones sit on and get pushed like a carrousel, a ridiculous over size inflated trampoline, a race track with tricycles, slides, zipline, and a western playground. If a family pays extra, you can go berry picking.

Tuesday - Out of Africa:

Wow! I had a mixed review on this. I better start off with the pro's first. We did a tiger, giraffe, and a sloth feeding. I had a blast with the sloth feeding, and here's why? I do not know anywhere in California where you can pet and feed a sloth, so it was a must! Second, it was cheap here to do. $60 for up to three people. Other places to feed a sloth was $60 per person. So, I already know this is the best idea currently. I learned a lot about the sloth. For instance, the sloth has no sweat glands, so it never smells,lol. It moves slowly, has poor eye sight, and loves to be pet. The tiger feeding was $5 per person, but I also liked the giraffe feeding. All guests got a piece of celery. I put mine piece in my mouth so I would get a kiss (with a picture as a bonus!). The giraffe feeding was free, also my daughter and I weren't able to feed the giraffe, so the driver had us both go to the front of the bus to get our kisses. So cool in regards to the gift shop. The staff had a parakeet walking around on the ground. It climb on my shoulders and began talking to me and kissing my face. That was cool. My little had no fear in petting a python snake on the head.

The con side:

Well. Here I go... The zoo/park is outside. It was hot 100' degree with HIGH humidity. Ya you could crack an egg and cook it on the ground. The staff stated you could walk to each exhibit, or you can take a shuttle and see everything as you were sitting down. We chose to be driven around. The family and I were drinking our weight in water, but this didn't help. I felt like I was getting heat stroke. My wife almost fainted twice, and my poor three year old girl was not doing so great either.

Wednesday - Horseshoe Bend & The Grand Canyon:

Horseshoe Bend is up near Page, Az. This was a great experience, but for a price. I kind of contradicted myself, it was free to enter, but I meant we metaphorically paid the price to get there. It was about a mile walk. The first half mile was walking at a 35 degree angle, and the other half was walking down. Remember, going back was the same experience, lol. Two, it was 87' degrees, but the humidity was ferocious! Ya, 87' degrees, but the heat felt like 120' degrees. My favorite tourists, which equaled out to tons... and tons of people. It was kind of awesome though. There were people from France, Korea, Germany, Russia, and etc. Horseshoe Bend is a giant rock surrounded by water in the shape of a horseshoe. The metal railing does not go around the whole area. If one falls, it's a nice quarter of a mile drop. I had my wife watch our daughter as I walked a round to get a good shot. I laid down on the edge and looked down. Man, I felt a case of Vertigo take over. I still got the shot though. I had to rush back, because my daughter was screaming out for me worried I will fall off the edge.

The Grand Canyon Experience:

Hmmm. How do I start this one? Let me start off with the Pro's. The place is big. It has hotels, gas stations, restaurants, animals (We saw extremely big deer: does and bucks), and trains. I got a very nice shot of the grand canyon...

The con...

It was $35 dollars to get in. A fixed price for 7 days. It took a while to get to mid point for pictures. People were difficult to deal with. Cars had to stop in the middle of the road. At first, I thought their had been an accident, or a car off to the road in need of assistance. Nope. People stopped on both sides of the road, dodging in and out of people trying to pass, because they wanted a picture of a deer eating near the side of the road. So what did I do? In order to handle the frustration, I waited until I could accelerate, and honked the car. My wife stated these people gave me the stink eye, due to the buck running away, lol. Hear me out for a second, okay. What you do not know is every 100 feet were deer. And every 100 feet was a parking off the road to take pictures, and not block the road. These people were not respectful of other families time, and were self inflated of what they were doing at that moment in time. Given those factors, I couldn't help to honk and drive away laughing...

Thursday - Tombstone (The infamous ghost town of the wild west)!

This was amazing! No cons at all. This was free to get in and parking was fabulous! The people are kind, talkative, and informal. Great people. There was something spiritual walking in this sacred town. This is where Doc Holiday, Whyte Earp, and others walked hundred of years ago. I took a picture of the "Birdcage Theatre." It is know to be extremely haunted, and they give tours. Call me superstitious, but I got a weird negative vibe walking by it, so I passed on going in. We ate at the Longhorn restaurant. Prices are great and affordable. I took a few rocks home as keepsakes. I know these were rocks that Earp, and Holiday could have walked on. It is a place of legend! My wife, daughter and I did a classic western saloon picture. Awesome. The girls got ice-cream. The owners are from California like me. I took this as a good omen, because like them, I am eager to move out to Arizona soon. I just love the people, culture and the arts out here. The heat wasn't bad at all. Low humidity, and we left early before the weather took us. Go early, and leave early and your experience will be great, partners, lol.

Friday - Odysea Aquarium:

This was the families last stop before driving back to California. It is a circular aquarium, and bigger than the Monterey aquarium. The month of July is the "Shark Experience." They got dolphins, and such. Of course my daughter had a great time. The bathrooms were rated as the best bathrooms in the U.S. Why? well lets just say the bathroom is its own shark tank. Ya, I washed my hands as a big Tiger Shark coasted by looking at me like I was a soon to be snack. The place had glass sphere chandeliers filled with water and different variety of fish in each one swimming around. At the end of the exhibit, what appears to be a theatre is actually a 400,00 gallon tank, with a seating room that turns 360' transforming the view to see each species in the exhibit. Ya! Its that cool!

Cons:

It is over priced. The same company owns the whole out door circular strip mall that houses the aquarium, outer body experience, dinosaur exhibit, swim with dolphins experience, the butterfly exhibit, all restaurants, and stores. I feel the company is greedy. This institution could do a combo sale and sell tickets cheaper for a rate for doing all the over all experience. Instead, you are charged full admission for all places!? Greed, Greed, Greed. Really hard to enjoy beautiful places like these if you are a blue collar worker. This is just my opinion.

Outside of this, the family and I had a great experience! And like this wonderful journey, I can't help to think how it relates to The World is Rigged book that will be published this year. The adventures in this story are very wide spread. There will be adventures that are spiritual, magical/fantasy, traveling through different galaxies, and going through altered dimensions by traveling into worm holes. I'll just stop it there. Like Arizona, you will have to just go and experience it yourself, when the time comes!

Again, thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read about my experiences. Until next time! Here is a cheezie video I mad on YouTube, if your interested! Arizona

Peace,

Dustin