menu


  • Home
  • Kruger
  • Florida Redux
  • Edisto
  • Paris
  • Phoenix
  • Budapest
  • CYC People
  • CYC Places
  • Lake House
  • Links
  • Retreat
  • Pyroghies
  • Round Hill

Phoenix



Jewel in the dessert.



Phoenix is a city of contrasts





My first trip in retirement was a quick trip to Phoenix to a family golfing bolt hole picked up in the recession. Daily road trips followed many of the trails to specific neighbourhoods in the city with an accent on the natural world of the dessert.



The airport, PHX, is nestled between the bluffs.



The dessert is a forest of cacti.



Remotes laid out for sale at a thrift sale.



Cacti are alive but they wear the scars of living.



Saguaro cactus are protected. This one is over 200 years old, each arm taking 50 years to grow.



Saguaro are the kings of the landscape.



Petting goat to break up the tedium of thrift shopping.



Your photographer was attacked by a killer cactus. One quick bush and these can dig deep into one.



Love these flowers.



Cosanti



Historic artistic community continuing to finance and underwrite further growth.​



the dessert forest



A blend of cacti of all sizes makes up the forest. It is a hostile environment as spines and spikes guard many of these plants. Considering the centuries needed to create this landscape the need for protection is clear.



Cosanti, the foundry



Click here to go to website and more information.



dessert landscape



this was so far from my lifestyle it was downright exotic.



Phoenix is to Calgary as Montreal is to Miami. Several flights per day, a huge Customs area ensure the snowbirds convenience when it comes to living in two homes.


It was something adapting to living in a place where it gets hot, very hot in the summer months. The grass is plastic, much of the yard covered in paving or rocks with nothing living except the palms, orange and lemon trees and floral bushes. There was a letter noting a weed sticking up on the property. Someone must have snagged it as it was gone. The pool takes on a central place in the lifestyle. Inside the home all routes lead from the pool to the ensuite washroom on waterproof tiles. You dry and dress to watch television.


Phoenix is a city of neighbourhoods connected by freeways. The downtown core has a Light Rail connection. For the tourist, the daily drill is a drive to one or more such area, tour, take lunch and return. Phoenix is like Cape Town with brick walls around all yards. In South Africa they are guarding against criminals but in Phoenix it is natural things that can kill you. Privacy is huge as well. With the palms and walls you could believe you were in Florida.



Happiness is homemade