© 2011 notworkrelated - David Rutter & Helen Roscoe. All rights reserved. notworkrelated_usa_road_phoenix_07

USA – Road Trip – Phoenix – 27th / 31st October

We had the car with us for the next two days, and as we had both been ill that week we hadn’t planned to do too much in Phoenix. Our first day saw us drive out to Scottsdale where we enjoyed good sandwiches at The Orange Table next to the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMOCA). When we had finished our lunch we headed into the SMOCA as it is free on Thursdays! It was a good job that the gallery was free that day as we weren’t very impressed by the People’s Biennial exhibit and other installations were in progress so we couldn’t see much further into the museum. They do have a nice outdoor elliptical sky space and some lovely cacti around!

Leaving slightly uninspired we made our way to Tempe to check out ASU and the Art Museum there. Helen had pretty much been raving on about it all morning saying how nice the architecture is there and the museum is really interesting etc. So I think Dave was pretty impressed when we did arrive and go round the museum. Some of the art is perhaps a little too over the top for us, but they do have an anaconda on exhibit there at the moment who has been rescued from its owner and the architecture didn’t disappoint. We explored the campus some more before making our way back to Dave’s and cooking up a lovely fish dinner! Oh to be cooking in a proper kitchen again!

The next morning we were up early and Helen enjoyed an excellent massage from Massage Envy located in the Mayo area. She’s been having some neck pain so it was long anticipated! Dave meanwhile occupied a cafe and edited our imagery! When we left we realised we hadn’t actually had the car booked until friday but it was supposed to go back on Wednesday! Stooooopid! After we rang and explained they just charged us for the extra days rental and  so after a little longer journey to drop the car off (they advertise the drop off as down town Phoenix when it is around 19 miles north of downtown!!) and a taxi to the nearest light rail stop, we eventually took the light rail to downtown. For the rest of the afternoon we stopped at Starbucks and took advantage of wifi use before Dave joined us for a mighty meal at Same’s Cafe in the Arizona Center.

On the 29th October it was Dave’s birthday! WOOOO! Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you! etc! Another birthday overseas, can’t be too bad going for us! This time we enjoyed the company of cousin Dave who took us on a steep hike up Flat Iron’s Rock. The hike took around 5 hours and it was tough in parts, especially if you weren’t used to scrambling up rocks! The views up top were awesome! The descent was harder still because of the steepness so we knew we would be feeling stiff the next day.

When we got back from the hike we enjoyed some home-cooked birthday cake and got ready for a night out in Scotsdale. We ate at A Touch of Thai, where the food was really tasty but the atmosphere was poor. This was followed though by excellent atmosphere and pretty cheap drinks at Dos Gringos. An 80′s famous fancy dress party was taking place and we didn’t quite fit in (not dressed for the occasion) but that didn’t matter!

On the 30th heads were sore and we anticipated the arrival of Jill and Joe, who would be helping us out massively again by bringing us back to LA the next morning. We had a pretty chilled day whilst Joe and Dave tackled some DIY and we walked through some local hills to wake ourselves up a bit. Cheap food at Chuuy’s and we were ready for bed! Thanks to cousin Dave for having us stay!!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

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