Posts filed under 'Travel'
We spent most of the day touring different parts of the region, mostly shopping and dinning.
One proof that the region is growing fast is that my last year GPS map is already outdated when driving on the Phoenix freeways. This is one of the regions that is smart enough to build the freeway road before develop communities, this gives enough room to plan ahead for future growth. I like their highway system, not too bad even in the commute hours. We were caught in the Friday PM traffic when we went to dinner, but it wasn’t too bad to drive on the freeway, the cars were still moving pretty fast, much better than NC.
Another reason that I like the region is that I can find all my favorite stores (IKEA, Fry’s electronics) locally. Phoenix IKEA is pretty new, this November is their one year anniversary, we wanted to buy a lot from the store but we cannot since we have no luggage spaces left. Fry’s is like Bay area’s Fry’s, twice as big as Bestbuy and plenty of gadgets that can keep me interested for about an hour.
Jane’s favorite store is an indoor market, a farmer’s market style marketplace but people selling all kinds of stuff include home decorations, cosmetics, accessories and souvenirs etc. This totally reminded me the market in China since most of the stuff are 100% made in China, and most importantly, the salesman is also Chinese. Jane was very pleased to find some accessories. But be aware, you need negotiation skills in the market place, the marked price is normally not what you ended up paying.
November 12th, 2005
The most famous part of Phoenix should be its deep root of native American (Indian) culture. Arizona has about 20 Indian reservations and that is the most in the country (the Navajo nation is supposed to be as large as the state of West Virginia). The first stop of visit in town is toward Pueblo Grande Museum, a museum showing the history of the city (where Honakam people lived until AD 1450).
Chinatown: The actual first stop is, bearing little relation to Indians, the most famous Chinese groceries store - Ranch 99. It is on our way from hotel to the museum (only few blocks away from the hotel). It has two express eateries, one HongKong style and one Taiwan style (they even serve Gang-Su-Ge, Jane’s favorite food, which we only seen in LA). The food is OK, but considering we haven’t seen Chinese food for days, the food tastes so good.
Pueblo Grande Museum: The museum is ranked as one of the top four attractions of the city according to Fodor’s travel guide, but we didn’t think so after the visit, go figure this: we were the first visitor of the day as of 1pm, consider the previous day got about 5 visitors in total. So unless it is a hot summer day and you need some AC cooling, we don’t recommend it.
Desert Botanical Garden: The next stop after the disappointment is however a pleasant surprise: it is a big garden built in a desert setting. It is our first time to see such full range of desert plants: from 20 feet tall (150 year) old Saguaro to tiny cactus, after seen this, we decided no need to visit the Saguaro National Park near Tucson. If season is correct (Spring and Fall is the best), you can also expect to see several kinds of hummingbirds. We only saw two hummingbirds, the color was not as bright as seen in the postcard, but you will be amazed to see these tiny birds flying around like bees. We highly recommend the park. If you decide to visit the garden, pick a late afternoon and you can get excellent Sunset views with Saguaro sits in the backdrop of mountains.
Arizona Mills: The last stop of the day after the dinner was to stop by Arizona Mills – an outlet mall in Mills franchise. This is a smaller one in all the Mills we have visited (Potomac Mills in VA near to DC is still the largest).
November 11th, 2005
Today is the first time we saw pink color desert in person, and Jane concluded that it should be her last time to visit a desert (obviously she didn’t like it)
Coral Pink Sand Dune state park is a hidden treasure - not too many travel books mention about it. I didn’t know that unless I bump into a pro photographer’s journal. It is very close to the town of Kanab (close to Zion national park, at the southwestern corner of Utah), you can easily find the sign on Utah state highway 89, the park is about 10 minutes drive from route 89.
The color and shapes of the sand dune is amazing, this gives me a wonderful chance to photograph desert visit visiting going to the africa. The actual photo condition of my visit wasn’t that exciting, there was no bluesky and it would be more rewarding if it was a sunny day. But still, I am quite happy with the results.
If you love photography like I do, you prob should consider this place next time you visit Utah.
November 10th, 2005
It is Jane’s bday today, happy bday! It is very unique to celebrate someone’s Birthday in a desert, after all it is a good change from always celebrating b-day at home. Too bad that we still cannot get any cellphone signals in the region, I guess that is the purpose of the vacation – no phone calls, no emails, no Internet.
If you get time to make the grand circle driving tour, make sure you don’t miss Utah state highway 12 from Captial Reef N.P to Bryce N.P. The scenic drive is simply amazing. Part of the drive is on the ridge of mountain, where both sides of the road are cliffs. Driving in night is highly discouraged, it is not only unsafe, but also you will miss the magnificent view next to you. The color of plants in the fall season makes the canyons looks like postcard, we have to make multiple stops and the 100 mile drive ended up taking us 4 hours.
The best view of the Bryce national park is from Bryce Point, one of 13 view points of the park. The view reminds me of the view of terra-cotta soldiers site from China. If you plan to spend less than 3 hours in the park, make sure most of time is spent here. When you get to the vista point, you can easily feel your widest lens is still not wide enough to hold everything. You are surrounded by the Hoodoos in 360 degrees. and you are also intimidated by the cliffs
There are two other viewpoints worth of mentioning if you plan to stay some extended hours in the park: Sunset point and Sunrise point. Sunset point is the starting point of the most popular hiking trail: Navajo loop, a 1.3 mile moderate strenuous walk climbs up and down a hill with an elevation change of 500 feet. The scene of the “Wall Street” along the trail is totally different than what you would think from the viewpoint. The rock looks so tall that you can barely see the sky, and you’d think any rock can collapse anytime when you see the cracks of the rock, rest assured you are safe, usually the rock fell in the dark when temperature changes dramatically. Make sure walk slowly when you climb up in the 2nd half of the loop, it can be very tiring and most importantly, you are risk missing the view of the most photographed spot in the park: The Hammer of Theo, it appears in almost 2/3 of all postcards of the park (there are photos of it from almost every possible angle on the Internet). So even if you are taking the full hiking trail, spend some time to descend from Sunset point, take the left trail, which is very close to the Hammer.
Night stay at Best Western Ruby’s Inn is pretty decent, it has wirless internet only the in the lobby. The front desk said it will be availble to guest rooms (separate building) by next spring.
November 9th, 2005
Do you know there are more than 2000 natural arches in the Arches National Park (to qualify as an arch, the hole must have a diameter bigger than 3 feet so not all the hole in the rock can be an arch in the park), but most people go to the Park with just one goal, see the Delicate Arch. In deed, delicate arch is a truely iconic: The Utah state automobile plate uses Delicate Arch as their state symbol (like NC uses the first plane in flight as their symbol) and even US National Park Services uses Delicate Arch as their symbol. It becomes a must-see to Arches National Park, but it was not too easy to see it in close distance, you have to take a long walk (3 mile round trip, 2-3 hours of walking).
The reason I liked the hiking to see the arch is the actual experience: it is truly unique and you have to experience yourself to feel the power. The walk can be strenous to someone who are afraid of heights and you will walk on slickrocks (there wasn’t any trail except someone left marks on the rock) and use the ledges of cliffs, and best of all, you have no clue whatsoever on where is the goal and how far you are away until you made the last turn at the last minute. Actually I heard most following people’s first words after the arrival were: “Oh My God”.
The view at the first is truely spectacular. Mt La Sal sits far in the background (Mt La Sal has snow at its peak all year long). The surrouding cliffs created the feeling of the height while not impacting the openess of the view. The arch stands out at the edge of a cliff. The arch is like a muscular soldier - the texture of the rock due to the wind and water make the arch looks strong. You can easily feel the pressure from it.
The Delicate Arch spot is most crowded at sunset hours during a day, and during the peak season there could be more than 200 people sitting on the top of the mountain at the same time to enjoy the view. The day we picked to visit was Monday and since the sky was really cloudy, so not really too many people were with us, actually by the time we arrived, we are the only visitor (a couple of others arrived later on). So this gave me a great privilage to take Delicate Arch photos from almost every possible angle - I ended up with about 80 shots of the same arch!
The nature created the delicate arch and it will eventually destroy it, the arch will erode or colapse due to wind, so if you haven’t seen it yet, you should pay it a visit.
November 8th, 2005
By the time we finished our Sunset photography tour at Arches National Park, the sky quickly turned to dark. Knowing that the night drive in the mountain won’t be, we didn’t explore any good food options on our way to Torrey Utah - a riverfront restaurant near the town of Green River is good enough for us.
We switched the driver after the dinner, I took the wheel and set the cruise control to 85 mph, sure this sounds easy, but soon after I was on the road, I realized that I was the only one driving on I-70, luckily my exit Utah state highway 24 is the next. It was such a big relief after taking the exit but soon I realized things just got worse, I was still the only one on the road and there wasn’t any light next to the road. It was cloudy so really the sky is pitch black to me, the SUV headlight couldn’t light too far. The constant unchanging traffic pattern (the road was really straight) and same dark surroundings made me believe I must taking the circles – it just never ended! Indeed this was freaky, during the whole drive of 100 miles, I didn’t pass anyone nor did anyone passed me!
November 8th, 2005
Highlight of the day
Cathedral Duomo
May 22nd, 2005
Highlight of the day
Take train to Gornagrat Obvervatory (best view of Zermatt)
May 21st, 2005
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