The Desert Botanical Gardens contain a wide variety of plant life.
We'd skipped breakfast in order to hit the Gardens early--before it got too hot--knowing they had a café where we could get something to eat before we started. The café is located at the back of the Gardens, so we did view some of the grounds and took pictures on our stroll to find breakfast. Between the traffic snarl and the roundabout route, we were getting breakfast a bit later than usual, so were hungry. The breakfast selection consisted of some pastries and dried cereal, so we opted for lunch instead. I had a salad nicoise, and Lauri had a sandwich of rosemary-flavored ham that came with sweet-potato chips. With brunch out of the way, we set off to explore the Gardens.
The full tour took about 2 and a half more hours. The DBG features separate walks for the Sonoran desert (which includes Phoenix and Tucson as well as much of north-central Mexico), for the early-American peoples who lived in the area, desert wildflowers, and one for adapting to living in the desert. The purely botanical sections were the best, I thought, with plenty of placards along the trail to identify the saguaro, mesquite, creosote, palo verde, desert willow, cholla, prickly-pear, and bursage. And agave--the place was crawling with agave plants of all shapes and sizes.
Plus wildlife: jackrabbits, cottontails, ground squirrels, chipmunks, cactus wren, mourning doves and lizards. No snakes, though. It was probably too hot by then for them to come out of hiding. Which I explained to Lauri: "It's probably too hot for them to come out of--oh, look, there's one," I said, pointing to the edge of the trail near her foot. She jumped. She also apparently did not appreciate the humor of the situation, although I found it quite amusing.
The DBG had plenty of drinking fountains spaced throughout the trails, most connected to a compressor to keep the water cold. Still, by 12:30 it was getting hot, and we were glad to find the gift shop and look around the comfort of air-conditioning.
The next stop was the Arizona Science Center, located downtown near the ballpark. Didn't need the map, aside from learning that it was located near 7th Street and Washington. Galvin Parkway connected to McDowell Road, and from there I was in familiar territory.
We had no trouble finding the Science Center or the parking garage. The center wasn't crowded, but most of the patrons were young children. We looked at the interactive exhibits, participated on some, and generally worked our way through the 3 floors. The third floor featured the physics-- magnetism, physical forces, gravity, electricity--and so was the most interesting. Still, the little ones wandering through the center tended to simply play with any mechanical device without taking the time to understand what the plaything represented. The tour was also hampered by the fact that some of the interactive kiosks weren't working. All in all, I can see why the kids enjoy going, but it wasn't as much fun for adults. Had I known this ahead of time, I would have skipped the ASC and gone to the Heard Museum instead. By the time we finished the ASC we were getting tired. After all, we'd been on our feet almost continuously since 9:30. And it was hot. (Did I mention it was hot?) I'm told the temperature hit 108 on Thursday, the hottest day of the trip. The 6% humidity keeps it tolerable when you're in the shade, but out in the direct sun, 108 is still 108.
That didn't keep me from taking a picture of the Rosson House, located half a block from the parking garage. Dr. Rosson worked at nearby fort McDowell in the late 1800's and later became mayor of Phoenix. His Victorian house is on the list of National Historic Homes. I thought it a very interesting structure.
We decided to postpone the trip to the Heard and head back to the pool instead. We might be able to squeeze the museum trip in on the Friday itinerary somewhere. We'd play it by ear.
Ran into more traffic congestion on the way back, a concern only because the gas tank needle sat at empty and I didn't know how much reserve was in the tank. The traffic crawled along on the 101, but we finally reached the Frank Lloyd Wright exit, where the Albertsons was, and we knew there was a Shell station there next to the Blockbuster Video. After filling up (the car took 16.5 gallons) we continued on to the condo and changed into swim gear.
The pool felt good in the hot part of the afternoon, but we didn't stay in too long. We needed to shower and change for dinner. We'd picked another southwestern-cuisine restaurant, a place called Cowboy Ciao.
We left a good 1/2 hour ahead of our reservation, to avoid the snafu of Monday. Again we were thwarted. We had checked the address and the Scottsdale downtown map, so knew precisely where it was located, at the corner of 6th Avenue and Stetson. Except that the city, in its infinite wisdom, had closed Stetson. Construction of a riverwalk along the canal had everything torn up and the parking was a total bear. We finally found a parking garage about 3 blocks away and hiked back to the restaurant. I mentioned to the hostess the horrible state of driving and parking in the vicinity, and she suggested I park in the new parking garage about 3 blocks away. Okay. At least I was in the right place.
The pun in the name suggests an Italian influence, but we discovered that the approach is broader than that. The menu is a fusion of southwestern and Mediterranean, with maybe a hint of Pacific Rim thrown in. I ordered the signature dish, an exotic mushroom pan fry. Lauri got adventurous and ordered the elk loin, which came with mushroom risotto and a cabernet demi-glace. The restaurant boasts a 2300-label wine list, and we let the waiter pick the wine after telling him we liked reds. He picked a very nice Shiraz. We started with the house chopped salad, an unlikely mix of smoked salmon, pearl couscous, arugula, sweet corn, tomatoes, dried currants, asiago cheese and pepitas (and I don't even know what those are!). [Learned later they are roasted pumpkin seeds.] It's mixed together with a pesto-buttermilk dressing. The salad was as good as it was improbable, no, even better than that. The dinners were par with the salad. Lauri lamented that their mushroom risotto was better than hers. Our waiter said the trick was to use dried porcinis in the broth. (We'll have to try that.) The flavor of the mushroom dish was indescribable. Creminis, porcinis and oyster mushrooms sautéed then served over polenta and a chile-flavored cream sauce with diced avocados and tomatoes and crumbled asiago. I've never been to a restaurant that was so wildly inventive. Neither dish was overly filling, so we stayed for dessert. The special was a chocolate-peanut butter soufflé, which Lauri ordered, while I took the waiter's suggestion and had the bread pudding. Both were very good. Lauri had a nice citrusy blanc de noir with hers; I opted for the tawny port. We enjoyed ourselves sufficiently that we even contemplated coming back on Friday.
After the drive back to the condo, we had a quick dip in the pool, and then sat out on the patio and finished off the wine while I entered our peregrinations into the journal.