Last Minute Phoenix

As you can tell by the map, we eventually arrived to Phoenix, Arizona before getting to our month-long stay in Las Vegas. It has taken me almost the month to catch up with our travels as we leave Vegas tomorrow for a month-long stay in Sedona. Hopefully I can cover the Vegas experience before we leave Sedona!

Our original travel plan was to keep heading due west towards Alburquerque and then to Tucson. Until we looked at the weather. My, my. The winter weather in Tucson was no different than back home. We had been fortunate to enjoy good weather, for the most part, as we left Waldorf, Maryland and travelled west. In Oklahoma City we decided to abruptly change our original travel plans and head south and then west. We took only a couple of days to travel from Oklahoma City to Phoenix. We stopped in Abilene for a night and Las Cruces for a night.

We booked four days at a resort in Phoenix and enjoyed a bit of rest from the very long drive from Barrie, Ontario.

We have stayed in Phoenix, and Scottsdale, many times over the years. And we have stayed at a number of beautiful resorts including the Four Seasons in Scottsdale and the Phoenician. Wonderful memories. Because we had booked all of our travel through Hilton, we stayed at the Hilton Phoenix Tapatio Cliffs Resort.

I wouldn’t put the resort in the same tier as the aforementioned resorts. The grounds and the buildings are a bit tired and in need of a refresh. The service was good as was the weather. Sun and palm trees do not get old.

One of my favourite activities when we travel into Phoenix, aside from enjoying the hiking and the weather, is to tour the Musical Instruments Museum.

Such a spectacular museum.

Admittedly, I absolutely love the guitar exhibits and the museum features hundreds, possibly thousands, of guitars, from all over the world.

The exhibits do cover other areas of interest for me. Like audio production. Although I missed the very early years of tape recording, I did cut my teeth in studios that were not all that different from what is pictured here.

The museum includes exhibits that cover the construction of musical instruments. The guitar is one such instrument that at the surface appears simple and yet requires significant skill to build.

There were many famous guitars on display. As fate would have it, we were there soon after the passing of Jeff Beck. This was one of his guitars that he signed for the museum.

I’ll cover a few other activities from our time in Phoenix in another post. And then I’ll share our experiences from Las Vegas.

Was it really a good idea to spend a month in Vegas?