St. Francis Xavier Cathedral, Phoenix, AZ

St. Francis Xavier Cathedral is on Central Avenue in Phoenix, AZ.  http://www.sfxphx.org  My brother Mark and I met there at noon today for a 20 minute mass and a tour of the cathedral and the school grounds.  He has been a member of the congregation there in the past and he made an excellent tour guide.  Besides the gorgeous cathedral, this compound has a Jesuit elementary school, two Jesuit high schools (one girls' and one boys'), a library, (not open to the public, I asked), a gym, and several sport fields and playgrounds.

It is a lovely example of the traditional Roman Catholic cathedral, with the vaulted ceilings, statuary, ornate altar, and gorgeous stained glass windows.

Mary has her own niche to the left of the altar.

 Below are views of the courtyard and colonnade outside the Jesuit boys' high school in the compound.  The girls' high school is across the soccer field and beyond the gym, of course.

I found another horse sculpture, in a fountain!!

This poor guy has his heart in his hand and a big heart-shaped hole through his body.

This is another chapel on the campus.

St. Ignatius of Loyola.  I think he's important to the Jesuits.

The colonnade is beautifully tiled and breezy, with small niches for  many statues of saints and benches to sit on.

The ceiling of the colonnade.

This is a lovely walkway between buildings.  I love the vines on the wall after a rain shower.

The cathedral from the back.

Then, when I arrived back to our AirBnb, our host, her son, Steve and I, and a former client all went out to In and Out Burger for grub.  It was a magical day and evening.

The burger was better than I expected. 😜

Tomorrow, we go to Mom and Dad's for dinner.  So, you may not hear from me until the day after.  The adventure continues.

Old Town Scottsdale, AZ

Scottsdale again, even though I swear I don't like to shop... really.  This time, we visited the outside of an aquarium, stopped at a couple jewelers, walked around photographing fascinating sculptures, visited the Scottsdale Public Library, and ate some tasty barbecue.

I know I criticized Scottsdale for it's ubiquitous shopping, but it does have some other attractions.  Steve wanted to look at the Butterfly Wonderland and OdySea Aquarium in Scottsdale.  This does not appear to be a non-profit like Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma, but a full-on for-profit park.  We discovered upon arrival that to get into both attractions the Senior pass would cost us $100, just for the two of us for the day.  Needless to say, we were much too frugal to buy tickets, but we wandered around the central complex for a few minutes musing about how it came to this - so much so that we forgot to take a single photograph.  It was a two story central area with chain shops, food, outside tables, and signs like you would see at an amusement park.

Old Scottsdale, though, didn't disappoint.  We walked around Old Town and found so many hidden treasures.

Yes, the same horses as before in the plaza, but Better.

Bischoff's at the Park gallery, which was unfortunately closed.

But, the outside of Bischoff's was fantastic.

Outside a store across from the gallery.

 However, I did bring a few pieces of jewelry that were in need of repair, a pair of silver and malachite earrings that were actually purchased in Scottsdale about 3 decades ago and an inlaid bracelet that was a gift from my folks.  One of the hammered "fins" on the earrings had broken off of the dangley bits of the earrings again, so I took it back to the place I purchased it several decades ago to see what they could do.  As you can see in the photo, the jeweler cut off the paddles and made very nice little rounded-flattened ends on each dangle.  I can wear them again!!  I love the color of malachite, that deep dark green.  Unfortunately, my inlaid Zuni bracelet will take a little longer, so we'll go back in a couple days to get that.

The dangles each had a long flat paddle and they kept breaking off.  Problem solved!

Last, we visited the Scottsdale Public Library - partly to cool off (the humidity was hard to deal with after all that walking, even at 95 degrees) and partly because I like to see libraries wherever I go.  This one was special, I thought.  They had a coffee shop (carry your drink and food anywhere but the computers),  a separate Youth room, and a play area for the kiddies.

There was a huge quill pen outside the front door.  Of course, we didn't come in that way.

The library has a large collection and some beautiful artistic touches.

These support columns ingeniously include air conditioning vents.

In the basement parking garage, the palms grow up through the roof! There must have been 10 of them.

Yes, and we topped it all off with a delicious meal at Bootleggers Modern American Smokehouse, a great barbecue restaurant and bar.  The food was great - Steve had chopped brisket sandwich and I had the pulled pork.  It was pretty darn dark in the place, though, at 5pm.  I literally had to turn on my keychain flashlight to read the menu.  If they hadn't had such great reviews, I might have thought they were trying to hide something.

Unrelated to the restaurant, we really want to know what kind of bush this is.  They are EVERYWHERE!

Tomorrow, our itinerary is unknown.  Apache Junction, Flagstaff, Tortilla Flat, and Tombstone have been bandied about.  We'll see...

Sedona, AZ the beautiful - it's a fairyland, really

I expected Sedona, AZ to be beautiful, having heard of the Red Rock country and seen photographs of the area.  But, it is so much more.  The scenery is art, really natural art.  When the sunlight hits at the right angle, the rock formations light up in the most beautiful way.  My photographs don't even come close to capturing this.  But, I tried.

Sedona is a two-edged sword, though.  Along with the incredible, indescribable beauty comes commercialization.  Yes, the shops can be interesting, but Sedona has way, way more than it's share of shopping, dining, and resort living.  This is truly where the elite meet.

This area is also supposed to be a place of unexplained energy and a source of supernatural power.  Just to be clear, I did not sense an energy vortex.  And, I consider myself very sensitive.  Maybe I needed a crystal or two, but no vortex or vortexes spoke to me or Steve in Sedona.  Maybe that requires walking out into the high desert.  If so, it will need to wait for more toe healing because Donnie is only just starting to walk as human rather than ape.

We walked around the main shopping area, though, which was set smack in front of some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.  It was a constant puzzle to me that all of these people were shopping, walking, and chatting, but rarely looking up at this heart stopping beauty.  I guess we become immune to beauty after a while.  To a certain extent it happened to me, too, because I found more horse sculptures to photograph.  [I never thought I would say this, but "I love Arizona for it's amazing outdoor horse sculptures".  There - I said it.  A conservative bastion can be loved for other things.]

So, without further ado, here are the best of my photographs, which could not capture what I wanted them to show.

Havolinas.  You rub their snouts for luck.

The dancers' sculpture twirled around and around.

Magnificent horse.  Tempting to just mount up.

More horses. Arizona and I have a love-hate relationship.

It seems like blasphemy to shop and eat in front of that. So, I just photographed it.

Steve and I plan to go back soon and try to capture the afternoon light.  Today there were rain storms and the clouds were pretty dark.  My brother spend years trying to duplicate the sort of light that Vermeer had in his paintings.  Light is elusive, but we will try.

Tomorrow, our itinerary is undecided.  We are going to be here a while, so we thought we'd hunt for the nearest Public library and camp out in the AC to do some research on the subject.  In a conservative state, that could be a tall order.