April 18 to 25, 2010 - Phoenix vacation
Photos of Phoenix vacation -
Photos April 19-20 - Hilton Tapatio Resort
Photos April 21 - Arizona Biltmore Hotel
Photos April 21 - Arizona Desert Botanical Gardens
Photos April 21 - Phoenix Zoo
Photos April 21-25 - Four Seasons Resort
Here is a blog of our trip to Phoenix April 18-25, 2010.
Kathy and I went on a vacation to Phoenix. We flew on Continental from Knoxville to Houston to Phoenix. It was cool in Knoxville when we left on Monday morning.
We arrive in Phoenix around 1pm and it was around 90 degrees. On the way to our resort we noticed that there were many flowering plants. It was quite beautiful.
We headed to our first leg of the trip to the Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resort. It is a semi-secluded resort north of downtown Phoenix.
At first Kathy was not too happy with the room, but since we had prepaid for the 2 nights we decided to stay anyway.
We went to get a few supplies (tequila, margarita mix, water and a few other sundries). We went back to the resort and immediately headed to the pool main "Falls Water".
Being a Monday afternoon, there were very few people around (yeah!). We had a huge margarita, several beers, many snacks and a meal. It was a great time.
After heading back to the room, we decided we had not had quite enough relaxation so we went to one of the secluded small pools at the resort.
There was only one other lady at the pool and a couple of visitors. We stayed only after the sun went down.
The next day we got up early and went to the "Pointe in Tyme Grille" for a breakfast brunch. It was pretty good.
I then went with Kathy to the main pool so Kathy could have a half hour of laps. The pool wasn't really open, so Kathy had the whole pool to herself.
Afterwards we went back to the room so Kathy could have a short nap. Late morning we went back to the main pool and spent most of the day laying around the pool.
It was still around 90 degrees and with the breeze it was a beautiful day. Around 4pm we went back to the room and got ready to go out to eat.
We headed up to the signature restaurant "Different Pointe of View" at the top of the resort, overlooking Phoenix.
Since the restaurant wasn't open yet and the place was booked full, we headed to the outside patio bar area.
We had a few martini's and appetizers as the sun slowly set. Kathy loved the place!
Afterwards we drove around north Phoenix and couldn't find a place we liked to eat so we ended up with a weird low-carb Carl's Jr.
hamburger that was without a bun, but wrapped in lettuce (weird but good).
The next morning the weather turned very cool around 65 degrees and since we didn't have reservations for the night and
Hilton wouldn't take our points we decided to head into Phoenix for the day.
We drove down to the "Phoenician" and the "Arizona Biltmore" to check out the other two 5 star hotels.
They were pretty but way over priced.
We then headed to the Phoenix Desert Botanical Gardens. Kathy's foot was still hurting, even after 2 days of rest, so we rented a wheel chair for me to push her around the gardens.
Most of the cactus and desert plants we blooming and it was quite beautiful. After an hour of walking the grounds, we left to go to the Phoenix Zoo.
Kathy's foot was still hurting, so we rented a wheel chair again. I wanted to go to see the zoo's reptile buildings. The reptile building was quite old, so I was disappointed.
We toured around the zoo and had a standard zoo lunch. It was chilly, so after getting to the back of the zoo we decided to leave.
Luckily we went by a Komodo Dragon exhibit. It looked really new, so I stopped one of the zoo employees and requested one of the reptile employees come over to talk to me about the exhibit.
I was lucky to get the main keeper of the Komodo Dragons. I was able to get a behind the scenes tour of the building and to take pictures.
Since I am helping design the new Knoxville Zoo reptile building, this was a great opportunity. Around 4pm we left the zoo and tried to find a place to stay for the night.
We again unsuccessfully tried to use our Hilton Honor points, so we headed up to the Four Seasons where we had reservations for Thursday through Saturday,
where we were to have 4 days with Kathy's team mates.
We got to the resort and decided we had made a good choice. The place was a really beautiful and nice resort. We had dinner with ....
More to come soon.....