Gnomadic » Phoenix http://www.gnomadic.org The travels of Willard the gnome Fri, 22 Apr 2011 14:29:23 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Phoenix http://www.gnomadic.org/2009/07/12/phoenix/ http://www.gnomadic.org/2009/07/12/phoenix/#comments Mon, 13 Jul 2009 07:19:35 +0000 Willard http://www.gnomadic.org/?p=170 Continuing on a southwesterly trajectory through the “Valley of the Sun”, we enter Phoenix and proceed to the Desert Botanical Gardens. This is a museum which showcases desert plants from all over the world, including a large variety from the local Sonoran Desert.

Desert Botanical Garden

cactus flowers

palo verde

I was quite surprised to see just how tall some of these cactus plants can get!

reaching for the sky

Next we journeyed on to a section of downtown Phoenix to visit the Arizona Science Center, sports stadiums (baseball & basketball), and the new convention center.

entrance

north plaza

U.S. Airways Center

Phoenix Convention Center

I bumped into some interesting characters near the convention center. The first two seemed friendly enough, but the last one gave me the creeps!

new friend

new friend

in danger

Finally, we proceeded to South Mountain Park, which is a large mountain park owned by the city of Phoenix. It contains several wonderful hiking trails, and provides excellent views of the valley.

valley view

downtown

camel harbor

Papago Park

After resting up (and having a drink or two) I bid farewell to my new friend and journeyed on alone once more. Where will I end up this time?

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