That night, Miss L and I stayed at a lovely Holiday Inn near her home outside of Phoenix and Sunday Morning set out bright and early---hahahahahaha! No we didn't, we set out late morning and stopped to eat at L's favorite breakfast place: US Egg. It's a kitschy place serving breakfast and lunch and serving the MOST delicious Protein Pancakes!
With full bellies, we headed to Scottsdale to start our stay at the Holiday Inn Club Vacation, Scottsdale.
A couple of years ago, (before Covid) I agreed to attend a time share presentation in exchange for a 3 night stay and a refund of the $149 I paid. It was sort of a no-brainer. I've done this in the past in Las Vegas and it's totally worth your time IF you can just say NO and hold them to the 90 minute presentation limit.
Anyway, after some confusion (they could not find reservation) and a quick call to Customer Service, we were assigned a room. Now, what I was expecting was a room facing the dumpster and an efficiency type room. What we got was well, just WOW. We opened the door to our place and discovered this:
A huge dining room, with seating for 6. As well as a nice window overlooking a front patio.
This led into the kitchen with a huge bar and 4 bar stools. The finishes were quite nice too.
The kitchen was equipped with everything you need to cook a meal. And the fridge had an ice maker.
There was service for 8-10 as well as all the gadgets, silverware, glassware and a nice selection of wine glasses.
The kitchen opened to the generously size living room, complete with pull out sofa bed. The furniture was very comfy too. There was a large patio off the living room that connected to the patio outside the master bedroom.
The master bedroom was spacious and contained an ensuite bath with a shower big enough to hold a party!
Off the dining room was the second bedroom, a hall bath and a washer/dryer.
We couldn't spend a lot of time enjoying our new digs because we had tickets to the Desert Botanical Gardens AND there was a Chihuly exhibit there! I had visited the Dale Chihuly museum a few years back when I was in Seattle visiting my cousin and her family
So, we left late afternoon to begin our visit! This is what greeted us at the entrance to the Desert Botanical Gardens:
These installations are amazing, but I feel they are best enjoyed at night when they are lit. So, we moved off to explore the gardens and the amazing array of plants and gardens!
There were so many cool paths you could follow---there was a butterfly garden I would like to visit when I go back! But I believe it was too cool for that in January.
I absolutely loved these and I'm hoping I can find something similar that will grow at my house!
I am such a look at the moon person! Lindsey and I walked up a gently sloped path to a lookout. We felt as though we were in the middle of nowhere, but the view at the top of the hill showed us just how close we were to civilization. Unfortunately, none of the pictures I took turned out very good. But, it was a stunning vista.
As we made our way back down the hill, we could see the Chihuly exhibits, in the distance, were now lit. Exciting!!!
These remind me of flamingos!
This piece was one of my favorites. The pictures don't do it justice. I loved the sea life shaped glass pieces that were in this one:
There was also an exhibit of neon pieces. Again, my camera didn't capture them well.....this was the best photo I had.....
I thought the photo on the left looked like a man running!
Again, that moon!
The next two photos were my favorite in the outdoor installation!
This is the same work of art that I took a picture of before dark. Look how much more amazing it is at night!!
They also had an indoor exhibit---which was just breathtaking! I just loved the rooms with one large installation. The rooms were dark, and there was just tape on the floor around each one so there was nothing impeding your view of the art work! Stunning! I only have photos of small areas of each large room installation. But they were huge--guessing at least 6-8 feet wide and about 12-14 feet long.
But first, some smaller pieces---which I also love as they remind me of the shapes I am drawn to when I create a piece of pottery!
You can see more the size of the piece of art here. The horizontal area carried on for about 10-12 more feet!!!
I love the reflections!
After that most enjoyable evening, we stopped at The White Chocolate Grill in Scottsdale for dinner.
We really enjoyed our meal and felt like this deserves a return on another trip!
Once back in our (fabulous and spacious) condo, Miss Lindsey convinced me to watch an episode of this show on Netflix! Those of you that know me, know I don't watch TV. (The last time my television was on was for President Biden's inauguration!) Anyway, she fired up the first episode of a show called The Blacklist. OMG I was hooked. I binge watched 4 episodes and realized it was almost 3AM!!!!
ACK!! I had a morning visit to the timeshare presentation!!!! I can see how you could blow a whole weekend binge-watching these series!
So, off to bed I went and woke up HATEFUL when the alarm went off! I did manage a cup of coffee and thankfully, the place I needed to be was just across from our place! As I settled in to listen to the guy, I set the timer on my phone for 90 minutes! And I'm listening and watching a video etc etc and I'm getting sort of scared because the more I hear, the more this is making sense to me. Huh, who'd of thought?
So, at decision time, I asked to go outside and make a phone call or two. I called friends that owned one or more timeshares and told them what they offered, what it cost etc. I wrote down a bunch of questions to ask and when they were answered to my satisfaction.............I BOUGHT ONE!
I know, I still can't believe it myself.
But, it made sense for the amount of time I travel and how much money I spend etc. Your mileage may vary! So that pretty much blew the rest of the afternoon. So, we didn't have time to get out to any of the pools. I will say the landscaping was beautiful, everything looked fresh and clean.
And because this vacation was cut short for reasons I won't go into here, I decided we needed to go out for a fancy dinner! We made reservations for Eddie V's in Scottsdale. Lindsey was convinced we didn't have the clothes for this, but I googled and found this:
IS THERE A DRESS CODE?
Yes, to promote a family friendly and welcoming atmosphere for everyone, we consider gym attire, sweatpants, hats, clothing with offensive languages or images, and exposed undergarments too casual for our restaurants.
While I was not offended, my woke daughter was. She has educated me on many, many topics and made me see things from a completely different perspective, but we agreed to disagree on this!
Once we arrived, despite meeting the dress code, I did feel a bit underdressed. We walked in and to our left was the bar, with a few booths. I could hear old timey dance music and a few couples were dancing!
These next few pictures are not mine---copied from the internet~!
Lindsey and I sat at a banquette style towards the back of the restaurant
The food was excellent. We started off with a Seafood Tower. OMG It was huge and fresh and delicious! So fancy, that even the lemons had mesh caps on them to stop the seeds from going into your seafood.
Seriously, I was almost full after splitting this with Miss L! But we ordered dinners too! Lindsey got scallops dish and I got a filet. Both were excellent!!! And then, of course, dessert: Bananas Foster!
This was definitely a splurge and a celebration of our birthdays, me buying a timeshare, and finally seeing each other after far too long apart!
We fit a lot into that long weekend and the next morning I was at the airport, flying back to Tampa.
I can't wait to do it again!
Until next time.................
jilly
