Friday 4/7
We flew out of O'Hare early Friday morning--flight was only slightly delayed. We rented a Lincoln at the airport in Phoenix (much to the dismay of Letteer.) He would have preferred a new Mustang convertible or a Jeep Wrangler. We even returned to the car rental place two days later, just to see if they had anything he wanted to trade the Lincoln in for.
After getting the car situation taken car of, our first stop in Phoenix was at In-N-Out to get a double cheeseburger and fries (Animal Style, of course.) A quick lunch, and then we headed to our hotel to check in. We stayed at the Phoenician Resort, and it was absolutely perfect. The rooms were spacious, had a balcony with a patio set, a huge soaker tub, and a view of one of seven pools at the resort.
Our first adventure in Phoenix was on Friday afternoon at Hole in the Rock in Papago Park. It was an easy and very short climb to the top, giving us our first view of Phoenix from the top. We took a short drive from Hole in the Rock to the Desert Botanical Gardens. Admission to the gardens was $25 each, which we almost didn't pay, but then we decided we didn't want to miss out on anything. It was beautiful, and our favorite part was the Butterfly Garden. It was a big tent in the middle of the park where it's literally just hundreds of butterflies flying around the tent freely. One of the butterflies even landed on my bright blue shoes (must have thought it was a flower.)
After the botanical gardens, we headed back to the hotel to take a quick swim before dinner. We actually ended up getting a cocktail at the bar first. Letteer had an Old Fashioned, and I had a drink called the Thirsty Camel, which was basically a cosmo, but with Limoncello. It was very tasty, and not overly sweet. After our cocktail, we walked down to the pool, enjoyed a beer in the hot tub, and then went back to our hotel room to get ready for dinner!
That first night, we ate at a place that Letteer had been to for work before, called SumoMaya. It was an Asian Fusion place, set in a strip mall, but a very cool atmosphere on the inside. I'm assuming, just because it was a Friday night, there was a DJ playing music, and it was very busy! We sat at the bar top surrounding the kitchen, and got to see them prepare our food.
After dinner, we rode back to the hotel, and had a night-cap on the upstairs balcony. We enjoyed a port tawny, walked down to the pool for a bit, and then we enjoyed the views on our room's balcony/patio area.
