Seeing the Phoenix Area

Friday, Jan 2nd, Curtis had his last day off of work. We took a day trip to go see some of the sights of Phoenix that we had never seen before. We started off at the Wrigley Mansion. This is the Wrigley who invented the Wrigley Gum - Juicy Fruit, Double Mint, etc... He was born in Pennsylvania in 1865. I was so surprised. He built this home in Phoenix for his wife, Ada. He had a home on Catalina Island, and in Chicago. He died at this home. The tour for the Wrigley Mansion is by appointment, costs $11.00 per person. Children under 5 are free.

This following photo is the front door. Curtis is standing by the door. The house was so huge, I could not get but just the door in the photo.

This is the back area. It is all terraced with patios.

This is the grand foyer with stairs and chandelier. You can see they still had some Christmas decorations set up. By the time the tour was over most of the Christmas items had been removed.

From the Mansion you can see the Biltmore Hotel. Mr. Wrigley owned it! So we decided to drive down the hill and go walk around and see the Biltmore. Wow! I can see why people go there. I never did find out how much it costs to stay there.

This is a real Gingerbread Church! The roof tiles were about 4x7 size gingerbread!

This is one of the grounds between the Hotel wings. Each wing had a different landscape. Between one was a pool, another golf, another fountain, another more gardens, etc...

Here is Sandi standing at the Chess/Checker game area. the grass is mowed in between the cement. The playing pieces are plastic...in the old days they were actually carved wood. The checkers pieces were off to the right. They were red and black round cushions!

After touring around the Biltmore Hotel, we decided to check out the Phoenix Mountain area. It is only a couple miles from the Biltmore. It looked fantastic. If any of you like to hike, this looks like a really safe place. There are lots of ramadas with places for brickette bar-b-que. You can rent some of the ramada...with music permits, etc... There were lots of trails going off in all directions. I only saw one bathroom area.

This is the view from the Phoenix Mountain. You can see some of the red roof tiles of the ramadas on the left side of the photo.

We had a great afternoon. Then we went to Paradise Bakery for lunch! Absolutely wonderful!

Oh! And to top it all off...Curtis and I watched the University of Utah play Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. This is the only football game we both have watched EVERY PLAY! Curtis is a UTE grad. We were thrilled that Utah won!!! Go Utes!