USA holiday catch-up

I've been a bit remiss the last couple of weeks with updating this blog, but I'll try and catch up now - and hopefully not repeat some of the photos that have already appeared on Facebook. The last few days in Grants Pass before we flew out to Phoenix were fairly quiet - a bit of golf and a walk around the city center. The tourist board in GP have two main themes - Cavemen and Bears. Did you know they have as many as 52 of these around the town - all with different themes?:

Time to show the dogs - first the new pup Philly:

Then Cade's Shelby:

Sorry - none of the only male, Buster. He had a hard time, needing an anaesthetic before a couple of teeth were removed. Unfortunately, Shelby reacted adversely to this, sensing something different about Buster and now the two of them have to be kept apart.

Our journey to Phoenix was an easy one, although we arrived at the start of a major heatwave. Our first day was a new all-time record high for the area and the next day was another record - and so on for the first 5/6 days before settling down a smidgeon, but I think the lowest temperature we experienced during our 10 days there was 105 F (41 C). At night, it only dropped to 85 F (29 C). Our escape from this came via a few day trips plus judicious use of the AC and the pools - Jo particularly liked the little spa pool close to our apartment:

A few times we took the shuttle bus over to the adjacent grand JW Marriott hotel and enjoyed the use of their lazy river - Scott and Lucy too:

This is the lower level hall in the hotel:

Back at the resort, we were duly warned:

Scott actually spotted a bobcat on our last day, but it didn't come anywhere near us.

Jo and I did the Apache Trail twice - once on our own and also with Scott and Lucy. Here's a few photos from those trips - the first stop is an old rehoused film set:

The "Elvis Chapel" where his final (non-singing) movie, Charro, was filmed

The next stop is a real "Ghost Town" - relics left after the gold rush:

The building behind me is the Bordello!

Over the hills via a twisty road to Canyon Lake for a cruise on the Dolly steamer:

Strange rock formations and wildlife spotting - big horn sheep and a bald eagle's eyrie atop a rock stack with a chick sitting by the nest:

A longer day trip we did was to Jerome and Sedona. The former town was once described as "The wickedest town in the West" - it once had a population of 10,000, attracted by copper mining which gave rise to a score of bordellos, opium dens etc. It's now got a population of just hundreds but is a fairly thriving tourist destination 5,000 feet high, now marketing itself as a ghost (as in spirits) town:

The beautiful red rocks town of Sedona is only a short drive from Jerome - but what a difference in appearance. The various strangely shaped rocks all have names:

We had lunch there and then drove out to look at some of the named rocks:

Gibraltar

Rabbit Ears

Cathedral & Bell rocks

We didn't really have time to do any of the Pink Jeeps tours which Jo and I had done with Kelly many years ago. The red rocks act as radiators in the hot sun and as we were walking out towards them, poor Kelly fell like a stone - heat exhaustion and dehydration. Quite scary at the time, but Kelly was fine after hydration.