Happy Easter!

In 2008 we arrived in America on July 4, so we experienced Independence Day. We were here for Halloween which we spent on the east coast and was the absolute best time of year! We also experienced Thanksgiving and spent Christmas and New Year in Las Vegas. The only holiday we missed was Easter, which we’ve now had in the Phoenix area. I imagined it would be similar to Halloween. Houses decorated, Easter treats filling supermarket shelves and public holidays. But no! It was rather underwhelming.

Easter in America is very different to Easter at home. It’s not a National holiday here and only 12 states have Friday as a public holiday.

They don’t have hot cross buns! Imagine our dismay!

We also didn’t see any chocolate Easter hunting eggs, or much in the way of Easter chocolates. Mostly bags of the usual chocolates like M&Ms or Hershey’s. There were a lot of Easter bunnies though.

They do have many different variety packs of coloured egg shaped plastic containers that you put small lollies, like jellybeans, or plastic novelties in. These are strewn around or hidden for children to find.

The main things we noticed on supermarket shelves were egg collecting baskets, large numbers of Easter themed trinkets and gift baskets of various sizes done up with cellophane, and filled with toys, games and some lollies or chocolate.

In a mega Walmart supermarket this was the extent of Easter chocolate.

Notice the Bluey egg?

So, without having to worry about Easter holiday closures or excessive crowds we spent Friday at Arizona Boardwalk. What a fantastic place!

It’s a collection of attractions in one area and you decide which ones and how many to visit. On offer were Butterfly Wonderland, Odysea Aquarium, UFO experience, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, Lazer Mirror Maze, CyberQuest, Panagaea Dinosaur World and Museum of Illusions. We opted for Butterfly Wonderland because it’s the largest natural butterfly habitat in America and UFO experience because I wanted to visit Roswell in New Mexico but this had far better reviews. There were the obligatory themed gift shops of course and also several different food options.

We arrived early before the attractions opened and had it all to ourselves. So we enjoyed wandering around and having some fun taking photos.

The butterfly habitat was amazing! It’s very well set out and informative. The 3D movie about the Monarch butterflies migration was fascinating. Did you know that they are the only butterfly that migrates north to Canada and then returns south to Mexico again, like birds? And they take 3 generations to complete their journey. Being 3D, you really can’t help reaching out to touch the butterflies you’re sure are right in front of you!

Next, is the hatching room where hundreds of chrysalis are transforming into butterflies. Each morning and afternoon they transport the new butterflies into the habitat which visitors are free to wander around.

There were thousands of butterflies fluttering around the habitat! All shapes, sizes and colours and it was difficult to know where to look. Needless to say, I took a hundred or more photos!

Here are just a few

There was a pond with Koi fish that were over a foot long and a small collection of bugs, reptiles and also several aquariums with tropical and river fish and stingrays.

After lunch we went to the UFO experience. Considering the reviews, and as someone who can’t imagine we’re alone in the universe, I was quite looking forward to it. It started off with earphones that played actual excerpts from notable people about UFOs and included several air force pilots and even Bill Clinton. There were TVs replaying parts of the recent Pentagon inquiry into UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena) which were interesting and numerous information boards which outlined various encounters since “the big one” in Roswell in 1949, including primary source documents that detailed what happened.

But I have to say the second half was not as interesting and some displays bordered on ridiculous and tacky. There was a whole room dedicated to people who believed they were abducted by aliens. Another room to aliens that appear in movies e.g. ET or Alien. There were displays of ‘alleged’ technologies of the future, e.g. time travel apparatus and finally a room which outlined previous civilisations’ feats and how they could reflect interactions with more advanced beings, e.g. the Mayan peoples and what could be interpreted as ‘otherworldly’ symbolism.

When we entered we were given a survey card and asked do we believe in UFOs? Yes, Maybe, or No. As we walked through the display rooms we ticked whether we believed what was outlined for each one and then tallied up our answers at the end to see if we had changed our opinion, or it remained the same. Mine stayed the same, notwithstanding the dubious displays. Peter started with yes and his opinion remained the same too. When educated, respected and well known people are prepared to make their experiences public, perhaps they shouldn’t be discounted.

By the time we had another walk around the butterfly habitat and revisited a couple of the gift shops, we’d spent an entire day here and it was thoroughly enjoyable.

On Saturday we had a very enjoyable walk around Papago Park, an extensive area near Phoenix CBD which includes playing fields, Phoenix Zoo, Botanical Gardens, a large number of walking/mountain bike trails and a cycling/walking path along the canal system.

Well, someone had to climb up to give an idea of the scale!

Indian civilisations that dwelled in the Phoenix region 1,400 years before European settlement built a complex system of canals over almost 500 miles. Subsequently, more recent settlers to the region continued building canals to transport water to areas previously underdeveloped. Today, there are 180 miles of canals that traverse the greater Phoenix region and on average are 16 feet deep.

It was a scenic and interesting walk. We discovered a man-made lake for fishing and an interesting mausoleum.

Apparently, George P. Hunt thought that this was the most scenic spot in Arizona and decided that he and his immediate relatives would like to spend their eternity presiding over this view. In a pyramid, no less.

Because it was Saturday, we decided to take a drive through Phoenix CBD and happened upon the Arizona Capital Museum. Over four floors there are very interesting displays outlining Arizona’s history including the judiciary, government, building construction and also exhibitions about Arizona’s history from 1845 and their campaign for statehood, the USS Arizona battleship and the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers (African American troops).

We learned some interesting things about Arizona too.

President Abraham Lincoln made Arizona a territory in 1863 but it wasn’t until February 14, 1912 that President William Taft declared it to be the 48th state.

The Capitol building was completed in 1901 and housed the Arizona Territorial and State Legislature until 1960 and the Executive Offices until 1974.

They have 10 state Emblems: The Saguaro (pronounced Sah-WAH-row) Cactus white blossom is the flower, and the Cactus Wren is the bird and were declared in 1931. The Palo Verde tree (green stick in Spanish), in 1954. The critters were all declared in 1986 and include the Ringtail as the State mammal (not a possum but related to the raccoon), the Ridge-Nosed Rattlesnake as the reptile, the Apache Trout as the fish, and the Arizona Tree Frog as the amphibian. Turquoise is the State gem, and copper the metal. The most recent is the Sonorasaurus dinosaur, declared in 2018 after an 11 yr. old school boy wrote to the Governor to ask if the dinosaur, discovered in 1994 in southern Arizona, could become the state dinosaur.

They have a LEGO replica State flag built from 113,998 LEGO bricks which equals the square mileage of Arizona. The blue and red are custom colours made expressly by LEGO to reflect the actual colours of the flag.

On Sunday we visited the Saguaro West National Park and completed a 13km hike over an elevation of 572 meters! It was one of the most scenic and interesting hikes we’ve done so far. The wildflowers were so varied and abundant and at the peak of the hike we had stunning 360 degree views, including of the clouds and mist that rolled in as we were descending. Our visibility went from many kms to only a few hundred feet in a matter of 10 minutes! We arrived back at Joey just as it started spitting rain and within the hour, it was raining steadily. In fact, it rained almost constantly for the next 36 hours!

Because of the rain on Monday, we decided inside was the place to be so we visited the Pima Air & Space Museum.

I imagined I’d wander around for a couple of hours and then leave Peter to spend however much longer he wanted to view the displays. How wrong was I! What a fabulously interesting place! We arrived just after the museum opened and were some of the last the leave just before 5pm! It was so well set out and displayed with informative panels that gave details about the planes but also outlined much of the history of aviation.

There were 4 huge hangars over 250,000 square feet filled with planes from the Wright Brothers biplane to an F-14 Tomcat and some of the biggest, smallest and strangest planes I’ve seen. There’s a further 80 acres of land outside that is also filled with planes that we didn’t even get to. Partly because it was raining and very muddy around the planes but also because there were so many interesting things to see indoors.

I found the historical information particularly informative. There were quite extensive displays that outlined women and African Americans in aviation from the 1900s until recently. It was surprising to read how difficult it was for these groups to be accepted in the aviation and defence industries.

There were also a number of prototypes that were great ideas at the time. Some, like this idea for a personal helicopter, didn’t make the grade, while others, like the first sea planes have continued to evolve and are common today. Did you know that the first sea plane flew in the US in 1910?

Remember back to our trip across London Bridge in Lake Havasu and the man that bought the bridge? Well, we learned some more history about McCulloch’s business enterprises. When it was founded in 1943, its prime business was building small gasoline engines. During WWII, most of these engines powered military radio-controlled target drones. This part of the business continued until 1967 by which time, more than 60,000 engines had been produced.

When we were last in America, Walmart’s were our often our accommodation spot for the night. This trip we’ve also discovered that a store called Cracker Barrel (a gift, clothes, knick knack store combined with a restaurant; odd but it seems to work) and Camping World also allow overnight RV stays. So, we made our stop for the night in the Camping World and hoped that the rain would stop by morning for our visit to Saguaro East National Park.