Cactus Garden at The Phoenician

Southern Arizona is filled with cacti.  After a day at pool of The Phoenician, in Scottsdale, AZ, I thought we might explore the cactus garden at the rear of the resort.  My bored teens viewed thirty plus varieties of cactus before plopping down for a breather (upper photo).  It was 5:30 at night, and things had cooled down to about 97 degrees.  Even with the dry heat, you can still work up a sweat viewing the local flora.  In the bottom photo you see the tall saguaro, Arizona's ubiquitous cactus, that can grow to 60 feet.  These saguaro are both at least 75 years old.  How do I know this?  Because according to Wikipedia, saguaros don't grow branches until they are at least that old.  Until then, they are just "spears."  I was delighted by the elderly saguaros because they all branch out in a unique, quirky way.  No old saguaro is quite like any other old saguaro. 

The "staycation" that morphed - Scottsdale, AZ

So we were going to do the "staycation" before the kids went back to school.  And living in San Diego, which is its own vacation wonderland, we had planned to go to the usual haunts.  Maybe see the new Madagscar musical show at Seaworld, or try out the Jungle Ropes safari at the San Diego Wild Animal Park.  But we did none of that.  As we were loafing about, getting ready to see Seaworld for the umpteenth time, Steven felt the travel bug bite hard.  He'd heard that five star resorts in the Phoenix area were offering great deals to fill their rooms during their off season.  By off season, I mean hot season, as the mercury typically hits triple digits.  So after an hour on the computer, Steven had us booked at The Phoenician in Scottsdale.  After a five hour plus drive punctuated with some San Diego traffic, in which we began to regret our hasty travel plans, we arrived at our resort at midnight. We crashed, then spent almost the entire whole next day at the pool, enjoying the 100 degree  heat.  Pictured is one of the necklace of pools at the Phoenician, which as advertised, is truly a five star retreat.