Cottonwood Joshua Tree and first day in Phoenix

No witnessing of meteor showers last night. We woke up several times to look but lots of beautiful stars but no meteors. We arose at 6 and started packing up. I hope we were not as noisy as the guys who were up drinking and talking well into the night last night. We drove to the Cottonwood Visitor Center (45 mph not 25 like the ladies in Yucca Valley told us) and then on for a quick hike up Mastodon Peak.  

At the top of Mastodon Peak

Near Cottonwood

Yucca bloom

We had driven through interesting terrain that was completely different than where we had camped. We left Joshua Trees behind and went through a huge area of cholla cactus. The area around Cottonwood was greener at parts and some places looked almost tropical. Back on the road toward Phoenix. We had dinner at Manuel's after a walk in the park and moving into the upstairs guest suite of Kay and Brad's. They had plans for the evening so after dinner it was more catching up on emails and blogging.

Friday. April 24

Day 17

We had cereal and fruit with Kay and Brad. They helped orient us to the area and then we were off to run errands, get gas, mail thank yous and then Starbucks for our usual computer time. In the afternoon, they told us about a hike about 5 minutes from their house, right in the city of Phoenix. We were surprised how many hiking options there were right there. How nice not to have to drive far. 

 We changed for the game and then drove downtown. We were pleasantly surprised to find downtown Phoenix to be so much cleaner than the last time we had been here in 2001. At that time there was a lot of litter everywhere in spite of the October Classic being in town. We went to the park to buy tickets due to the little mishap in planning and then stopped into Cooperstown, a restaurant and bar owned by Alice Cooper for a quick look.  

We ventured on to an Irish Pub called Seamus McCaffery's and had corned beef and cabbage and shepherd's pie. There were many police patches decorating the walls. Apparently the original owner had worked as an officer in New York. On to Chase Field for Country night and the Diamondback versus the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Not the baseball Cooperstown, but Alice Cooper's bar and restaurant