The Boulders Resort and Golden Door Spa ~ Carefree, Arizona – The Sonoran Desert offers a landscape that is singularly unique in all of the southwest.  For it is here that the mighty saguaro cactus makes it home.  And it is also here, amidst towering 12-million-year-old granite boulders, that the award-winning Boulders Resort and Golden Door Spa welcomes its guests.

The Boulders Resort is part of the Waldorf Astoria collection, and for 25 years has offered baby boomer travelers legendary personalized service, a world-class golf destination with 36-holes of golf designed by Jay Morrish, and a 1,300 acre setting in the Sonoran Desert that is simply unparalleled.

In fact, we made a visit to The Boulders Resort a number of years ago, and loved the area so much that we now call the Sonoran Desert our home.  Furthermore, we can see those massive granite boulders (pictured above) from our back yard.

As we were contemplating how to share the magic that is The Boulders Resort, we figured that words just can’t express our experience.  Therefore, rather than attempting to describe our experience in text, we made this video to show you our experience.

Take a peek…

Have you ever seen a place so unique in its beauty?

With its incredible setting, and a hotel staff highly trained to create a luxurious resort experience, we are very pleased to share one of our favorite desert resorts with you and give it a high “Roaming Boomers” recommendation.

Disclosure:  our wonderful experience was provided by the folks at The Boulders Resort and Golden Door Spa.  Thanks!  It was fabulous!

This afternoon, hundreds of folks gathered for the 5th Annual El Pedregal Cinco de Mayo Salsa Festival in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Six local restaurants brought out their best salsas, with many of them bringing two or three different flavors, all hoping to walk away with bragging rights to the best salsa in town.

Emceed by ABC 15 Television’s Andi Barness from Sonoran Living Live, guests were invited to sample specialty salsa recipes from around the valley by some of the most distinguished restaurants including the Spotted Donkey Cantina, El Encanto, Tonto Bar & Grill, the Palo Verde at the Boulders Resort and more, while listening to festive Latin, Jazz and American hits on stage by the popular, Freddie Duran Plan band.

In addition, there were tequila tastings from Chamucos Tequila, and The Bakery Café featured traditional Mexican desserts and beverages while the Boulders outdoor grill cooked up hot items including tacos al carbon, and tostada de carnitas.  YUM!

The Roaming Boomers® were honored to be a part of the guest judges panel, and here’s how the winners stacked up:

• 1st Place – Cantina Laredo
• 2nd Place – Palo Verde at The Boulders Resort
• Most Innovative – Spotted Donkey’s Jicama Salsa
• Spiciest – 3 Margaritas.

Congratulations to the winners, and we look forward to next years event.

About 20 years ago, my wife and I hired an unknown travel agent to book us a romantic trip to the Bahamas.  The brochures were beautiful, but when we got there we were completely aghast at this so called resort.  It more resembled someone’s backyard.

After only 15 minutes, we determined that we were not going to stay in this place, and set about to get our way to a more recognized resort.

From that day forward, we vowed to never again trust an unknown resource for travel, and certainly not trust the claims of a brochure.

The Conde’ Naste Traveler Gold List became a staple for us in choosing our resorts.  We have never been let down by this list.

The photograph above is from The Boulders Resort which happened to be one of our first choices from the Gold List many years ago.  We had an enchanted visit, and we now actually live right across the street from this Waldorf Astoria owned landmark resort.