As we have been traveling around the State of Arizona, we have noticed that some of the state’s rest areas have been closed. As it turns out, 13 out of 18 of the state’s rest area have been closed.
“The most immediate signs of ADOT’s actions to weather the “perfect storm” will be at highway rest areas. Beginning the week of October 19, operations at 13 rest areas will be suspended leaving five ADOT and more than a dozen non-ADOT operated rest areas along the highway system. Rest areas impacted are: Bouse Wash, Canoa Ranch, Ehrenberg, Hassayampa, Haviland, Mazatzal, McGuireville, Meteor Crater, Mohawk, Parks, Salt River Canyon, San Simon, and Sacaton. Two of these facilities – Mazatzal and Salt River Canyon – are already closed due to water system issues.”
Map of Arizona’s closed rest areas.
Somehow this development had missed my radar.
How about your state? Are they closing Rest Areas in your state?
If you are in Scottsdale, Arizona during the winter months, then a visit to the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show will make for a wonderful experience.
We made our first visit to the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show last year, and we had no idea how beautiful these Arabian horses were. As we were watching this year’s show, the announcer was instructing us that the Arabian horse is known for its distinctive head shape (it looks like a sea horse to me), its long flowing, high tail carriage, their high spirit, and their marble-hard bone structure.
The Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show has grown to one of the largest in the world. It spans 11 days, with 2,000 horses coming from all over the world hoping to capture the show’s large championship winnings.
This massive show has three areas to watch the horses, two massive tents full of horse related artwork, clothing, leather goods, and a whole host of items tempting your credit card to make itself known.
Being from the Midwest, and having never been around horses, we felt like we had just stepped into a very unfamiliar world as we were wide-eyed with wonder at these beautiful creatures. Yet, we found everyone to be very friendly, willing to explain the Arabian horse culture, and once again giving us a most wonderful experience.
We highly recommend a visit to the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show.
“The study measures overall airport satisfaction in three distinct airport segments, based on passenger traffic: large, medium and small. Larger airports have 30 million or more passengers per year, while medium airports typically serve 10 million to 30 million passengers per year. Small airports as outlined in the study are those with traffic of fewer than 10 million passengers per year. Six different factors—assessed through 27 specific attributes—are examined to determine overall customer satisfaction. They are: airport accessibility; baggage claim; check-in/baggage check process; terminal facilities; security check; and food and retail services.”
Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, the Roaming Boomers home airport, snagged the #5 spot with “accessibility” being it only drawback.
How did your airport do in the rankings? Share your comment below.
Last night, The Roaming Boomers were the guests of Maryellen Gleason, President/CEO of The Phoenix Symphony, for their concert at the Phoenix Symphony Hall.
The concert featured Prokofiev’s popular Symphony No. 1 (“Classical”), John Adam’s Shaker Loops, and finished with Prokofiev’s legendary Peter and the Wolf accompanied with the 2008 stop-animation Oscar winning film of the same name.
The evening began with Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1. Because I was raised in a small town, there is something deep in my DNA that expects to cringe when I hear an orchestra because of their lack of a common pitch. There was certainly none of that here, and therefore I was able to relax and enjoy the performance.
When this first piece finished, I was left with a stunning example of the professionalism, and the certain skill of these musicians. I was very impressed with the clarity, and oneness of sound during some of the lighting fast arpeggios displayed in the string section. A lesser orchestra would have made certain mud of these sections. Bravo!
I brought to the second piece, John Adam’s Shaker Loops, a confident expectation of dreariness.
Conductor Michael Christie
When I was in college, I remember making some “modern” music with my fellow musicians. We pretended to be John Cage and flushed toilets, made all sorts of silly sounds, ran them through a synthesizer, and called it music.
I was very surprised to hear that John Adams piece was nothing like that. As I was sitting there letting my ears explore this completely new sound landscape, I began to dream about how I would try to explain this piece to you in words.
The only thing that came to mind was that I was somehow exploring far away galaxies, ablaze with all the color, and highly unusual sights that the Hubble Telescope brings to us. Only here, these brilliant new sights were being delivered to me in sound.
My expectation of dreariness was turned 180º into child-like wonder. I found myself wishing that I could somehow get inside the sound so that I might better hear and experience it.
As it turns out, this was my favorite piece of the night because it was completely new to me. I love exploring new things!
After intermission, we were treated to the evening’s main event: Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf conducted to the 2008 Oscar winning stop-animation film of the same name.
What a joyous experience! Married to Prokofiev’s brilliant score was a visual experience that had the audience often rolling in laughter. There was also a great gasp uttered when the big bad wolf gulped down the defenseless duck.
Overall, this was a most delightful evening. If I possessed 10 thumbs, I would give them 10 thumbs up.
If you are visiting the Greater Phoenix Area during the symphony’s concert season, I would highly recommend you enjoy an evening with them. You will be glad you did.
Thank you Maryellen Gleason, Conductor Michael Christie, and The Phoenix Symphony, for a most wonderful evening out!
Disclosure: this evening’s experience was provided by the generosity of The Phoenix Symphony
According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, airlines are adding more time to their scheduled flight times:
“Across the airline industry, carriers have been adding minutes to “block times”—the scheduled durations—baking delays into trips so that late flights officially arrive “on-time” and operations run better because flights pull into gates more often on schedule.
For some airlines, longer scheduled times for flights reflects the reality of inefficiency in the nation’s air travel system, which often can’t handle the volume of planes without delay, especially when bad weather hits. For others, lengthening scheduled arrival times boosts on-time rankings charted by the Department of Transportation: Those numbers can have a real effect on public perception. And in some cases, block times have grown simply because airlines have been making so many schedule changes as they have reduced capacity over the past two years. Flights that took off without a wait can now end up stuck waiting behind a line of jets because departure times have been changed.”
With the recent security changes, and now these “padded” block times, it appears as though we are going to take a little longer getting to where we want to go.
Don’t worry, you can always log on to The Roaming Boomers website, and we will do our best to keep you informed and entertained.