Downtown Mesa Community Garden

There’s a community garden in Downtown Mesa that I’d heard about but hadn’t been to until my sister-in-law Liz was in town.

Mesa community garden

Isn’t it funny how you tend to see more of your city when someone is visiting?

Mural in urban garden, Mesa

Anyway, after lunch at Republica Empanada (at Hibbert and 1st Ave.), she asked about the gate next to the restaurant that leads into the Mesa Urban Garden, and we went to check it out.

I wasn’t expecting to see much, because August in Phoenix is rough on plants and only the most hardy survive. But there were still a fair number of things growing – veggies and vinca and this gorgeous trumpet vine with orange flowers and long green pods.

Community garden, Mesa

The garden is surrounded by walls with colorful murals, and there’s a Little Free Library made from an old phone booth.

I’ll definitely have to return later this fall!

Mesa garden

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August 25, 2016August 12, 2016

Graz Kitchen Fresh

I love a good grilled cheese sandwich.

The first time I went to Graz Kitchen Fresh for a breakfast meetup and saw they had a whole menu of them, I was like “oh, I’m coming back!”

And I’ve definitely been back. So I felt like a post devoted to the goodness of Graz was long overdue.

Open for breakfast and lunch, Graz is a juice bar and sandwich shop focused on fresh ingredients.

It’s located just south of Downtown Chandler and Gangplank, where I sometimes work. I can easily pick up lunch on the way in or pastries for our Monthly Momentum meetup.

I’m kinda hooked on their green goddess sandwich. It is goat cheese, mozzarella, pesto, arugula, and avocado on this whole grain bread toasted on a sandwich press. I mean, seriously.

They serve Peixoto coffee and occasionally do a breakfast sandwich pop-up there. They also provided the food and coffee for Craft Camp. If you order ahead, they make crazy good cinnamon rolls.

January 8, 2016May 23, 2023

The Living Room in Chandler

I finally made it in to The Living Room, a cozy wine bar in Chandler, one summer day when my friend Katie was in town. A monsoon storm had just blown through, cooling the temperature down from unbearable to pleasant, and they opened up the patio for us.

The bruschetta was awesome. One kind had ripe cherry tomatoes. The other had prosciutto that reminded me of Spain.

My sangria was ok. Turns out I’m very picky about sangria. After that, I ordered the same red as Katie, and that was really good. That’s probably what I should’ve done in the first place. Katie has great taste and is kind of a Living Room expert from her Chandler days.

The servers came around just often enough, not so much they kept us from catching up, but enough to get our orders and bring us more bread, so we could finish off our delicous artichoke dip.

November 30, 2015May 23, 2023

Thanksgiving at Usery Park

Every few years, my mom decides it’s time for a Thanksgiving picnic.

We’re kind of spoiled here in the Phoenix area by almost always having gorgeous weather on Thanksgiving Day. I guess we kind of pay for it with the crazy hot summers.

Anyway, ever since I was a kid, some years we have traditional Thanksgiving with a whole turkey and a dining room table, and other years we have turkey sandwiches at a desert picnic table.

This year, it was just my parents, Phillip, and I. We kept things super simple and picnicked at Usery Mountain Regional Park.

We still had the boisterous, house-full-of-people experience with Phillip’s side of the family the following Saturday.

But Thanksgiving Day was all blue skies and saguaros.

After picnicking, we took a short hike, chatting some and listening to the gravelly trail crunch under our feet, a cactus wren calling to us, and far off coyotes howling. The sun dipped low to backlight the landscape, putting glowing edges around fuzzy chollas and creosote bushes with their tiny, fragrant leaves, and making the evening seem magical.

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October 8, 2015May 23, 2023

The (Fountain) Hills

The Fountain Hillstory

Fountain Hills is a planned community northeast of Phoenix that was created in the late 1960s by the guy who designed Disneyland and the guy who developed the city of Lake Havasu.

When you decide to plop a town into the middle of the desert, what do you make its centerpiece? The World’s Tallest Fountain! Of course.

Although, if you think that’s absurd, remember that the developer’s other project at the time was a much more remote planned Arizona community with the actual historic London Bridge – transported across the Atlantic by boat and reassembled brick by brick – as its centerpiece. After that, a desert fountain kinda seems like child’s play.

The Modern Landscape

The Fountain Hills fountain is no longer the world’s tallest, but it still shoots a stream of water into the air hourly that can go from 300 to 560 feet high, which is actually slightly taller than the Washington Monument. At its base is a concrete expressionist water lily sculpture.

The whole thing is situated in the middle of an artificial lake (called, unsurprisingly, Fountain Lake) with a sprawling park wrapping around it. (Guess what the park is called. Yep, Fountain Park. You win.) There are shaded picnic tables, public art, and a playground. Even though there always seem to be people around during the day, it’s big enough to feel a bit empty most of the time.

Saguaro Lake on a Saturday Is No Picnic

The last time we were in Fountain Hills, we hadn’t planned on going there.

It was the weekend before Phillip started back to school. We decided it was a good day to throw a picnic lunch together and head east to Saguaro Lake. However, we didn’t make it past the ranger checking for passes at the entrance.

Not sure how both Phillip and I missed the memo that you need a Tonto Pass even if you’re not going boating or camping (details below, so you can be more prepared than we were). Since you can’t buy the pass on site, we started thinking about other options.

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Fountain Park-ing

Fountain Hills was only about 20 minutes away, and I knew that, unlike at the super crowded Saguaro Lake, there would be plenty of space and plenty of free parking. So instead of turning back the way we came, we took a right and rolled into Fountain Hills just before 2pm.

We made a quick stop at a coffee shop overlooking Fountain Park. (Guess what the coffee shop was called. Fountain View? Nope. Mountain View.)

From the back patio of Mountain View Coffee Co., we could see the fountain start up. There was a path directly into the park and an open picnic table near the colorful mural wall. We started in on our lunch and watched a stream of water surge towards the sky then collapse down into the lake with just a hint of a rainbow forming in its mist.

– More info –

Tonto Pass

You need a permit to park in high-use recreation sites in the Tonto National Forest, such as Saguaro Lake.
For daily use, you can get a $6 Tonto Pass online or in certain stores outside the National Forest. (Full list PDF.) Watch for stores with the “Tonto Pass Sold Here” signs, while you’re on the way.
It’s not available at the actual recreation sites. You have to buy it ahead of time.
Even if there’s not a ranger at the entrance, you can still be fined for not having a Tonto Pass hanging from your rearview mirror.

Fountain Hills

The fountain is on for the first 10-15 minutes of every hour 9am-10pm, unless there’s too much wind.
Docents lead free walking tours of area public art October through April. (Donations accepted.)
Follow the Fountain Hills Art Walk Map (PDF) to take a self-guided tour.

In the Area

Saguaro Lake Guest Ranch horseback riding
McDowell Mountain Regional Park hiking
Taliesin West, former home of Frank Lloyd Wright, is on the way if you’re coming from the Phoenix area via Shea Blvd. It would be a great place to spend the morning before lunch in Fountain Hills.
It just occurred to me that the Macayo’s with the fancy new menu I wrote about recently (with the jicama tacos and crazy good churros) is also on Shea. So, alternate itinerary: 1. Fountain Hills 2. Taliesin West tour 3. happy hour at Macayo’s Scottsdale. That sounds like a good day to me.

Thank you to Alison King, who schooled me on Midcentury Modernism in Phoenix and Concrete Expressionism. Her site is Modern Phoenix, and you should totally check it out.