Phoenix and the Valley of the Sun

It’s time for me to get out of California for a while (I’ll come back to it later). On to Arizona…The first time I visited Phoenix was about 25 years ago (picture Phoenix 1982). At that time Phoenix was a small town and hadn’t begun the enormous growth it has.

Back 25 years ago there were a lot of dusty streets and the drive to Scottsdale seemed like driving across the Mojave. Wow, have things changed. I have been back to the area many times and while I don’t stay in Phoenix anymore it is still fun to go back to the city and experiment with the restaurants and shops.

I stayed at the Hyatt Gainey Ranch in Scottsdale when it was first opened and it was the only thing on the property, next to the golf course. Now, Gainey ranch is congested with shops and hotels, the Hyatt doesn’t even stand out anymore. Having said that, I still like Scottsdale, there are some great restaurants and shops despite all the traffic. El Pedregal is a very nice shopping center and over the years the restaurants there have changed hands but always remained good. I like the location of this center and the design reminds me of the desert many years ago.

There used to be a restaurant called Oaxaca up on East Pinnacle Peak road but it isn’t there anymore. Their food was excellent and the view overlooking the valley was spectacular at night.

Cave Creek is more like Scottsdale used to be back a few years ago. A couple of good restaurants, my favorite is El Encanto on Cave Creek Road, and some fun shops and a lot of desert.

In Carefree you will find the Carefree Resort & Villas. It is a very good resort with nice desert views, tennis courts, and a pool. What more could a person want? The rooms are good and the service is nice.

Much more modern, and not very favorable to the desert surroundings, is the Kierland shopping district and the Westin Kierland. Very nice place, modern amenities, nice stores and hotel. The locals like it but if I were a visitor wanting to experience the desert I would avoid this place. Once again, I am not putting it down it is a great area but you won’t get a desert feel there.

I have been all around the Valley, Mesa, Glendale, Surprise, etc. and there are some great sights to see, hotels to stay in, and shopping to do (not to mention the golf courses). If you like baseball then spring training is for you. The Cubs are in Mesa and a whole slew of other teams are scattered around Phoenix making spring time a fun time for all.

If you haven’t experienced springtime in the desert you are truly missing something. Everything is in bloom and the beauty of it all is spectacular. Take your clubs, tennis racket, jogging shoes and have a ball in the spring.

Spend some time in the greater Phoenix area and you will find the best restaurants, shopping, resorts, scenery, golf, sophistication, and fun that the desert Southwest can offer.

Hyatt for me

As I post my travel comments you will notice that most of my hotel visits have been at Hyatt Hotels and Resorts. This has not been by accident. I have been traveling on business and pleasure for over 40 years. I have stayed in major and some smaller cities, resorts in the desert southwest, and ocean front properties. I find that I get the best choices, rates, and comfort at Hyatt properties.

I don't mean to put down other hotel chains. There are some fine Marriott, Hilton and Sheraton properties and even a few good budget hotels that I would recommend but overall Hyatt offers the best.

Have I had bad experiences at Hyatt properties...you bet, the Hyatt Regency in Monterey California is one. The last time I stayed there was fall 2005. I was very disappointed, the room I had was dirty, old and worn. I couldn’t see out the sliding patio door because it was so dirty. Also, the Hyatt resort in Mission Bay San Diego, bad room, poor maintenance, and unclean. I understand these two hotels have been remodeled but I hesitate to visit them again.

For budget hotels I recommend Hampton Inn but a word of caution here, some of them are pretty bad. I understand that Holiday Inn Express hotels are good but I haven’t stayed at any.

So for me it is Hyatt, my overall satisfaction rate is 4 ½ stars.

Venice Beach, CA

Venice Beach is located relatively close to LAX and adjacent to Santa Monica. Enough said…Ok well there is more; I stayed at the Venice Beach Inn several times and it is quite enjoyable. Comfortable rooms and a nice morning breakfast. It is just a short walk to the beach and the boardwalk and there are several decent restaurants and gift shops within a block of the hotel.

Venice Beach has a boardwalk that stretches for miles and it is lined with every kind of gift and souvenir shop you can imagine. The beach is nice and if you like people watching there isn’t a better place you can find every kind of person; tourist, dog walker, doped out hippie, drunk, street hustlers, street performer, body builder, roller blader, and more.

If you are looking for tacky tourist gifts you will find them in Venice Beach.

I recommend Venice Beach for the pure fun and excitement it offers. Years ago you wouldn’t want to walk around at night but it much safer now.

Huntington Beach, CA

If you like the ocean, sunshine, large sandy beaches, and surfing then Huntington Beach is for you. I have stayed at the Hyatt Resort in Huntington Beach several times. It is a really nice hotel/resort with a couple swimming pools, a spa, good restaurants, and easy beach access over the top of Pacific Coast Highway.

The hotel is fairly large but easy to get around in. The main swimming pool gets crowded so get out there early. I found the services around the pool a little below par but everything else they offer makes up for it.

Lunch at their restaurants is good; eat outdoors if the weather isn’t too bad. Sorry I didn’t mention the weather sooner. The hotel is on the ocean which means that there is almost always a breeze. During the winter months the breeze can feel cold but the rest of the year it is not usually a problem.

Enjoy the pool or enjoy the beach. A short walk down the beach takes you to the pier where you can watch the surfers risk their lives, or you may join them. At the beginning of the pier is their beach shopping area. It has mostly trendy shops and restaurants although there are several good restaurants in the area.

Overall I highly recommend visiting and perhaps staying in Hunting Beach. A fun, scenic, an overall enjoyable place to visit.

Santa Fe, NM

OK, here is what I think of Santa Fe, the Capital area.

Crowded, small streets, too many vendors selling the same thing, too few good restaurants.

Some how the people there think they are cool. They remind me of a bunch of old hippies from the 60’s who haven’t grown up. A lot of motor cycles and beer drinkers with wayyyy too many left-wing liberals for my liking.

We stayed at the Inn of the Governors for one night, originally planned 4 but got out of there early. If you like rustic (translated old), very few amenities, poor parking, crappy pool, and poor restaurant and bar then this is the place for you.



While I was there I attended their International Diversity Fair, uggh. I didn’t have a problem with the vendors from around the world but the locals shopping there made me sick (how is that for my diversity).

Over all I would avoid Santa Fe unless you absolutely had to go there.

If you want a quaint town with jewelry and gift shops stick with Old Town Albuquerque.

Garden Grove, CA

OK, there isn’t much in Garden Grove but there is an excellent hotel there, the Hyatt Regency Garden Grove. This is an excellent hotel, clean comfortable rooms, beautiful lobby, lounge and restaurant and very convenient to major freeways. It is just a few blocks from the main gate at Disneyland and just a few blocks from the I-5 freeway. This is my favorite hotel in the Disneyland area.


I should mention that there are a whole bunch of hotels in the immediate area, since it is so close to Disneyland. Adjacent to the Hyatt is the Hampton Inn. I stayed there twice and won’t ever stay there again. Their rooms were typical for a Hampton but the elevator was dirty each time (I don’t know if they ever clean it) and their breakfast area was not stocked or refilled well. On both occasions I had to chase down an attendant just to get more coffee.

Across the street is the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Each of my stays there has been OK. It is a fairly large hotel but it isn’t maintained very well. On one occasion I got a room above the entrance and some people were standing outside smoking cigarettes and the odor came in through my window. The rooms are kind of noisy but well equipped. They have a breakfast buffet but not a very attractive room. They do have a coffee bar where you can get a bagel with your coffee and take it with you. One bad thing about his hotel is the parking. They share a parking lot with three other hotels and the walk to your car could be long, especially on a rainy day.

I have stayed at the Convention Center Hilton and while it is a very nice hotel it is not for the vacation or casual traveler. Very business like and sterile. It is large and in a congested area.

Just down the street, in Orange, is the DoubleTree Hotel. The lobby and outside areas aren’t very attractive but my rooms have been very nice and comfortable. One caution, it is right on the intersection of the I-5 freeway so make sure you don’t get a room facing it.


I travel to southern California frequently on business and this is a convenient location for all of Orange County and San Diego County. During the middle of the day the traffic on the freeways going north in to L.A. aren't too busy and you can get to the downtown business district in 30-45 minutes.

If you like to shop avoid the Block at Orange. most of the stores are closed or cater to cheap young fashion. The best shopping area is the Spectrum in Irvine. You will find upscale restaurants, department stores and boutiques galore.

Hyatt Regency Tamaya

Shopping center East Albuquerque

I can't find and don't remember the name of the shopping area in Albuquerque but it is located at I-40 and Louisiana Blvd. It is one of the new trendy shopping areas with restaurants and shops mixed in around a city center concept. I recommend it.

Albuquerque, NM

I took a week off and visited New Mexico this year. While I have traveler the American Southwest before and have changed planes in Albuquerque I never set aside the time to explore it.

Albuquerque itself was not very impressive, a city with a college, a bunch of freeways and an airport. Getting around the airport was easy but it doesn't offer very many amenities. The food counters aren't very good and the service was a little under average.

The car rental experience was awful (ALAMO) but getting out on the highway was easy and quick. I should mention that it was summer time and the temperature was well into the mid-nineties (Fahrenheit) and I got a convertible.

The drive to our hotel was easy, 25 minute drive, but it was hot and dry and the highway was blistering hot.

The weariness faded when we got to our resort, the Hyatt Regency Tamaya in Santa Ana Pueblo. What a treat it was, 3 swimming pools, a couple of restaurants, sitting out in the middle of the desert. It was clean, comfortable, and quiet, a real pleasure.
I recommend it, it ranks high on my list of resorts in the US (I'll list my favorites later). The staff was friendly and helpful and I got a terrific rate using Priceline.



We laid around the pool, got suntans then went exploring the area. We discovered OLD TOWN Albuquerque and immediately liked it. It is a small area with some nice shops and restaurants and a park in the center where the locals gathered in the evening to entertain and even have a wedding.

The rest of Albuquerque didn't have anything special, strip malls, road construction BUT there is a very nice new shopping area on the east side of town off Hwy I-40, the name of which I can't remember right now but I will get info and post it later.

I should mention that we did not take the Sandia Peak tram, the world’s longest passenger aerial tram. It looks interesting and the views are probably terrific. We did however take the Turquoise Trail (I don’t recommend it). the most interesting part of the trail was stopping in Madrid, this is where they filmed the movie “Wild Hogs”. It is an interesting little town (with emphasis on little). Some local galleries and shops and the restaurant.

After a couple of days we checked out of the Hyatt and went up to Santa Fe (big mistake). After 36 hours there we left and went back to the Hyatt Tamaya. I'll cover Santa Fe in a later post.

Adventures in Travel

I have had the pleasure (mostly) of traveling around the US, London, New Delhi and Pune, IN, Hong Kong, Japan, Philippines, and Mexico over the past 40 years. I have done repeat visits over the years to many locations, have seen the changes and decided that I would chronicle what I can remember.
Seeing other cities, states, and countries and learning about other cultures and practices has been an educational and personal treat for me.
I expect to add a comment each day about the places where I have been and maybe the places I would like to visit.
Stay tuned for more.