Tuesday, January 13, 2009

There Is No Arizona



Now I am a Pop Music girl married to a hard core Rock-N-Roller. But you don't grow up in Arizona (or anywhere in the west I suppose) and not learn to like some country music. There I said it, I like some of the new country music out there. (Don't tell anyone I said that!)

There is a country song by Jamie O'Neal called "There is no Arizona" and the story line is about a young woman who's guy promises her a better life, out in Arizona. And when the promises are empty, she comes to the conclusion . . .

"There is no Arizona
No painted desert, no Sedona
If there was a Grand Canyon
She could fill it up with the lies he's told her
But they don't exist, those dreams he sold her
she'll wake up and find
There is no Arizona"

Well, I'm here to tell you "Yes Virginia, There is an Arizona!" I want to welcome Blog Around The World to my little corner of the world. I am so excited to be the featured Blog today, and for the opportunity to introduce you all to one of the most Beautiful places God ever created. I know many of you live where it is cold. So, come on in and enjoy the warmth and the sunshine.


Born & raised here, I am an Arizona native, which is unusual, because so many people move here from elsewhere. I live in a suburb of Phoenix, the capitol of Arizona. The Phoenix metropolitan area is the fifth largest city in the United States. And is one of the fastest growing cities as well. It is a desert, but, Phoenix is surrounded by mountains, and is called the Valley of the Sun.


One of the great things about living here is that you can drive two hours and you would be out of the desert, in the beautiful mountains, surrounded by Pine trees & snow. Yes snow. You can play in it all day, drive back home and NEVER have to shovel it! I love the sunshine. And the sun shines here more than 300 days every year! And yes it does get hot. Very hot. There is very little humidity, so it's a dry heat. And temperatures can rise up over 120 degrees fahrenheit.

The Grand Canyon


Arizona boasts many natural wonders. The biggest being of course The Grand Canyon. We are also home to Sedona, Oak Creek Canyon, Sunset Crater, The Painted Desert, and The Petrified Forest, just to name a few. Also, did you know the London Bridge you sang about as a child was given to the United States from England, and is in Lake Havasu City, Arizona? Well, hopefully you learned something new from your visit here today.

The London Bridge

Red Rocks of Sedona

The Painted Desert


Arizona also has some great professional sports teams. The Phoenix Suns. And this year for the first time, the Arizona Cardinals have a shot at going to the Superbowl! Yeah! A lot of the MLB teams come to Arizona for spring training, and you can see some great games pretty inexpensively. And we even have a Hockey team right in the middle of the desert! Go figure.


Well, I hope you enjoyed your visit to Arizona. Thank you so much for visiting me. I feel so honored. Come back anytime. The people here are laid back and casual. And are as diverse as our state is. And I leave you with an Arizona sunset. The sunsets here are absolutely Breathtaking!

80 comments:

Tracy P. said...

Beautiful! I'm pretty sure we did not reach a temperature above zero today. I hope your guest room is ready!! Thanks for the tour!

Jodi said...

Great tour and beautiful pictures. I can't say I've ever been to Arizona, but would like to visit, especially after seeing so many beautiful views!

Frizzy said...

Great post! Thanks for being our host. One of my most memorable trips was to Sedona and the Grand Canyon with my husband a few years ago.

I Love Purple More Than You said...

What a great tour. Those pictures are beautiful!!! I have no excuses now not to visit Arizona, since we're within driving distance! (visiting from Los Angeles)

illahee said...

i don't want to leave, either. it's soooo cold here, but we don't even get any snow to enjoy! i love hot places, and arizona is just as beautiful as i've always imagined!!

Julie said...

I had no idea snow was in AZ... and that you could drive and play in it... wow... thanks for sharing!!!!!

Lady Dorothy said...

Gorgeous sunsets! Thanks for the tour! Enjoy your BATW day!

Lucy Mills said...

Thanks for this...the photos are wonderful!

Saskia said...

Great tour and beautiful photos! I've never been to AZ, but the Grand Canyon is on my list so one day I will!

Saskia x

Casey (@ Chaos and Cardboard) said...

Oh it looks so warm and lovely. Nothing but snow for me today. :( Thanks for the tour, and happy BATW day!

Anonymous said...

Oh....that warm desert looks beautiful about right now!

I am originally from So. Calif and my parents still live there. They also have a vacation home in Lake Havasu where they have been going for over 30 years. Love the London Bridge pictures :-)

We were stationed at Luke AFB in the late 90's and lived in Litchfield Park! I remember how nice the Winters were in AZ :-)
I do miss that!!!!

Thanks for the beautiful photos ;-)

Debbie said...

I loved it all! Great pics and great post! Thanks so much for taking the time to do this! It was fabulous....

Lauren W said...

Thanks for the lovely tour :)
You've reminded me of all the reasons that I miss the desert. Thanks for hosting :)

Pat said...

HEllo from "Around the World".. the pics of Arizona that you have posted are just amazing... I think I wanna move! (visiting from Montreal)
Pat

Alicia @ Oh2122 said...

What amazing pictures!

Thanks for the tour!

RebeccaMom said...

Congrats on being featured! Gorgeous pictures :) I love the desert!

Keys to the Magic Travel said...

Arizona is so on my list of places to go. So much to see there.

I have a friend that lives in Albuquerque and she talks about the heat...and then driving to the snow just a few hours away.

I just can't imagine :-)

Vicki said...

I love that song! Never knew who the artist was. I lived in Alamogordo NM for a couple years and our desert definitely didn't look like yours does! Your pictures are beautiful and actually make me want to visit. Your picture of the London Bridge reminds me of a commercial we used to see in Germany on the American military channel. They liked to talk about interesting facts about Americana, and the Lomdon Bridge was one of them.

Thanks for the tour!

Skeller said...

awwww, the London Bridge. I've been there so very many times. My 100% favorite childhood vacation destination was my grandparent's home on the Colorado River just below the Parker Dam. I still miss that my Grammy isn't living there anymore.
Visiting from BATW,
Susan

Unknown said...

I agree with everyone else! Beautiful pictures! I just heard form my friend in AZ his morning who went swimming with her daughter yesterday. I was so jealous.

Vickie said...

Visiting from Michigan. Your pictures of Arizona are warming me up. The pictures are gorgeous!

I did not know that the London Bridge is in Arizona, actually, I didn't know it was in the US. When did that happen?

My Mom's dream was always to move to Arizona, she hates Michigan. There was a party store by us and my mom would go to it every Saturday and buy a paper from Arizona. She would look thru the Want Ads.

Deborah said...

My mother-in-law lives in Tempe, AZ, and back when I lived in the DC area, it was so nice to visit her for Thanksgiving! Wonderful weather. (Of course I stayed away in the summer, though!) One of my favorite memories was coming to visit her over Thanksgiving, enjoying the warmth, then freezing my tail off for a day at the Grand Canyon!

Now that I live in Cairo, Egypt, the weather here is very similar to Arizona. But I do think that the relative lack of pollution makes Arizona's winter weather better than Egypt's!

Kelly said...

We were just in Arizona for the first time this past December. We spent our first anniversary in Sedona and saw the Grand Canyon. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL! We recommend the trip to everyone and can't wait to come back

Becky W said...

YAY for you! I would love to come to Arizona! You did a great job giving us the grand tour. Hope you have a wonderful day.

Rene said...

Congrats on your BATW feature! My mother, a couple aunts, a sister, and several cousins live in the Phx area so I've spent quite a bit of time there. I prefer coming in February rather than August but it seems like I end up there in August more so than at a more enjoyable time of year!

Unknown said...

I am on a quest...to travel to all 50 states...so much so, that I talked the family into driving from Il to Colorado...just so we could make 5 states in that trip...

Arizona is on my short list...I love the pictures that you posted and I hope to get there soon.

Darcy @ m3b said...

From freezing Iowa via BATW!

Wow, it's looks both warm and pretty by you. What I wouldn't give for a little warm and pretty here in the arctic tundra!

Thanks for the tour. It's supposed to be -20 here tonight. If it's really 115 in AZ, that puts out weather at an outstanding 135 degree difference.

My. Word.

-Darcy

Kathi Roach said...

Thank you so much for your beautiful pictures!!! My husband has been wanting to go to the Grand Canyon and now we DEFINITELY will go!!

What a great place to live!!! Right now it is in the 20's here in Maryland!!!! Wish I was there!

Unknown said...

We traveled through Arizona on our way to California this past summer. I was simply shocked at the beauty of the Grand Canyon and many other scenes along the way. It truly is beautiful.

Yes, you do live in the heat! As we traveled through it felt like we were in a sauna. But the beauty off-sets that.

Thanks for sharing your state with us - it was a great tour.

Lynnette

Ronnica said...

Oh, I want to get in my car and drive right now (seriously, last night as I was laying in bed I "day"(?)dreamed of driving cross country...I wouldn't even need a map, I know the highways I would need to take to get to everyone/everywhere I want to see)! I spent a summer in Phoenix and love, love, loved it! If I could choose anywhere to live based on geography and climate, it would be Phoenix, and I'm not even just saying that because it's winter.

Sarah said...

Beautiful tour! I enjoyed seeing all the photos. Just thinking about AZ made me feel a little warmer :)

Katie said...

Arizona is such a beautiful state; your post brought back such great memories of our visit a couple of years ago to the Grand Canyon and Sedona. We're hoping to visit my best friend in Scottsdale within the next year. Great state, thanks for spotlighting it!

lynn said...

Beautiful state. Thanks for the tour! Someday I'd like to make it to the grand canyon.

Heathahlee said...

I LOVE Arizona! When I was a teenager our youth group would take trips out to Klagetoh to the Navajo reservation for Backyard Bible Clubs and stuff, and I was so amazed at the beauty in your state. We got to see Canyon de Chelly and go to Four Corners, all of which is in the northern part of the state. But I still loved it anyway! I was amazed one year because the day we got there, June 1, it snowed! Then a few days later it was in the 80's!

Thanks for the tour. And by the way, we're rooting for the Cardinals because we really like Kurt Warner. Talk about a comeback kid. : )

Ashley said...

When I think of country songs and Arizona I think of George Strait (I'm pretty sure it was him) and 'Oceanfront property in Arizona...' That's a good one. Anyway, congrats on your feature and thanks for the tour!

Karin said...

It was 117 degrees when we visited Lake Havasu quite a few years back. There was no point in going into the swimming pool - it felt like bathwater, lol! You could fry eggs on the concrete - but we didn't. We loved our visit there. If you stayed in the shade and didn't move much you were fine! I was on the London Bridge! I couldn't believe it when I was first told about it. We would love to visit Phoenix maybe next January but not sure where the best place is for us to stay. We've toured the Grand Canyon etc. It was wonderful and our kids loved it very much too! I've always been told that the Grand Canyon was formed by a cheapskate chasing a nickel down a gopher hole! LOL Thanks so much for the beautiful tour! Feel warmer already!

Lynda said...

Greetings from Texas and BATW - what a wonderful tour and the photos are gorgeous!

Vanessa Rogers said...

I absolutely love the photos! I can't wait to visit Arizona since I am not that far away (relatively, I live in Texas)

Joy said...

I went to Arizona for the first time March 2008 for our kids spring break. My husband kept telling me you are going to love AZ. He was right. That is one of the pretties places I've ever seen. I loved Sedona. I just renovated my blog but for the longest time I had Sedona Mountain picture up there. We stayed in Scottsdale too. I loved this place called The Dish. It was a restaurant/bistro/everything combined. I could have moved my permanent address to that store.
Thanks for bringing back some good memories for me.
Also, I'm a preachers kid so pastors wife's have a special place in my heart. Thanks for doing that.

Joy

Sally-Ann said...

Wonderful pictures! Thank you for the tour of Arizona. I have never been there, so it was fun for me. I also think it was warmer there today than here in Tampa!!

Susie said...

Greetings from Wisconsin!! Congratulations on your BATW feature. I hope you enjoyed your day in the sun:-)

Anonymous said...

Ohhh, this is so beautiful. Thanks for the photo of the sunset. If there is anywhere on earth that is close to heaven, it must be Arizona. I enjoyed reading your post.

Roblynn said...

Beautiful pics. We lived 14 years in Flagstaff and always ran to Scottsdale to stay with my mom and get out of the snow! Finally had enough snow and moved to Costa Rica two years ago. We still spend October in Scottsdale to get out of the rain here! Enjoy the winter.

The Muse said...

glorious visions...it is a nice place...we have traveled there..but when it gets hot...it really gets HOT :)

momma said...

so pretty and warm looking. if it's going to be cold here where i am, at least it could snow!!

angie {the arthur clan} said...

My husband went on a business trip to Arizona last spring and decided that we should pack up and move there immediately. He loved it that much! (Unfortunately, his job wouldn't have followed him there so we are still here in cold Ohio.)

Next time he takes a business trip there, I am going with him whether he likes it or not! Beautiful.

The Muse said...

what a gloriously warm welcome i just read on my blog...i sure hope i am able to do just that!

Anonymous said...

Great tour wonderful pictures. It was a nice escape from the cold, even if it's just mental. Thanks.

Jenners said...

Wow! Beautiful beautiful photos! You did Arizona proud! I've been to Sedona and the Grand Canyon and once was lucky enough to vacation in Scottsdale and took a hot air balloon ride over the desert. Always wanted to go back and now I want to even more! Thanks for a great post!

Anonymous said...

I've only been to Arizona once ... last year, to see the Grand Canyon and OMG ... I was simply starstruck by it. Seriously beautiful.

I would so love to see Sedona and other parts of Arizona!

Nani said...

I loved it. I just got here from the Blog Around the World. I am from Brazil but live in Tucson Arizona, only 2 hours away from Phoenix. And agree with everything you wrote and showed us.

Have a nice week!

C. JoyBell C. said...

The London bridge was given as a gift? That's after it burned down, right? Did they ship it over the oceans to get there? LOL LOL That is something I have just now learned, and it fascinates me! I want somebody to give me a bridge from Londond (or some other fancy place like that) one day! LOL

So...the Pastor Man is a hard-core rock-n-roller!? You are the "awesomest" Pastor Family, ever! LOL!

I love all the beautiful pictures, Star! One of them took my breath away a little... :)

I like that you can drive two hours to play in the snow! Hey! I wish I could do that! :)

Congratulations on your BATW day, Star! MMmmmmwwwwa!

Kimberly Pitman said...

My children used to live there (actually at Luke AFB would be more accurate) and we visited them twice. Once was in August and the once was in February. I definitely recommend visiting in February instead!

Thanks for taking me back today.

janetfaye said...

The pictures are gorgeous!

Thank you for sharing.

I would love to visit Arizona one day.

LORI said...

I, TOO, LIVE IN AZ, AND WHAT A BEAUTIFUL TRIBUTE YOU'VE GIVEN OUR HOME! STOPPING BY FROM SITS, AND SO GRATEFUL TO HAVE THE CHANCE TO READ YOUR BLOG! CONGRATS--YEA YOU!

Unknown said...

small world...I live in Phoenix too. Don't you just love the weather?!?!?!

Carole said...

Great post, very informative! Here via SITS! Way to go SITSta

carole
xoxo

Dawn Parsons Smith said...

Hi! Found you via SITS and very happy I did! I can firmly attest that, indeed, there is an Arizona! (at least there better be 'cause that's where I live too....) Wonderful blog! Will be back for more!!!

Hugs!
dawn

lynette355 said...

Hello SITS-er! And congrats on being "Queen of the Day". I so enjoyed it on Tuesday. Are you not just dancing around. And all the comments. WOOT

Well after nosey-ing around here I had to leave a comment on how beautiful Arizona is. I did not know! Breath taking photos here. I am looking up the SHACK on PaperBackSwap.com. And raising twins must have it's challanges. I babysit two and they are a handful!

Enjoy your day!

Anonymous said...

beautiful pics!

Pseudo said...

I love the desert, so this post made me wish for a vacation and the means to visit. Haven't been to Arizona since I moved to hawaii in 1982.

ashley b said...

I heart Arizona big time! I live in the mountains and love that I can drive a few hours to our house in Mesa and warm up, but go home and not fry my buns off! And GO Suns! We are huge Suns fans around our house and love going to the weekend games. Arizona IS a wonderful place!

Mommy In Pink said...

Those pictures are absolutely beautiful..my husband wants to pack it all in and move to Arizona...we're tired of Chicago!

OneZenMom said...

Beautiful. Thank you for sharing your little corner of the world with us! :)

Julie said...

Congrats for being saucy. I'm a fairly recent resident of arizona (about 7 years). I think it grows on ya! I also live in a Phoenix suburb...maybe I've seen you in Wal Mart!

Sharlene said...

I love AZ. Such a beautiful place! I am dying to go to the Grad Canyon this year. And I still haven't been to Sedona!

Gombojav Tribe said...

I've been to Arizona many times and never found it to be that pretty. (with the exception of the Grand Canyon of course!!) However, you have changed my mind! It looks absolutely LOVELY!!!! Maybe I need new lenses....

gail said...

beautiful pictures!

Michelle said...

Living in California I have been to Arizona many times and I agree it is beautiful.

Jenkins said...

Never been to Arizona. It looks amazing. I live in Northern VA and rarely make it west. Arizona has such beautiful places. Breathtaking just from pictures.

Becky@Beyond The Picket Fence said...

Great blog--I appreciate your perspective on parenting. I love the Arizona pictures--we are thinking of heading ther for spring break--the pictures make me want to say YES! to that. Perhaps you should work on the tourism board Ü

Becky@Beyond The Picket Fence said...

Our church is also doing a message series on The Shack. I love this book--it shows how God wants to be in relationship with us. Having had a baby son that dies, it also helped me a lot with the whys of that!

Miss Thystle said...

It's easy to love phoenix now, but what about next month, when we have to use pot-holder to be able to touch the steering wheel?

Personally, I recommend the Ove-Glove. Much easier to change radio stations when you have fingers!

Martha@A Sense of Humor is Essential said...

Beautiful pictures, thanks for sharing. I love Arizona!

Sheyb said...

I live in Scottsdale!!!

Michelle said...

I miss AZ. I used to go visit my grandfather and great aunt and uncle there a lot as a kid. It's so beautiful there -- and yes, hot. But nope. I'm stuck where it was -18 on my drive home tonight. And where school has been canceled for tomorrow in addition to today because of the dangerous weather. *sigh*

Michelle said...

AZ looks like a place that I must see one day! That sunset was gorgeous! Thanks for sharing your corner of the world!

Barb said...

I lived in Arizona for five years, from 1986-1991. and loved it. Now I'm back in my home state Michigan, where it's cold, icy, and snowy, but beautiful. Reading your post and looking at all the pics took me right back there. And I remember about the natives when I lived there, very few people I met were actually from Phoenix.

Rajani said...

hello from Dubai - came over from BATW... just catching up on old trips! lovely post -you live in such beauty!

Anonymous said...

I want to go to Arizona so bad! For some reason, i think i need to move there!