Phoenix, Arizona, USA - 17th March 2012
By: Bart
After leaving the Gilbert 9/11 memorial we had to go Mr. Henry & Miss Dottie's house (my host, Bart's, family). We took a little side trip and drove through downtown Phoenix. This is the first time I've seen the actual city!
We drove down Central Avenue. There are lots of cars...
...and lots of tall buildings.
We didn't have time to stop and see anything in Phoenix this time, but it was nice to at least see a little of what the city is like. Hopefully I'll get to see more of downtown Phoenix bedore I leave Arizona!
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Posted Apr 14, 2012, 10:09 am Last edited Apr 18, 2012, 5:13 am by Bart
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Phoenix, Arizona, USA - 17th March 2012
By: Bart
My host, Bart, has family in several areas of Phoenix. Bart lives with Mr. Henry and Miss Dottie most of the time, but he also stays with other family members in Phoenix, too. Since Bart is hosting Toy Voyager guests right now, Bart stays in the east valley with us Toy Voyagers.
So, today after visiting the 9/11 memorial and taking a quick drive through downtown Phoenix, we went to the west valley to see Mr. Henry and Miss Dottie. It was very nice to meet them and other members of Bart's family. They're all very nice!
I decided to gp exploring in Mr. Henry and Miss Dottie's back yard. They have some very interesting plants in their yard!
I really like this Palm Tree! It looks very tropical.
I saw some bushes that have some large berries on them. They are called Pyracantha berries. They are often thought to be poisonous, but they really aren't, they're just bitter. They are edible if cooked and they are often made into jelly.
It smelled very nice in the backyard because the orange trees and grapefruit trees were bloomimg!
The orange trees didn't have any fruit on them yet, but the grapefruit trees did! Those are some nice big grapefruit! I bet they are very delicious and so fresh!
There are lots of pretty flowers here, too!
These flowers are very colorful!
It's been a busy day. I think I'll just lay back in these pretty flowers and take a little nap by the swimming pool!
After my little nap we had a little party to celebrate Mr. Henry's and Bart's birthdays. They were both born in March, but if you remember, we had a little celebration a few weeks ago for Bart.
Miss Dottie is so nice! She bought some chocolate bear lolipops for Bart's birthday and she gave each Toy Voyager one! It looks delicious, I can't wait to eat it! It's been a very fun day!
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Posted Apr 14, 2012, 10:42 am Last edited Apr 18, 2012, 5:16 am by Bart
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Phoenix, Arizona, USA - 18th March 2012
By: Bart
Today was a rare cold, stormy, rainy day. Phoenix, being in the desert, doesn't get much rain. The annual rainfall averages only 7 inches.
Today it rained for quite a while, and then suddenly white stuff started falling from the sky! It looked like snow, but it wasn't, it was hail. It hailed for almost 10 minutes. My host's said it was very strange to see their courtyard practically covered in hail!
Too bad there isn't less rain and a little more hail, then maybe I could make a cute little "Hail man" out there in the courtyard! Oh well, I guess I'll just stay inside where it's dry and warm. Cool, rainy days are always the perfect time to take a little nap.
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Posted Apr 14, 2012, 10:54 am
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Phoenix, Arizona, USA - 24th March 2012
By: Bart
Today my hosts took me and the other Toy Voyagers to see some indian ruins at Pueblo Grande Museum.
But, before we got to the museum, much to our surprise, we found ourselves right by the Arizona Lottery offices. My hosts said that now that they know where the lottery office is, they hope to return one day with a winning ticket and claim a really big prize! They buy a ticket whenever the jackpot gets really large, but so far they've never won anything.
These are some really big lottery balls!
Graham, Lilac and I posed together on number 6!
After a few quick pictures, we got back in the car and continued on our way to the museum. The museum is in Phoenix, not far from Sky Harbor International Airport. It’s a National Historic Landmark.
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It’s believed that the Hohokam Indians migrated north, out of Mexico, around 300 BC and that they lived in this area until approximately 1450 AD. The Hohokam were often referred to as the “Canal Builders” because of an ingenious, elaborate irrigation network they built using stone instruments. Some of their original irrigation canals are still being used in the Phoenix area today. The Grand Canal, located along the museum grounds, is one of the original canals still being used today.
Here are the tools they used to build miles of canals. Amazing!
Here’s a map of the extensive canal system created to distribute water from the Salt River for irrigation.
Here we learned a little about Indian pottery.
Here’s some of the pottery.
This is what a Saguaro Cactus looks like inside! That’s quite a skeleton!
This is a picture of what they believe the village, Pueblo Grande, looked like when the Hohokam lived in it.
After looking at the displays inside the museum, it was time to go see the village ruins.
Here we are in front of the big “Platform Mound”. It’s believed that this was the ceremonial and administrative center of the village.
This sign explains that in the early 1900s they did some excavating on the Platform Mound.
This is the area where they did the excavation.
The Hohokam may have used light and shadows in a special "Stargazing" room to determine the summer and winter solstice, as well as when to plant and harvest.
This is the "Stargazing" room.
Here's another room in the Platform Mound.
We had to get home because family was coming to visit from Connecticut, so unfortunately, we didn’t have time to see the rest of the ruins along the trail. What we saw was very interesting, though. It was amazing to see something so old! I’m also amazed that the Hohokam lived here almost 1000 years ago, yet, they were extremely innovative. They were clearly, very intelligent people!
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Posted Apr 17, 2012, 1:46 am
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Phoenix, Arizona, USA - 30th March 2012
By: Bart
Today my host took me and the other Toy Voyagers to lunch at In-N-Out Burger. Graham's big brother, Spac, was hoping Graham would get to visit In-N-Out Burger. Spac will be happy to know that not only did we see it, we ate there, too!
In-N-Out Burger originated in California and is famous for their small, simplified menu and high quality, fresh food. It's hard to imagine, but this fast food restaurant even cuts their own french fries onsite, right before they fry them!
I can't wait for lunch!
I can smell the burgers and fries already!
It was a nice, sunny day so we decided to go outside to eat our lunch. They sure do give you lots of food! There's plenty here for all three of us to share and it's so delicious!
This chocolate milk shake is so creamy and delicious!
My host said that every In-N-Out Burger she's seen has two palm trees that are planted to form an X. She was curious why they do that. She found out that it's an allusion to founder Harry Snyder's favorite movie, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". In the movie, individuals look for a hidden treasure and find it under "the big W" made by four palm trees, with the middle two trees forming an 'X'."
I wonder if there is hidden treasure under this X?
After lunch we made a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up a few groceries and 10 Mega Million lottery tickets. The drawing is tonight and it's the largest jackpot ever, over $600 million! My hosts know where the lottery office is now, so they'll know exactly where to go when they win. They're thinking positive even though the chances of winning are 1 in 176 million. I'll keep my paws crossed for them!
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Posted Apr 17, 2012, 1:58 am
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Phoenix, Arizona, USA - 31st March 2012
By: Bart
Today my hosts took me to the Desert Botanical Garden. My hosts wanted to see the butterfly exhibit. They've never seen it before and were excited to see all of the beautiful butterflies.
In May 2009, my hosts came here, to the Desert Botanical Garden, to see "Chihuly:The Nature of Glass". Dale Chihuly is a talented artist who creates amazing glass art. He created some beautiful glass sculptures to be placed at the garden's entry, specifically for the exhibit. He calls the sculptures, "Desert Towers". Though that exhibit was temporary, the Garden received donations totaling $774,000 so they could purchase the Desert Towers sculptures. The sculptures now have a permanent home at the Garden's entrance.
Aren't they beautiful?
The Desert Botanical Garden and the Phoenix Zoo are located in Papago Park. Papago Park is known for it's unique red sandstone formations. As we learned when we visited Pueblo Grande Museum, it's believed that the Hohokam Indians used openings in the rocks and sunlight to track the solstices. You can see one of those red rock formations behind me.
It's spring and many of the cactus' were in bloom. Here's a cactus with beautiful orange blossoms.
We're on our way to see the butterflies!
As we were walking to the Butterfly Exhibit, a Garden Guide told us that we should take a short detour because there was something very special to see. He was right! There, in all their glory, were five incredible white cactus blossoms. This particular cactus blooms only at night and the blossoms usually close in daylight, but for some reason, today they were still open for us to see! They were gorgeous!
We're about to enter the butterfly area!
We saw so many beautiful butterflies (two even landed on my host!), but sadly, this is the only picture of me anywhere near a butterfly. I wish I had more photos of me and the butterflies, but they move so quickly and it was too hard to try to get both me and the butterflies in the picture. My host ended up taking some really beautiful pictures of just the butterflies though!
Look, I'm a caterpillar!
That's a very pretty pink blossom!
We saw lots of interesting and colorful plants.
This plant looked like a giant string bean plant!
Of course, since this is the desert there were lots of cactus, too!
That big round cactus in the front is called a Barrel Cactus.
It was getting really warm outside (almost 90F/32.2 C) and it was almost time for lunch, so we decided to go to Arizona Mills Mall. Arizona Mills Mall is the largest mall in Arizona. The mall is unique in that it offers both regular stores along with outlet stores like, "Saks 5th Avenue OFF 5th" and "Neiman Marcus Last Call".
The mall was really busy.
We weren't there to shop though, we were there for lunch, so we headed to The Rainforest Cafe.
We found it! It really does look like a wild place to shop and eat!
There was an elephant waiting to pose with us!
First things first...let's order some lunch!
It's very dark in the restaurant so the pictures didn't turn out too good, but there are lots of fun things here. They have lots of aquariums with lots of fish in them.
Here's a better, close up picture of us by one of the aquariums.
There are all kinds of animals here. Every 30 minutes it rains, thunders and lightnings in the restaurant and the animals make a lot of noise. We didn't get wet from the rain though.
While waiting for lumch, we learned how valuable rainforests are and that we need to preserve them. Rainforests once covered 14% of the earth's land surface; now they cover only 6% and experts estimate that the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years. We also learned that if we lose the rainforests, nearly half of the world's species of plants, animals and microoganisms will be destroyed or threatened. That's really sad. It's also dangerous because as the rainforest species dissapear, so do many possible cures for life-threatening diseases. 25% of Western pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients, but less that 1% of the tropical trees and plants have been tested by scientists. Boy, I came here to eat lunch, I had no idea I would learn about something so important! All I can say is, spread the word, save the rainforests!!
Lunch should be here soon.
It's here! Ummmm...it looks and smells so good!
Lunch was delicious and the Rainforest Cafe was a fun place to eat! As we were leaving we stopped to take a picture at the bar. It's an aquarium and what fun, unique bar stools!
Before we leave the mall, we need one of these nice big gumballs!
What a fun adventure! I saw some beautiful things today, learned some really important things and had some delicious food!
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Posted Apr 17, 2012, 5:24 am Last edited Apr 17, 2012, 5:30 am by Bart
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Phoenix, Arizona, USA - 6th April 2012
By: Bart
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Posted Apr 17, 2012, 6:09 am Last edited May 12, 2012, 1:53 am by Bart
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Phoenix, Arizona, USA - 17th April 2012
By: Bart
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Posted Apr 30, 2012, 11:32 pm Last edited Apr 30, 2012, 11:40 pm by Bart
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Phoenix, Arizona, USA - 21st April 2012
By: Bart
It's getting really hot here in Arizona! Today was the first day this year that the temperature reached 100 F/38 C. It's only spring, so it really shouldn't be this hot this early in the year. It was too hot to go outside, so we just stayed home. Thank goodness for air conditioning!
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Posted Apr 30, 2012, 11:51 pm
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Phoenix, Arizona, USA - 30th April 2012
By: Bart
This morning, before it got too hot, my host took me to one of the parks in the housing community they live in. It was a lovely morning and the park smelled of fresh cut grass!
I sat on the bench for awhile and watched ducks float by. They are difficult to see in this picture, but there are white ducks on the grass across the pond.
There were some pretty white flowers on a plant by the pond.
There's a dock on the pond, too. People can fish from the dock, but this is a "catch and release" pond, so if they catch a fish they must release it back into the pond.
It's very peaceful here with this pretty pond...
...and large trees.
This park also has lots of fun things to do, too! There's a swimming pool, and here is a "splash pad". You can stand on the splash pad and get sprayed with water. But, as you can see, the water wasn't on, so we didn't get splashed!
It also has a playground with lots of fun things to climb on!
It has a slide, too! I think I'll go down the slide! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
There's also a basketball court and volleyball court, but no one was playing. It's Monday, so most people are at work and school.
As we were leaving we saw these colorful flowers! They're so pretty!
It's getting very warm here in Arizona, soon it will be more than 100 F/38 C every day. I've really enjoyed seeing so many things here in Arizona, but I think it's time for me to travel somewhere where it's a bit cooler. So, Mom, please let my host know if you want me to come home to Slovenia or if you have another host for me to visit! Maybe I'll see you soon!
Hugs,
Sweetie
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Posted May 1, 2012, 12:33 am Last edited May 1, 2012, 12:37 am by Bart
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Phoenix, Arizona, USA - 9th May 2012
By: Bart
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Posted May 12, 2012, 1:39 am Last edited May 12, 2012, 1:57 am by Bart
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Enroute to Miami, Florida, USA - 9th May 2012
By: Bart
My journey to Miama, Florida begins here. I hope I get to Miami really fast! I'm getting really excited! Maybe I'll get to see the Atlantic Ocean and South Beach!
Safe travels, Sweetie! Have a wonderful time in Florida! We're excited to see and read about your adventures! Take Care! - Bart
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Posted May 12, 2012, 1:51 am Last edited May 12, 2012, 2:00 am by Bart
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Miami, Florida, United States - 15th May 2012
By: tarepanda
My host is really apologetic. She thought she journaled my arrival already but apparently she forgot. She is very sorry to make you all so worried.
I've taken some pictures of my stay here, but my host is busy with her work right now but hopefully in a week you will see the pictures!! Don't worry, I am just chilling out with my new friends here!
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Posted Jun 14, 2012, 4:15 am
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