December in Glendale for Fan Fest Goers

This weekend (12/12-14) is the first-ever Phoenix Comicon Fan Fest. Besides being held during a much cooler time of year than the main all-pop-culture-encompassing Phoenix Comicon event, Fan Fest is smaller and focused on just 4 categories: comics, actors, costuming, and activities for kids.

Instead of taking place in central Phoenix, it’ll be at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, where the Arizona Cardinals play.

So what is there to do in Glendale?

My top picks: downtown Glendale

Here are a few Glendale things I’ve checked out that you might also enjoy – whether you’re going to Fan Fest or not. They’re in the historic downtown about 10 minutes by car from the stadium (near 58th and Glendale avenues – PDF walking tour map).

Glendale Glitters – Tons of holiday lights (“the largest free holiday light display in Arizona”), fair-type food booths (fried things, things on sticks, beer beer beer, etc.) live performances by local choirs and dance studios, and interesting people-/possible-wolf-watching.
Unique Local Shops – Drawn to Comics has comics and comic paraphernalia. Pink House boutique focuses on stylish, hard-to-find clothing and is open until 10pm this Friday and Saturday. There are also several antique and vintage shops and other quirky local stores, right across the street from the Glendale Glitters action.
Kimberly Ann’s Tea Room – For those into the high tea experience*, it’s lovely without being stuffy. When I went I last year with my mom and aunt, there was a long list of teas available, and we had all the tea sandwiches and sweets we could handle.

Cerreta Candy Company

Located near downtown, Cerreta Candy Company gives free tours Monday through Friday at 10am and 1pm. During the holidays, you can go in and decorate chocolate wreaths or trees for $10.

Walking distance from University of Phoenix Stadium

I was wondering what there would be to do right around the stadium, and here’s what I found.

Sports stuff

If you’re around there right now or will still be around next week, there are University of Phoenix Stadium tours today (12/11), as well as 12/18-20. Tickets are $9.
Fan Fest attendees headed to the 12/13 Arizona Coyotes game can get a discount. I’m not sure what the discount is. You might wanna check out regular tickets too.

Shopping

In case you somehow don’t get your fill of shopping at the Exhibitor Hall, there is a lot more around the Stadium.

Westgate Entertainment District – stores, a movie theater, and holiday events, including free Carriage rides.
Tanger Outlets – apparently, Tanger rhymes with “hanger.” (Who knew?!)
Cabela’s – outdoor store focused on hunting and fishing (but also carrying equipment for camping and other outdoor activities). It includes a restaurant, aquariums, and an indoor archery range – if wanted to channel your inner Green Arrow or Katniss Everdeen. Just remember you can’t bring any actual weapons back to the Con with you.

Food

I had trouble finding locally-based options in the area. Here’s what I hunted down:

At the Stadium

There are supposed to be food trucks at Fan Fest, but staff doesn’t have confirmation on which ones yet.
Regular stadium concessions by Rojo Hospitality Group will be open.

Westgate – 2 out of 3 of these are for frozen desserts. Because what’s more Phoenix than eating ice cream in December?!

Mama Gina’s Pizzeria
RazzleberrieZ Frozen Yogurt
Cold Stone Creamery – Now they’re everywhere, but the chain was actually founded in and is based in Arizona.

Tanger outlets

Fired Pie – I’m intrigued by this place and hoping to make it over there this weekend! You can either order from their menu or customize your own pizza or salad for one price. (It’s not extra for each topping.) They are sustainability conscious and use local, organic ingredients.

*At the main Phoenix Comicon event over the summer, I wandered into the wrong room at one point and a panel was discussing tea and tea-drinking rituals. A friend later said “Oh, they must be fans of [name of something I’d never heard of and immediately forgot].” Fan Fest has a tea battle on the schedule. What does that mean? I don’t know. All I know is that there is some kind of fancy-tea-drinking contingent within the Comicon community. So I put a tea house on the list.

December 3, 2014July 28, 2021

A rainy day trip to Sedona

Phillip made an offhand comment one day several months ago that was something like “You know, we should just head to Sedona for breakfast sometime.”

He didn’t have to ask me twice.

I said “Let’s go this weekend!”

We both love Sedona and the surrounding Verde Valley, and we head up there regularly. We hatched a plan to go to our favorite omelet place, The Coffee Pot, the Saturday before we’d start our gluten-free experiment.

Since they serve breakfast until they close at 2pm, we decided to stop on the way to see Arcosanti and have a light first breakfast in the cafe (closer to Phoenix = food sooner) and then drive up to The Coffee Pot to split an omelet and pancakes for a breakfasty lunch.

The Coffee Pot is kind of an old-school diner-style joint named for the nearby Coffee Pot Rock, as well as (I assume) the carafe of coffee they plunk down on your table, so you can refill your mug at will. It’s frequented by both locals and tourists. They serve 101 kinds of omelets. The ones we’ve tried have been delicious. Next time, I’ll skip the pancakes and stick with those.

After second breakfast, we rolled out of the restaurant and drove towards Oak Creek Canyon. We contemplated hiking. But the rain had turned from a sprinkle to a downpour and the creek was already absolutely raging.

I worry about flash floods. (Am I being overly cautious? Or smart? Hard to say.) So we opted to take in the Oak Creek views from the car, and then head back to town to do our walking under storefront awnings.

By the time we got as far as Canyon Breeze, I was ready for a pit stop. When you’re wandering around Uptown Sedona and you need a bathroom and/or you can’t agree on getting coffee vs. ice cream vs. an actual meal vs. continuing shopping and/or you’re with a big group, Canyon Breeze is a good bet.

It’s less like a single restaurant and more like a nicer version of a food court. Inside is a Starbucks, an ice cream counter, a souvenir shop, a bar and grill, and, yep, it has its own restrooms. There are lots of tables inside and outside with a fantastic view. Of course, the patio was drenched that day, but I managed to score a table next to the floor-to-ceiling windows.

I sipped hot tea, watched dark gray clouds roll across the tops of craggy red mountains, and did a little crafting at the same time – tearing the cardboard sleeve from around my cup into roughly the shape of the mountains in front of me to add to an art journal.

After that, we started working our way home to unwind with some Downton Abbey.

Of course, this isn’t a list of must-do things in Sedona for someone going the first time or even on a (much more common) sunny day. But it worked for us.

To me, the essential thing to do in Sedona is take in the beauty of the red rocks. You can do that on a hike, on a jeep tour, or even through a restaurant window.

Side note: Awhile ago, I posted a close-up photo of my torn cardboard mountain range, so you could guess what it was. The day I posted it, the Slide Fire broke out, which seemed crazy after the same area had been soaked with rain earlier in the year. In any case, I didn’t think it was an appropriate week for a lighthearted post about fun in Sedona. As far as I know, there were no casualties from the fire. By the time it was out, I had a whole bunch of other things to tell you about, so it’s taken me this long to circle back around. Sorry to keep you hanging!

November 24, 2014August 24, 2015

Peeking inside desert art studios

There is an artist community in Cave Creek, a town north of Phoenix nestled into the desert wrapping around Black Mountain.

Every year they host a self-guided open studio tour with over 100 working artists participating. You can meet the artists, see their work and a little bit of their space, ask questions, buy art.

If you’re in the Phoenix area, check out the Hidden in the Hills tour this Friday through Sunday (11/28-30)!

Photos: 1) Cave Creek Sunset. 2) Studio and artwork of Judy Bruce. 3) Paul Diefenderfer demonstrating ironwork at Desert Rat Forge. 4) Booths and artwork of (l to r) Betsy Halford, Christiane Barbato, Nicolette Maguire Bonnstetter. 5) Artwork in progress by Gordon Paul Mischke.

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Microblog Mondays: I’m thankful for Mel, the fabulous founder of the Stirrup Queens community!

November 19, 2014November 19, 2014

Windows into Seattle

Four Windows author Ian Smith in front of downtown Seattle.

I’ve never heard anyone say writing a novel was easy. The fact that so many aspiring authors have trouble completing the task gave Christine Smith and Jessie Kwak the brilliant idea to form Four Windows Books.

It’s an author incubator and publishing company that guides new authors through the writing process all the way to completing their first books. The novels are written and published in serial format, delivered to subscribers via ebook a quarter at a time. Each year, Four Windows will choose four new authors and a new city to feature.

The first-ever Four Windows books are being written by four authors who live in (or have lived in) Seattle. Part 2 is set to be released November 30. It was cool to revisit Seattle through Part 1 of these books – places like the Aurora Bridge (where the Fremont Troll is) and the International District, which is where the excerpt below takes place.

Here’s a taste of Trace by Ian Smith:

Joanne stepped off the bus in the International District station, the last underground stop before the transit tunnel disgorged its travelers to disperse throughout the forsaken lands south of the stadiums. The scent of curry entwined itself in the more familiar smells of black coffee and wet concrete, and the walls echoed with a busker’s saxophone wailing out Moon River.

She ascended the steps to street level, and felt a wave of nauseating anxiety — like the free falling terror of hearing a professor announce an exam that she’d forgotten to study for. There were Chinese characters on signs and the frenetic song of tonal language all around her, foreign as hieroglyphs, but all reminding her of where she was not from, what she did not know, who she could never be.

She took a moment to orient her phone to her surroundings, and then headed off down a side street.

She walked past the Tiantang Medicine Shop twice before finally Googling a picture of the building — two red characters painted over a nondescript door marked the entrance. She opened the door to be greeted by a heady wall of aromas — licorice, pepper, and ozone with a slight undernote of sewage.

A wrinkled man hunched on a stool behind the counter, wispy-haired and liver-spotted. He was gazing disinterestedly at a talk show when Joanne entered; he regarded her in solemn silence for a moment then focused back on the television. The shop was lined with shelves, and each shelf held an amalgam of irregular plastic bins containing dried bits of organic god-knows-what. There were a scattering of identifying cards about the shop, but only a few were in English, and those bore such cryptic legends as ‘concentrated gel of antler velvet’ and ‘codonopsis’. After a minute of surveying the inscrutable, she gave up and approached the man behind the desk. “Excuse me, could you help me find some of these herbs?”

He replied without taking his eyes from the brewing domestic dispute, “You from Dr. Keller?”

There was a note of disdain in his voice that made her want to deny it, but her list was on his letterhead. “Yes, I just started seeing him.”

“He’s a fool.” Without ceremony, he slid from his stool, took the paper from her hand and started scooping various powders and plant matter into bags.

“I’m sorry?”

“He’s big fool. You should know.”

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You can download the entire Part 1 of Trace and the 3 other books for free in your e-reader format of choice.