Championing the makers, artists, and wanderers in all of us.
The day we drove back to DC from Charlottesville, Virginia, we took a little time to explore one corner of the National Mall with the Vietnam Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, and a great view of the Washington Monument across the water, right as the sun was setting.
The statue of Lincoln has sat across from the reflecting pool for nearly a century. I wish he could tell us stories about all the things he’s witnessed there.
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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 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.
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.
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.
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.
There’s a view that the middle of the U.S. is nothing but farm fields.
Drive an hour or so northeast of the of the Indianapolis Airport, and you’ll find yourself in Madison County (not the one with the bridges). It has its share of agriculture, for sure, but there are also cultural and historical sites, and people passionate about things they make.
1. A performing arts theater that makes you feel like you’re sitting in a Spanish courtyard under a starry sky. The Paramount Theatre Centre is one of only a handful of remaining atmospheric theaters by architect John Eberson.
2. Large, 2000-year-old heaps of earth built up by mysterious ancient people(s) to align with heavenly bodies at Mounds State Park.
3. Free public wifi throughout downtown Anderson (the county seat), thanks to dozens of hotspots. (PDF map)
4. The House of Glass, a family-run artisan glass studio, which still crafts each piece by hand in the tradition of their French ancestors.
5. A gospel music recording studio that also serves insanely good house-made cakes, Pure & Simple Restaurant at Gaither Family Resources. (Phillip wants me to add that the pot roast skillet was also delicious. So was the chicken bacon mac and cheese.)
6. The first historic district to be added to the National Register of Historic Places – West Eighth Street Historic District. (Walking tour map)
7. The world’s largest ball of paint, a baseball that’s been coated in more than 24,000 layers of paint over the last 37 years and now weighs over 4,000 pounds.
Our homebase while we explored Madison County was a suite at the conveniently-located Best Western Plus in Anderson, which included breakfast every morning and coffee all day. (Yeah!)
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A big thank you to Anderson Madison County Visitor and Convention Bureau! We were their guests at the Best Western Plus and at Pure & Simple Restaurant. But I wasn’t kidding about that cake.
Mount Lemmon doesn’t have a website.
Which, I guess, makes sense, since it’s a mountain. Although that didn’t stop Mt. Rainier or even Camelback. Maybe the difference is that they’re both the main event in their respective parks. Mt. Lemmon, on the other hand, is just one impressive part of the impressive Santa Catalina Mountains and extensive Coronado National Forest.
It’s right outside Tucson, but, as much as Phillip and I like hanging out in that area, I’ve never been on Mt. Lemmon itself. Tucson is a 1.5 hour drive, and then it takes another hour to wind your way up the mountain, so it kind of requires its own designated trip.
Which is happening soon, because my dad thought we (he, Mom, Phillip and I) needed to take a day trip before Phillip goes back to grad school and disappears for 9 months / can’t do anything fun / gets much busier.
We decided to go to Mt. Lemmon since my mom hasn’t been there either. We’ll drive around, picnic, and maybe take a hike. But probably a short one, because the elevation at the top is about 9,000 feet. That is significantly higher than Denver. It’s actually closer to La Paz, Bolivia’s 11,000+ feet.
Side note: Thinking about this made me wonder about all the high-altitude places I’ve been and how they compare to each other. So I made a little, roughly-to-scale chart. Maybe I’ll do a better one later, where I actually write legibly and measure the lines. Maybe.
Side note to the side note: I’m thinking of titling my chart “Great Heights” or “Altitude is Everything” or “Elevations I Have Known and Loved” or maybe just “Places I’ve Been High.”
Really, the point is that I’m gonna be moving slow up there in the thinner air.
Driving from the Tucson desert to the pine-covered top of Mt. Lemmon takes you through climate zones equivalent to driving from Mexico to Canada.
Mt. Lemmon is one of the sky islands, a poetically-named category of mountains in the Southwest U.S. and Mexico that have dramatically different environments than the areas around them. They have remarkable biodiversity, including plants and animals you normally wouldn’t find in the region.
My favorite is the coatimundi, a mammal that’s native to Central America but also inhabits the sky islands. When we went to Chiricahua National Monument (also sky island territory) a few years back, I got kind of obsessed focused on trying to spot one in the wild. It hasn’t happened yet, but, during the trip, I’ll definitely be on the lookout.
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PS I’ll be posting info from my Craft Camp presentation soon.
The Marriott shuttle we had almost missed drove its very important flight crew passengers to the Courtyard Indianapolis Airport hotel and then took us down the street to the Fairfield Inn & Suites.
The lobby had a trendy little sitting area off to one side and a front desk with a rad goldfish cracker dispenser. When we checked in, the night clerk told us they’d upgraded our room. Nice but unnecessary, since we really just needed to crash. I was too tired by that time to worry about the details, though.
Our unnecessarily nice room had the same type of bold-patterned decor as the lobby. Beyond the coffee shelf, couch, and desk was what you’re really looking for after a long day of travel stuff: a comfortable bed.
In the morning (the actual morning, not our 2am check-in time, which only counts as “morning” on a technicality), we got our receipt and realized they charged us extra for the unrequested upgrade. Phillip was able to get it all sorted out with the goldfish desk. So it wasn’t a big deal in an otherwise good stay. I only bring it up to say this is why I double check everything.
Apparently, flight crews stay at the Courtyard; Little Leaguers stay at the Fairfield. Across the lobby from the goldfish desk was the breakfast buffet, and a few tables overflowing with 12-year-old boys in light blue baseball uniforms.
A couple of them ended up joining our table. They were in town for a tournament. We asked one of the boys what his goal was for the game that day, while he picked at the waffle his mom had stopped by to cut for him. He matter-of-factly answered, “hit three home runs.” His friend said the same. Gotta love big dreamers.
While I finished getting ready, Phillip took the shuttle back to the airport to pick up our rental car. We managed to get loaded up and checked out with an hour or so to kill. Which is basically how we ended up in Fountain Square. It looked interesting, was on the way, and it happened to be the day of the annual Fountain Square Music Festival.
Neighborhoods have their own circadian rhythms. This one felt like it was still yawning and stretching and blinking in the sunlight. With the exception of a couple restaurants, most of the square was closed when we were there. The historic theater stood quiet with a lone employee hosing off the front sidewalk. The festival hadn’t started yet, and a handful of people were hanging banners and setting up. The place would probably be hopping in a couple of hours.
In the meantime, we had a pleasant walk among the historic buildings with vintagey signs and street art sprinkled in, listening to one of the bands warming up over the rhythmic splash of the fountain before getting back in the car and heading for Anderson.
Fountain Square:
Our Indiana (Heartlandiana) trip
