Before we go on trips, we always locate at least a handful of possible restaurants to try. This seems to lessen the chance that we’ll just duck in somewhere awful because we are tired of walking around. We made it to almost every restaurant we wanted to try and weren’t disappointed (with the food, at least) once!

House of Tricks – a pricey “bring your parents” type of place, so we opted for lunch instead of dinner. The food was delicious (tuna burger and BBQ chicken sandwich), but the service was spotty. Example: I asked for a glass for my beer after the waiter delivered just the bottle, several minutes and one reminder later I was given a dripping wet (slightly warm) pint glass as the guy said “Here’s a chilled glass for your beer.” Huh? I attempted to wipe off the glass with my (cloth!) napkin which then left thousands of little fuzzies all over it. I just drank the last half of my beer from the bottle.

Casey Moore’s Oyster House – an indoor respite from the heat. Eric had a grilled ham and cheese and I had a shrimp and avocado salad. At this point the heat was starting to zap my appetite, but the food was fine and the Sirius radio station they were playing was great (like listening to BBC Radio 1). We were seated right next to the server station and overheard all the waitresses complaining about their outdoor customers during our meal. Nice.

Oreganos (warning: music) – yum! After this point, the service at the remaining restaurants we tried improved considerably. This place was the farthest walk from our hotel, but the Chicago-style cheese pizza was worth it. Cut into squares, just like home. :) Oh, and the chocolate chip cookie with ice cream dessert was pretty good too. I finally got to try the Four Peaks Kilt Lifter, verdict: tasty (the actual brewery was packed on Wednesday night due to the Suns game, so we didn’t get to eat there). Plus, our waiter was from the Chicago-area.

Caffe Boa – easily the best dining experience. Eric had a flight of white wines and I had an outstanding glass of 10 year old Rioja (tempranillo). We leisurely ate fresh italian bread with dipping oil, cajun spiced chicken with penne and artichoke ravioli with tomato cream sauce.

We’re back in North Carolina after five days in the desert – check out the photos – and it is nice to eat at home for a change. Leandra grilled tonight as you can see in the pic below:

Sunset at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, AZ.

After the arboretum yesterday, we drove part of the Apache Trail for some scenic views of central Arizona. While the mountains and plentiful saguaro cacti were indeed nice, the powerlines dominating every scene were a disappointing distraction. In fact, several ‘scenic pullout’ vistas were marred by their presence. We managed to get some good shots from other pullouts and once or twice by stopping in the roadway (not recommended, but we were there mid-day and mid-week so traffic was very light).

After walking Eric to his first talk of the day this morning, I wandered around campus and downtown looking for places to eat/things to see. It was already ridiculously hot by 9:30am, so I headed back to the hotel pool to sit in the shade and read an Agatha Christie novel. We met up again for lunch and a group of us had a delicious meal at House of Tricks. The service was poor, but I hear that’s a common problem here, unfortunately.

Here’s a shot of the restaurant with a very noisy (and common) grackle out front…

After picking up our rental car in Phoenix we headed straight for the Boyce Thompson Arboretum for a lovely hike through flowering cacti and other drought tolerant plants and trees. This is my first time in so-called dry heat and that whole analogy about being slow roasted in an oven is completely accurate. We used the shade often and drank a ton of cold water (water fountains were supplied readily along the trail) and took quite a few photos. I’ll leave you with a sampling of the arboretum below…

Gee, updating this website everyday is easy when you take half days from work because you are still sick. We leave for Tempe tomorrow, maybe the 100 degree heat will clear up my sinus infection?

New garden photos are up along with an updated garden banner.

Below are two of the shots I’ve taken with my new 60mm macro lens (click on the pics to see a larger version). This lens is quick and very quiet – I can’t wait for the next botanical garden trip. Thanks for the birthday present mom and dad!

Since I’ve been confined to the couch I have gotten a lot of pictures sorted and posted while Eric has been working in the yard. Thankfully, the Princess Bride was on AMC today as I was running out of patience with the poor daytime programing on the Food Network and HGTV.

Last night a bunch of us went out to the Melting Pot to celebrate Randi’s 25th birthday (photos). Eric turns 30 tomorrow, so he wasn’t too sympathetic with the whole ‘I feel old’ talk. :) We were planning on just cheese and chocolate until I spotted the Pacific Rim fondue for two selection, yum!

Durham Bulls photos are up from the game we attended two weeks ago and I also posted a new photo of the progress of my lastest pastel.

I went to the Raleigh Farmers market this afternoon and came back with a few new additions for our yard.