Portrait of H.o.p. at Papago Park.
View On White
Love this pic.
Well, can’t say exactly that “we” burned the turkey.
Rather, the oven decided to go haywire and burned the turkey my dad, mom and Marty (and me too) had gone through the trouble of preparing. It cooked the turkey to a blazing hot black crisp in like 25 minutes rather than to a nice golden brown in several hours. There was no working our way around this as the turkey was housed in a plastic cooking bag and the plastic cooking bag adhered to the turkey, in which was all the stuffing which would also end up in the trash. So a to-go place serving turkey was found and it turned out to be rather tasty, slathered in one of our cans of cranberry sauce, and we pretty much polished it off. They, like every other restaurant on the trip (except for the Cover-Up Cafe in Roswell) had trouble getting things right and we were back at my dad’s place before we realized they gave us completely different orders of side dishes than what we’d asked for, which necessitated a run back to the restaurant to get the right ones and we also got to keep the containers of macaroni and cheese that they’d initially given us instead of our choices of vegetables and stuffing.
We weren’t at all disappointed in the meal. Reminded us all somewhat of “A Christmas Story”, an abbreviated version.
Later, we went to Papago Park where there was a blazing hot pink sunset going on that I was unable to get a good shot of on film. But I did get a couple of other pics.
H.o.p. had fun running up and down some of the hills at the park. I also have a pic of him sprawled flat on the ground, looking for a little pebble to take home.
And because this was turning into our UFO-meteor-and-other-things-from-the-sky-trip, serendipitosly, a black unmarked helicopter (for all we know it was dark green, it being twilight, but let’s not quibble) arrived at Papago after we’d arrived and stayed there, hovering above the lake, as long as we were there, then left when we left. So co-adult was able to capitalize on this with H.o.p. “Look! An unmarked black helicopter!” Except H.o.p. knows nothing oaf American legends concerning black, unmarked helicopters.
At Papago Park, on one of the high high hills overlooking the city, there is a white pyramid mausoleum for George W. P. Hunt, Arizona’s first governor. More his desire to be remembered pharoh-like for a long, long, long time than any association with masonry, I imagine. Well, it didn’t work with me because I scarcely noticed it and might not have noticed it all if it had not been pointed out to me. Instead I would only have sensed it as an impediment to the view.
My dad then took us to the Phoenix Zoo which was having its grand opening of their annual Zoolights. There were lit sculptures of flamingos and penguins and monkeys and a number of other animals.
There was also a peculiar installation of a white room that was fairly large, which had on one wall some odd video of something I guess that was supposed to be like crystals forming?, odd sounds accompanying and strange lightings or something on the side walls…I don’t recollect exactly what now. The reason I don’t recollect is it was impossible to tell what this was all about. Everyone who entered stood befuddled, wondering, too confused to even voice, “What is it?” I suppose it was supposed to be something by which you were supposed to experience something of the cold North Pole and snow…thus the blue-white walls. I dunno. But it added a…sense of adventure by way of mystery.
“What are we standing in?” is not a question you often get to ask in your life time, after all.
Leave a Reply