Visiting Arizona

[Alwese]

I have been pretty much a home-body all my life, but this year my wife wanted to visit her sister in Mesa, Arizona, so we went at Christmas. I was figuring the high point would be the trip to the Grand Canyon, and that was pretty amazing. It makes your butt pucker to look down A MILE into this massive hole in the ground. I had to death grip that railing. What really impressed me was a pizza parlor in Mesa called Organ Stop Pizza. Here they have taken the Wurlitzer theater organ that was in the Denver Auditorium, totally revamped it and installed it and all 6,000 pipes in an acoustically correct two story building made for the purpose. It may be the nation's largest pizza parlor as well seating 710, but the organ there is positively astounding. It is powered by three 20 HP turbine blowers and also operates a grand piano, a ragtime piano, accordion, bells, chimes, drums, even a train whistle. Xylophone and trumpet pipes even hang from the ceiling. There are several Youtube videos available to watch if you type "Organ Stop Pizza" into your browser, but here is a link with their resident artist playing so you can hear what I am talking about;
[ame="http://youtu.be/SsxV7_zOwIA"]http://youtu.be/SsxV7_zOwIA[/ame]

 

[Terry57]

Wow, that is one amazing organ! What a cool experience to hear first hand Sounds like you enjoyed the pizza parlor more than the grand Canyon?

 

[Alwese]

Well I enjoyed it all as it is SO DIFFERENT than where I live. Every day there started at 42 degrees and zoomed to 79. Mesa is really Phoenix, I mean Mesa, Chandler, Tempe, Gilbert, Surprise, Goldfield, are all really the same place in a bowl surrounded by mountains. There it is 1,400 feet above sea level. On the way to the Grand Canyon you go UP, REALLY UP to 8,200 feet beyond Flagstaff. That was just 140 miles north of Phoenix and we were in 8 inches of snow and 31 degrees! Being a macaw person I was amazed at the size of the crows at the Grand Canyon. They are at least twice the size of the crows in Florida and have very thick bills. I was feeding a flock of them in the Canyon parking lot part of my sandwich. Sedona is really awesomely beautiful with red colored rocks and buttes. I panned for gold, saw 40 foot tall cactus, even a Hyacinth for sale in a pet store. My trip was fantastic. I took 160 pictures. Here is a couple of them: