My first stop was the Riordan Mansion.
The Riordans, a very devout Irish Catholic family (they even have a chapel in their home), moved from Chicago to the Flagstaff area. The two brothers married sisters and built homes next to each other with a common area connecting both homes that they called the "cabin."
The homes are identical and are in the arts and crafts style. The stone work you see is actually lava rock and the wood structures are Ponderosa pines, which are native to the Flagstaff area.
This picture is the area where the family gathered for campfires, etc. There was also a three hole golf course on the property and a tennis court, which I couldn't seem to find.
This fountain was a favorite of one of the brothers who loved to come here and read. Engraved in this fountain is a pelican and an owl. I also found a face, which was not mentioned, so I have no details on it.
The Riordans also incorporated Hopi lore into their homes. On one of the beams on the second floor of the house is a masked face to ward away evil.
Finally, this picture was taken on the grounds, can you imagine seeing this every day? Blows me away. (These are the San Francisco peaks that border Flagstaff.)
My next stop was the Lowell Observatory. To get to the observatory, you drive up a winding road surrounded by Ponderosa pines. Needless to say, the drive is gorgeous. I know the brick entrance is hard to see in the next picture, but the observatory name is on the right and all the code names of the planets are on the left.
I arrived at the visitor's center and decided to take the Pluto walking tour.
The picture above is the Pluto museum with our tour guide, Campo, in front of it. Campo was a great guide and very knowledgeable. In fact, I asked him if he had been a science teacher. More on that later. This is the first telescope. The roof rotates in a circular motion on rollers and the top opens up to allow the telescope to take pictures of the sky.
In the next building, the entire roof slides out onto the frame to expose the telescope.
This telescope building was not copied by other astronomers as it proved unsuccessful. Apparently, the round pieces you see on either side of the roof pull the roof open, but does not hold the roof in place very well.
After the tour I talked with Campo and found out he attended and graduated from the UW-Madison in the early 60's and grew up in Wisconsin Rapids. He had been a business man before he retired and had the opportunity to introduce the CEO of Georgia Pacific to Governor Tommy Thompson. The CEO gave his spiel and Thompson turned to him and said, "I know what he wants, what's he going to do for you Campo?" Isn't that a great story? These pictures were taken as I left the observatory, looking down on Flagstaff from the east and west.
A visit to Flagstaff would not be complete without including its downtown. In my opinion, Flagstaff has preserved some architecturally awesome buildings in its historic downtown.
The last stop of the day was the Arizona Snowbowl. Now, I expected to see a football stadium....wouldn't you? How wrong I was. This is THE ski hill in the area. To give you perspective, Flagstaff is at an elevation of 6,600 feet. As I climbed this mountain, the temperature, which started at 70 degrees, dropped to 63 degrees by the time I reached the top. Add to that the wind, and it was very cool on that mountain. I only went to an elevation of 9,600 feet, but Humphreys Peak is another 3,000 feet at 12,633 feet. Wow. Humphreys Peak is the highest point in the State of Arizona.
As you may expect, the drive up the mountain curvy and spectacular. Much of the time the speed limit was no more than 30 MPH, and sometimes dropped to 15 MPH. Some places had no guard rails and I found it much easier going up than down as I meandered toward the middle of the road in places where it was especially curvy. I was surrounded by Ponderosa pines, until I was almost to the top and, suddenly, I turned a curve and I saw almost exclusively what I think were birch trees. It was an AWESOME view. These photos just don't do it justice.
These are the views from the top. I was excited when I got to the top and saw they had sky rides. But when I saw what I would be riding on, I was very glad it was closed. I thought it was going to be an enclosed gondola like I took when I was in Telluride, Colorado, a couple of summers ago.
These last pictures just do not fully capture the scenery I saw with my eyes. These pictures look so flat and one dimensional. If you had seen the scenery, it would have taken your breath away.
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