One of our favorite activities in Mesa is attending the Tempe Art Festival, held in December, right before Christmas and during Hanukkah - a great big gift market - with some very unique gifts. Lots of fun, people watching, entertainment and, oh, the beautiful art. If we had a home, I’d be here with a fistful of dollars. I saw lots of things that I’d be interesting in. But - not in a motor home. Most of the artists ask that you not photograph - they are trying to protect their work. But I have some general pictures of the Fest.
We found the cotton candy maker. He puts some crystallized sugar down the hole in the middle, it heats up and comes out like cotton strands and, as he turns his cone, they stick on and make a bit ball. Here you can see some of the wisps of sugar as they emerge from the hole and gravitate towards his ball. The bowl of the sugar is in the lower right hand of the picture.
Lots of people were here - it was a beautiful day.
Here’s a potter.
Oh, yeah, there was food. We couldn’t resist the cookies. Do you think Gary will get any?
There was lots of entertainment. Here’s a Japanese drum group. They’ve been in this group for up to 9 years.
I especially liked this group playing bluegrass. Such an interesting grouping. Some look like bluegrass musicians, some do not. But they were good.
But then comes the second part of our tradition: after the Festival we climb the ‘A’ hill.
Well, the students call it the ‘A’ Hill because of the huge yellow 60’ tall ‘A’ near the top for the University of Arizona. The local civic leaders call it Hayden Butte and its name on the US Geologic Survey topographic map is ‘Tempe Butte.’ Got that? I should say that we took this picture below with our new drone but, since we don’t even have an old drone, I’ll admit that I copied this picture from the Arizona Geology department.
The architect of the stadium, Ed Varney, perfectly wedged the stadium between the two buttes here. I know what your question is: do people climb up the ‘A’ hill to watch the games? Absolutely but they’ve got it pretty well blocked off so you can’t see much inside the stadium when you’re up there.
Hayden Butte got its name from Charles Trumbull Hayden, who is often credited as being the founder of Tempe. He opened a ferry service and a flour mill at the base of the butte in the late 1800s, along with a general store. You can see the remains of the mill in the upper left of the picture.
The ‘A’ began as painted rocks as an ’N’ for the Tempe Normal School. Then a ’T’ for Tempe State Teacher’s College in 1925. And finally an ‘A’ for Arizona State University in 1938. The fall tradition of whitewashing the rocks began soon after. However, vandals blew it to smithereens in 1952 and it was rebuilt with concrete and reinforced steel. Now the challenge is to guard the ‘A’ before home games when rival schools sometimes paint the ‘A’ in their team colors. Imagine that.
It’s a great climb - almost straight up and then there are rock steps towards the top. A fun climb with incredible views over the city. Usually we climb later in the day and we get the sun setting over the mountains. You can see the 3 camels with the 3 wisemen in the picture above for Christmas and at the top a huge menorah.
Then down the ‘A’ hill and a walk around the Tempe Lake over to the In ’n’ Out for dinner. Nice walk with lots of roller bladers, bikers and other walkers. Looks like the pictures before the wedding. We saw the rest of the wedding people waiting on the steps above.
The walk is nicely decorated by school kids in the area. Here’s some of the mosaics along the wall.
Here’s a close-up of one of the other mosaics of a space man circling the earth.
and then back to Mesa on the light rail and home. Ya gotta have traditions, ya know.
Marriage: ‘It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.’
Rita Rudner
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