Sister Jackie Fountain Hills Elsie Hotpepper Style Selfie

This afternoon an incoming text message, with photos, from Spencer Jack and his dad, with the photos documenting what looked to me to be a possible crime in progress, caused me to plug the phone into my computing device to extract the photos from the phone.

When I did that I saw another photo, taken last Friday, whilst I was still in Arizona, which I forgot about til now.

On that day I did blog about going to Fountain Hills and witnessing that town's famous fountain in spouting mode. Two previous visits to Fountain Hills missed the timing of the spouting, but navigator, Sister Jackie, knew when the eruptions took place.

Whilst there Sister Jackie thought it a good idea to take a selfie with her two brothers. That would make Brother Jake on the left and me in the middle.

As you can see, Sister Jackie has somehow managed to master the patented Elsie Hotpepper style of selfie taking, which is an art form I have not been able to master.

At one point in time the fountain in Fountain Hills was the tallest in the world, spouting, at times, almost as high as Seattle's Space Needle when it is at full spouting power.

From the Wikipedia article about Fountain Hills...

Fountain Hills has the world's fourth-tallest fountain. It was built in 1970, by Robert P. McCulloch, the year before the reconstruction of the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, another of McCulloch's projects. The fountain sprays water for about 15 minutes every hour between 9am and 9pm. The plume rises from a concrete water-lily sculpture in the center of a large man-made lake. The fountain, driven by three 600 horsepower (450 kW) turbine pumps, sprays water at a rate of 7,000 US gallons (26,000 l; 5,800 imp gal) per minute through an 18-inch (460 mm) nozzle. With all three pumps under ideal conditions, the fountain reaches 560 feet (170 m) in height, though in normal operation only two of the pumps are used, with a fountain height of around 300 feet (91 m). When built it was the world's tallest fountain, a record it held for over a decade.

Spencer Jack drove his dad up north today, to a few miles south of the border with Canada, to go to lunch in Lynden, and then go swimming at Birch Bay, due to an extremely low tide making that an appealing thing to do.

And along with those activities, the boys have also been engaging in that aforementioned possible criminal activity, which I may get around to documenting later.

Fountain Hills Steel Drumming With Jamaican Jake & Jackie Duo

That is that Fountain Hills fountain you see here, in the background, out in the middle of the Fountain Hills Lake.

In the foreground you see the Brother/Sister Jake & Jackie Duo performing a Jamaica type steel drum rhythm song timed to the spoutings of the fountain.

Prior to this musical interlude Sister Jackie drove me and Brother Jake to Fiesta Burrito in Scottsdale.

I had my usual chile relleno enchilada platter, as did Sister Jackie. Brother Jake had habenero infused carrots because he is on a strict diet.

The drive northeast to Fountain Hills was via a different route than I took last March whilst driving Miss Daisy. This different route was significantly more scenic than the previous route Miss Daisy had directed me to drive.

Tomorrow Miss Daisy's regular driver drives me to Sky Harbor, from there I hope to successfully board a plane to fly away from modern America, back to Texas.

I am sort of looking forward to being back in Texas.

Modern America is exhausting...

Fountain Hills Frappe With Miss Daisy On Beeline Bush Roller Coaster

Due to my erratic internet connections my blog postings will be being a bit out of sync for the next 10 days, give or take a day or two.

Right now I am successfully connected to the internet at Miss Daisy's Clubhouse.

This is an open wi-fi connection.

At the DFW airport Google did not like an open wi-fi connection. It took a few minutes before Google objected. If this gets posted, successfully, I guess Google did not object.

I have yet to be able to blog about all which happened on Friday, except for the horse riding/McDonald's part of the day, with the rest of Friday consisting of things such as playing in the two best playgrounds I have ever played in.

Or Saturday's fun which included a re-enactment of Macklemore's Downtown video, along with a little Butch Cassidy raindrops falling on the head bike handlebar fun. Plus a swimming pool incident which seemed to shock those not used to year round swimming. And a new Arizona Little Library.

But, before I get to any of that I will just stick with today.

David, Theo and Ruby flew their parental units back to Washington this morning. I have received text message confirmation of their safe arrival.

Around the mid-morning time frame Miss Daisy directed her driver to drive north to Fountain Hills. That  may have been the driver's idea.

Way back in 2012 on the first day of an Arizona visit, a rainy day, dad drove Miss Daisy and me to Fountain Hills, and then on a mountain road, at high speed, which was quite memorable to me. I was not sure upon departure that I would be able to find that road, even with Miss Daisy's detailed help.

So, we headed north on Highway 87 where it is known as Arizona Avenue in Chandler, which turns into Country Club Avenue in Mesa, before becoming the Beeline Highway when Highway 87 leaves civilization surrounded by saguaro infested desert.

Finally reaching Fountain Hills Miss Daisy asked if I have ever had a McDonald's frappe. One gets asked this question frequently. Soon I found myself in a McDonald's drive-thru duo line ordering two medium frappes, costing $3.99 each. This seemed to me to be an absurd price to pay for such a thing. But, what do I know?

After exiting McDonald's Miss Daisy directed me to the heart of downtown Fountain Hills, where we found the lake and the giant fountain. The Fountain Hills fountain erupts on the hour (like Yellowstone's Old Faithful) with one of the biggest fountain eruptions on the planet.

There were hundreds of people walking, jogging, biking and blading the paved trail around the lake. Miss Daisy did not want to join them while she still had some McDonald's frappe to deal with.

We did not get to see the fountain erupt.

Exiting Fountain Hills I continued on Highway 87, making a beeline for the Fort McDowell Casino, which I quickly passed until exiting on to the Bush Highway., which is the wild ride I was looking forward to driving.

The Bush Highway did not disappoint. I thought it was a rock and roll roller coaster when dad was doing the driving. It remained as such with me driving much slower.

The Bush Highway had a lot of traffic, which made it funner. There are a lot of recreational opportunities along this highway, including hiking, mountain biking, boating, inner tubing, kayaking and horse riding.

I do not know if the Bush Highway is named after 'those' Bush people, or what Bush, if any.

Another interesting thing today. Due to all the rain which has fallen on the Arizona desert the landscape was not its usual brown, instead tinted green.

With wildflowers.

I am almost certain the blue wildflowers I saw alongside the road today were what we call bluebonnets in Texas. But, I am not registered horticulturist, so what do I know?

A Rainy Sunday Drive With My Mom & Dad Looking For Turkey Legs & A Giant Fountain

Mom Navigating Heading North In A Rainstorm

The theme for today in Arizona is rain. A lot of rain. Torrential downpour type rain.

Because of the stormy weather my mom thought it'd be fun to drive north towards the Grand Canyon and go to Jerome and Prescott.

I checked the weather conditions for Jerome and Prescott and found both to be freezing with heavy snow and a Severe Winter Weather Warning.

So, the plan to head towards northern Arizona was altered to going on a hunt for an illusive turkey leg and then to Fountain Hills to see one of the world's tallest fountains.

The Fountain Hill Fountain In Dormant Mode

We were not long on the road when we came to the Wal-Mart Supercenter. We walked in, after a lengthy hunt for a close to the door parking space, to find turkey legs, already cooked, in the deli. I told my mom and dad I'd walk ahead to find the raw turkey legs.

A short time later I was walking back to my mom and dad with an armful of the formerly illusive turkey legs. After determining which of the turkey legs I was holding were the biggest, we purchased them and continued on our way.

After what seemed a short while we were in the desert. Soon we were at Fountain Hills. It was raining hard. We had trouble finding the fountain. Had the fountain been spouting water I suspect we could have found it. At its highest the fountain spouts well over 500 feet.

The Roller Coaster Ride Into A Zion Like Canyon

I tried calling my sister to ask if she knew where the fountain was. She was not answering. So, I went into McDonald's and asked the first person I saw. He pointed me towards the road we had just been on. That road led us to the fountain which was not scheduled to erupt for another 45 minutes.

So, we continued on our way. Further north.

I was totally bum puzzled. It looked to me that we had mountains to our left and to our right. How could going north get us going back south, towards Phoenix?

After awhile my bum puzzlement was alleviated when we came to a road that led us towards Saguaro Lake and behind the mountains, which I had thought, erroneously, were a barrier.

Saguaros Near Saguaro Lake
With A Snowy Mountain Background

This two lane mountain highway was the wildest road ride I have ridden in a long time. Without my mom being able to actively monitor my dad's speed he seems to push right to the edge of the limit. And maybe a bit beyond.

Soon the scenery reminded me very much of Zion National Park. I had not eye witnessed such scenic scenery in a long time, not since the last time I was in Washington.

Not long after leaving the wild scenic wonderland we were back in semi-civilization in the form of Apache Junction. Apache Junction turned into another town and then another and then another and eventually we were back in Chandler and then our home port in Sun Lakes.

When we left Sun Lakes, this morning, the rain was falling hard. When we returned to Sun Lakes, hours later, the rain was falling even harder.

A meatloaf was waiting for us in the oven. Soon a late Sunday lunch was on the table. Along with the meatloaf  we had baked spuds with sour cream, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, green salad, tomatoes, fruit salad and lemon meringue pie. This type diet is how I grew up. Is it any wonder I have an eating disorder?