Phoenix Phacts

I've learned a few interesting facts since arriving in Phoenix:

1. People from Phoenix are called Phoenicians.  For some reason I find this incredibly cool.  Obviously because I'm a huge nerd.  Also because it sounds a lot better than "Winnipeggers".

2. Arizona does not observe Daylight Savings Time.  This means that while Arizona is in the Mountain time zone, during this time of year they have the same time as the Pacific time zone.  I learned this, when, on the first day that we were here, the sun set right after 6 pm and I was very confused since I knew that the sun wasn't setting that early yet in Winnipeg.  I was pretty sure that since Phoenix is way further south than Winnipeg, the sun should be setting later here at this time of year.  It totally would be, except Arizona decided to follow the Saskatchewan school of thought and leave their clocks in the same place all year round.  Not sure why they'd want to be like Saskatchewan, but hey, to each their own, right?

3. The resort we are staying at is named after Squaw Peak which is right next door and is the second highest mountain in the Phoenix Mountains.  However, the mountain itself is no longer actually called Squaw Peak, probably because someone realized that was kind of offensive.  The mountain is now called Piestewa Peak, after Lori Ann Piestewa, who was the first Native American woman to die in combat in the US military.  She was also the first female soldier to be killed in action in the 2003 Iraq War.  And now she has a mountain named after her!  I guess that's something?

Now for the other things that I've learned which are technically my opinions but I'm confident enough about them to present them as facts:

1. The trees are really beautiful, especially when blowing in the wind on a sunny day.

2. The food is friggin delicious.  This is the meal that the Enabler had at Aunt Chileda's (say it out loud... best name ever).  

After eating our meals and drinking a couple of Prickly Pear margaritas, we got roped into participating in the regular Tuesday night Bocce ball tournament held on the patio.  We'd both played before but not for a long time.  Regardless, this version of it was in a rectangular space on hard packed sand, which is totally different than playing on the grass like we were used to.  We were asked to play because they needed one more team to round out the numbers in the tournament, and the guys we played were obviously regulars.  We didn't win the round, but we held our own and people seemed impressed and surprised that we didn't completely suck.  We told them it was because we're from Canada, and it's basically like curling without the sweeping, so it's in the blood.

3. Lounge chairs by the pool are an excellent place to get some knitting done.

4. Being here gives me good knitting karma.  I picked the exact right row to cast off one of the gifts that I was knitting.  I ended up with roughly 18 inches of yarn leftover.  Score!

Now, I'm going to go see what else I can learn.

Adios!