Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 23 years and 10 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

Now we know why they call it the Valley of the Sun. The 85 degrees of the Grand Canyon seemed downright cool next to the 110 degrees we experienced today. The heat doesn’t seem to bother the locals, however.

Our only plans for today involved the Phoenix Zoo, which we departed to around 8:30am. The zoo is incredible … full of wandering trails (easy to forget where you’ve been and where you haven’t, though), great exhibits, and natural wildlife (butterflies, hummingbirds, ground squirrels, lizards, etc.). We managed to see almost everything in the three hours we were there, but eventually the extreme heat forced us to find a more favorable clime …

… the outlet mall, where else? Guided by Terri’s “mall radar” (and the Arizona Guidebook) we made our way to a newer indoor outlet mall a few miles from the zoo. We wandered around in air conditioned comfort for a while before heading back to the hotel.

Vacation is best when you don’t have a schedule, and today proved to be one of those days. An afternoon nap and a load of laundry, we went to dinner at a quaint little Italian restaurant in Scottsdale (with excellent tiramisu) and then turned in for the night.