We went to the Desert Botanical Garden today. We got a little bit of a late start and arrived around noon. We had a great lunch at their restaurant, outside with perfect weather. After lunch we walked around the extensive grounds. We had been here two years ago and wanted to see it again.
The botanical garden goes back to 1939 and has grown ever since. It has every species of plant life growing in the Sonoran Desert and more from other deserts around the world. The main trail is a 1/3 of a mile Desert Discovery Loop Trail with several other loop trails branching out from the main trail. Everything in the garden is very well done and visually attractive. I took over 70 pictures and will post a few of the best after I get them sorted.
After spending most of the afternoon walking (and resting) in the garden, we drove up to the Musical Instrument Museum in the north end of Scottsdale. We were able to get tickets to a concert at the museum for that evening. They have a really nice auditorium, not too big but with wide aisles, comfortable seats and elevated sight lines. We have been to two other concerts here during previous visits and enjoyed both of them. They have an extensive and varied concert schedule with over 70 concerts scheduled for the summer.
Since we had some time to kill before the concert we relaxed in the museum area and had a light dinner and drinks at a nearby restaurant. When we arrived back at the museum for the concert we were greeted to another beautiful Arizona sunset.
The concert tonight was by a group we had never heard of but sounded interesting. It was the Nicole Pesce Quartet. They are a group of local Phoenix Area musicians who are apparently very popular in town. The leader of the group, Nicole Pesce is an amazing pianist and has been a fixture at major hotel piano bars in Phoenix for at least the last 15 years. They played a mixture of jazz, blues and contemporary selections and during intermission she asked people to text any song title they would like her to play. After the break, she announced she received 87 song requests then went on to play most of them, woven into a seamless piano solo played from memory. She is apparently known as the "Human iPod" and is said to have memorized over 12,000 musical selections. Here is a sample of her work from You Tube:
After the concert, we arrived back at the RV park about 10:30 pm after a long and tiring, but enjoyable day.
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