A few weeks ago, we took a short trip to Arizona to celebrate our third anniversary and see some slightly better weather. When you live in Seattle, it’s easy to forget that the sun actually does still exist in winter — it seems like we go months without seeing it.

The trip was great. We stayed at the Westin Kierland Resort in Scottsdale, and we got a top floor room looking out over the golf course. Every night, a bagpipe player walked out on the course and played some songs while people sat around the fire pit.

It wasn’t hot there, but it was certainly warmer than Seattle, and it was sunny every day. One day, we took a drive up to the Grand Canyon, which neither of us had seen before. It was freezing up there, but absolutely beautiful.

On the way back from the Grand Canyon, we stopped in Sedona which was very cool.

Another day, we went to Tucson. We checked out Tohono Chul Park, where we got to see some really cool native plants up close.

We also browsed at La Encantada, which might be my new favorite shopping center (though I think The Grove may still win). We had lunch at a great local Mexican place and headed back up to Phoenix, but not before almost dying when a six-foot tumbleweed blew in front of our car while we were going 75 MPH on the freeway.

The Mexican place in Tucson was awesome, but my favorite meal of the trip was at Binkley’s. It was amazing, easily in the same league as the best meals we’ve had around Seattle, including The Herbfarm and Mistral. We’ll definitely go back there some day.

One of the nicest things about seeing the sun is a nice sunset, and we saw quite a few of those.

It was a great way to spend a few days in January. It wasn’t a bad way to lead into the company ski trip in Whistler either, but that is the subject of another blog ;-)