21 SEPTEMBER 2012: POOLS and POTTERY

Day 6:
After a 'Healthy Breakfast' in the local diner (seriously, as Steve is on a heath - kick at the moment) it was time for some R and R. And where better than in the pool on the 3rd floor terrace of the hotel? Never been in a pool in such a setting before. Lionel Richie coming through the audio only made it seem more like something out of a TV programme.

The Heard Museum:
We decided to visit the Heard Museum to get some knowledge about the Native American tribes we were going to hear so much about next week. So we headed for the newly built tram system. But once on board we both thought it would be better to stay to the end of the line so we could see what America's 6th largest city really was like. Downtown, where we were staying, is home to glitzy corporate HQs and conference centres, but no-one lives there. As we got further from the centre we saw barren fields, old housing and tired shopping centres. Nothing seemed to have been planned apart from the roads' grid system. Signs offering repossessed homes for sale was evidence of the down-turn since 2008.
Back at the museum we joined a really interesting guided tour and learned much about the culture and art work of the Hopi, Navajho and Apache tribes. The guide made it clear that the lesson to be learned seemed to be that Native Americans had managed to keep their own cultures alive only by adapting them to meet the needs of the tourists who flocked to shop in their reserves.

Pool No. 2:
Another taxi ride took us to the Doubletrees Hotel, where we were to join the Caravan Tour. Just time enough to spend another hour in a pool (temperatures of 104 degrees soon make you forget to feel guilty about such decadence). Surreally, the pool was adjacent to an open-air area where a wedding was taking place. we wondered if the ceremony would last longer than the marriage!!

At 6pm we met our 42 fellow travellers for the next week. Betty , our tour guide (an ex-anchor woman for a local TV news channel in the Deep South) got us all to talk to a stranger and elicit something 'quirky' about them to tell the rest of the group. Steve drew the long straw: what could be more quirky than go-karting??