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San Diego to Phoenix, with a little snow along the way

We had a quiet week because of Christmas, which we spent in Huntington Beach.

Thursday we headed out, stopping by the Geisel Library on the UC San Diego Campus in La Jolla, California. Cool fact: Dr. Seuss lived in La Jolla for years. Interesting fact: Seuss was his mother's maiden name and the original pronunciation is more like vowels in "voice" than "use".


Super funky building which was renamed after Theodore Suess Geisel died in 1991.

We stopped in San Bernardino to see the location of the original McDonald's along Route 66.  This was the McDonald's before it became a franchise and the "Golden Arches"
 

 



Inside the building is a museum comprising all kinds of walk-down-memory-lane items.


There were even displays with McDonald's products from around the world
 

If you haven't seen The Founder, it was a really interesting look at Ray Kroc and how McDonald's became what we know it as today.
 

They even had memorabilia used in the movie.



Our last stop of the day was the Redlands Temple.

We ended up in the snow in Yucca Valley, California that night.  It was very cold and slushy!

Friday we attempted to go to Joshua Tree National Park...

We learned this interesting tidbit at the visitor center
 

And got to listen to this cactus wren warbling outside
 

Unfortunately, we learned that all the snow had stranded cars inside the park, the parking lots were full of snow, so no parking, and the snow plows were working overtime to try and get the roads clear and the other cars out.  Being right after Christmas, there were TONS of people wanting to go to Joshua Tree.  So, we saw the visitor center and headed on out.  It was pretty cool to see lots of cacti in the snow as we were driving past.

We made it to Arizona!

 

Our first stop was Poston, the site of a WWII Japanese internment camp
 

We got to see rainbows as we drove

And a Goodyear blimp near Goodyear, Arizona

 We went to the Phoenix Temple before heading to our campground for the night

Saturday we went to the Arizona state capitol--which is no longer a working legislative building, it's a museum.  It is tucked in among the actual legislative buildings around it.  Interesting to find out that the statue on top was actually a weather vane, we saw it rotate in the wind!


Amazing exhibit inside about the USS Arizona

This was a piece of metal from the ship

 


After the capitol, we found this wall of road signs commemorating Arizona's centennial
 



 We dropped by the Mesa Temple grounds, it is undergoing extensive renovations as it was built in 1927 and only had one renovation/upgrade since then.


We went to the Gilbert Temple as our last stop of the day. This temple has a lot of agave in the detailing in the stained glass windows and in details inside.
 
Today we attended the McDowell Mountain Ward, Scottsdale Arizona North Stake
 

Afterwards, because it was only a couple of miles away, we drove over to Taliesen West.  
 


Of course, designed the way it was, it blends into the landscape around it and made it hard to get any photos


 

We didn't pay the $35/person (cheapest tour) to tour the property, just wanted to see it briefly since we had made a similar visit to Taliesen in Wisconsin.

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