I was tasked with daunting decision of where to take the family (those who were willing) on a photo walkabout on Monday, which as you may recall, was President’s Day, which, as you probably know, the schools consider a DAY OFF. I could not decide. I had paralysis of analysis. Finally, with a little help from my genius child, Ellie, we landed on the perfect plan: Ride the light rail, and hop off and on again wherever we liked, thereby also avoiding any parking garage fiascos!
So Monday morning, after Ruben came home from the dentist, and after kids were awoken from their late-sleeping-slumbers in a groggy fog, we were able to get just four takers who were willing to come along and enjoy the sights with us – Natalie, Lyss, Ellie and Ruben.
We parked the van at Christown, got me into my wheelchair, camera around my neck, bag hooked over the handles behind me, Paul ready to push me around for the day, and headed to the platform. Of course, the ticket machines were not working at our end, so Paul had to hup down to the other end to buy them. After that it was only a few minutes until our east-bound train arrived. We quickly learned that backing my chair in was the sensible way, and were barely inside when the doors closed and we were moving before I had my brakes locked! Hilariously disconcerting! After that it was fairly relaxing as we sped along between stops, until we reached our first hopping off place – the downtown transit hub. There the kids ran around a little, I took some pics of them and the pigeons, and then we walked on for a ways, taking pics as we went, until we got to our lunch stop at Chipotle. That was yum.
Once our tummies were satisfied, we bopped up the elevator (some of us bopped up and down the escalator and stairs a few times as well) so we could peek down at the City-Scape area from the upper level. Then it was back down again and Paul headed in the direction of the Basketball arena, then over to Chase Field, and we wandered around there until the kids were tired. It didn’t take long, but to be fair, Natalie was walking on a severely bruised toe from being cleated in softball the other day (she plays catcher). She did a heroic job walking as far as she did!
Once we started heading back to find the west-bound train, it took a little more walking than I expected, and the smallest of us was about to give out when we finally made it to the benches on the platform, and after that it was a nice long ride in the train to get back to where we started.
All in all we had a great time, made some fun memories, and I got to take pictures. And my dear husband, who pushed me all that way (and put up with my occasional panic attacks going over bumpy pavement), is the best of the best, hands down.
Enjoy these photos of the day (click to enlarge). I had the best time capturing them!
