Officially, the Longest…..

After a couple of hour trip to Saguaro National Park West (which is even more densely populated with Saguaro cactus than the eastern section), we embarked on a day trip to Anthem, AZ on Wednesday. Now you gotta understand that Anthem is about 34 miles north of Phoeniz, and 149 miles north of us here in Tucson. Throw in a few miles driving around Anthem and you have the Official Longest Daytrip in recent memory. Three hundred and twelve miles and ten hours later, we were home.

Anthem is a Del Webb community, and as such is an upscale, active area of some 30,000 residents. The median age is 35, so it's not just gray-hairs living here. It's close enough to Phoenix to commute, but far enough away to avoid the unpleasant aspects of a metropolitan city (crime, traffic, etc). Anthem also lays claim to an unusual Veterans Memorial.

We were first told about this memorial by BFF's and just had to see it for ourselves! The precisely placed holes in the granite slabs allow the light of the sun to exactly light up the Great Seal of the United States on November 11 at exactly 11 minutes after 11. Each stone slab is dedicated to a branch of the Armed Services: Coast Guard, Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force. It is indeed a work of art and a fitting tribute to our Armed Forces, past and present.

Our excuse for traveling to Anthem also included meeting more BFF's for lunch and shopping. Ed and Rosemary live just a few miles from our home base in NorCal, and are vacationing in Sedona, so we decided to meet.

Hard to see, but that's E and R in the photo.

Incredibly, Anthem is also home to a Premium Outlet Mall, so after lunch we just "had" to check it out. Several hours and a few dollars later, we said our goodbyes and headed for home. That put us into downtown Phoenix/Chandler at exactly 5:00 pm. Not good. The morning trip to Anthem required about 2 1/2 hours. The return trip required 3 1/2. Oh boy. Sasha went with us on the long day trip, and did very well with a few walks along the way, but she would really rather have been somewhere else!