There "jillgoes" Again!

And there "jillgoes" again!

The hubby and I just returned from a ten-day trip to the deserts and mountains of Arizona, and it was an awesome trip, so rich in landscape beauty, culture and history, and opportunities for adventure-seekers.

I love to write, and I have excessive wanderlust.  Combining the two is my passion!  When jillresearches, jillplans, jillwrites, and then jillgoes, let's just say Jill is one happy gal.

For years I've written a plethora of custom tours.  Trip planning has become my most favorite hobby. The problem is that I write more trips than I can get around to taking.  The hubby needs to retire soon, so we can get those trip notebooks out of the file and into reality.

I dream of someday opening my own little travel company:  "Yougo with Jillgoes" or some such outfit.  With just a few specks of encouragement, I may do just that.

Who wants to go travel with me?

Do you need a vacation custom-designed for you, created with your own preferences in mind?

Maybe I can help you.  I love creating a masterpiece of an adventure, including a vast variety of interesting experiences.

Take a look at just some of the fun the hubby and I had on this last adventure:

An early morning balloon ride over the majestic mountains of Sedona:

A short hike to the Montezuma's Castle ruins (U. S. National Park).  Seeing these ancient abodes challenges me to think about how older cultures survived in difficult places and climates:

An exhilarating all-terrain pink jeep tour along the scenic rim of the mountainside around Sedona.  This tour was not for the meek and fragile!

A self-guided auto tour of the greater Sedona area using an audio CD.  We enjoyed the freedom this CD gave us to stop where we wanted and to go around the area at our own pace.  The narration added valuable and interesting tidbits of background to what we were seeing along the drive.  The landscape and wildlife in the desert of Arizona is so different from what we see in Pennsylvania.  The photo below shows a common prickly pear cactus.  During our trip, I enjoyed a prickly pear margarita, some prickly pear hard candy, and some shampoo and shower gel all made from the fruit of this plant.

We took a part day trip over to the town of Jerome, known as one of the best ghost towns in the United States.  A historic/ghost van tour took us all around the area and delighted us with a plethora of fun stories and legends.  This old, vacant church in the valley of Jerome was built entirely of dynamite cases:

After leaving Sedona and Jerome, we headed south a few hours to the Scottsdale/Phoenix/Glendale area of the state.

I arranged for a private, narrated, golf cart tour of Old Town Scottsdale.  Because the hubby was having such trouble with his knees, we didn't do any excessive hiking on this trip.  I had planned tours and experiences that would work with his challenges.

While on the golf cart in Old Town Scottsdale, we paused at this little place.  It was a former stopping point for the Pony Express Riders who would sleep between shifts in the two chambers on the upper floor:

Now who says there's no water in the desert?  If it's there, I will find it.  Traveling east into the Mesa, Arizona area, we thoroughly enjoyed a 1-1/2 hour narrated cruise on Lake Saguaro.  Along its shores we spotted bald eagles and other waterfowl, a vast variety of cacti on the cliffs and mountains, and a group of wild horses grazing near the water's edge.

View from the Desert Belle on Lake Saguaro

I find myself feeling like a sponge whenever I travel.  I soak up all I can learn about so many different things, places, and people.  It's difficult for me to understand why some people never want to leave home to explore other places.

Along with the new things to see and experience, everywhere I go there is a bonanza of neat places to eat, if one takes the time to find them.  (I love researching area favorites.)  

And let's throw into the vacation mix those museums, interesting factory tours, and shops to investigate.  The #1 attraction in Phoenix is the Musical Instrument Museum.  This museum is considered to be one of the top twenty museums of the country.  Here is one odd musical instrument we discovered there:

And finally, I relish the challenge of simply finding unique hotels, resorts, and vacation homes in which to stay.  Some classic driving road trips work best with chain hotels, but this was not one of those.  These very special locations seemed to call for extraordinary accommodations, and that is what we found:

Our private infinity pool, along the canal.  Yes, we had a pontoon boat, too!

Wanna come along next time?  Want me to design a special getaway for you?  Make my day by letting me get to work on it!  

The memories we made from this trip are priceless.  I'd be glad to help create some for you, too.