We celebrated Maya’s birthday on 30 October with a classic combo: dinner and a movie! For dinner we went to
Blue Nile Café. It’s an Ethiopian restaurant. We discovered it by accident weeks ago when we went to the Indian grocery store next door. Unfortunately, having just been to Queen of Sheba, we were not very impressed with the food at Blue Nile. Their prices are great and the food is good, but not even close to amazing. Apparently, there is
another Ethiopian restaurant in town. We’ll go there next time. For movie we saw
Burn After Reading. It too was something of a let down. We expected something a little more funny and a little less dark. It
was funny. We
were entertained, but the undercurrents were pretty close to disturbing. Maybe that’s too strong. The ads made it seem like a slap-stick comedy of errors about spies and international terrorism. It’s not. It’s black comedy focusing on highly flawed people with a few touches of CIA surveillance. It’s good to know what you are getting into.
The next day we went downtown again to see the
Wells Fargo History Museum. Wells Fargo, which these days seems to mostly a bank, was originally two guys who invested in the Butterfield stagecoach route from St. Louis to San Francisco. The route opened in 1858 and after that Wells and Fargo continued to expand their business connections throughout the southwest getting into shipping, security, telegraph lines, railroads, and eventually banking. They way they tell it, the west wouldn’t have been “won” without them. That’s okay, everyone is the star of their own history. Since this story is somewhat unique in the annals of huge financial corporations, they have several museums in several big western cities that preserve both the history of the area and Wells Fargo’s involvement in that history.
The museum here in Phoenix has a real stagecoach on display. It’s one that originally made runs on the Butterfield route. It was sold off as the stagecoaches fell out of use, but later tracked down and bought back so that it could be put on display. In addition to this coach is a replica one with a TV screen outside one set of windows. You push one button to travel from the forests of the Midwest to the desert of the west and other to travel back again. The changing scenery flashes by on screen to the sound of hoof beats and jangling tack. Neat! The real 2,800 mile journey took 24 days with round-the-clock travel at an average of five miles an hour. Stops were made every 12-20 miles for fresh horses and fresh drivers. Meals were had three times a day mainly consisting of black beans and coffee. Sometimes jerky was also available.
There were several other replicas in the museum: a replica telegraph office, a general store, a gold dust smelter, even a mine shaft. All of these are filled with info about life in the “old west” and photos of Arizona towns like Tuscon, Tombstone, Yuma and Phoenix. In the back was an art gallery featuring paintings and sculptures from western artists like N. C. Wyeth and Frederic Remington. It was a nice little museum. It was all free of charge too. When you are a huge financial institution, you can offer public services like free history museums.
Maya is finally getting settled into her job. Our time in Arizona is 1/3 over! It just takes a while to learn all the ropes at a new place. She actually had a day she
enjoyed not too long ago and that’s the first time that’s happened in a while. Also, sleep comes easier here for some reason. Matt has started on his WriMo – that’s his quest to write a novel in one month. He talks about it on
his own blog.
The next day we went downtown again to see the Wells Fargo History Museum. Wells Fargo, which these days seems to mostly a bank, was originally two guys who invested in the Butterfield stagecoach route from St. Louis to San Francisco. The route opened in 1858 and after that Wells and Fargo continued to expand their business connections throughout the southwest getting into shipping, security, telegraph lines, railroads, and eventually banking. They way they tell it, the west wouldn’t have been “won” without them. That’s okay, everyone is the star of their own history. Since this story is somewhat unique in the annals of huge financial corporations, they have several museums in several big western cities that preserve both the history of the area and Wells Fargo’s involvement in that history. 
The museum here in Phoenix has a real stagecoach on display. It’s one that originally made runs on the Butterfield route. It was sold off as the stagecoaches fell out of use, but later tracked down and bought back so that it could be put on display. In addition to this coach is a replica one with a TV screen outside one set of windows. You push one button to travel from the forests of the Midwest to the desert of the west and other to travel back again. The changing scenery flashes by on screen to the sound of hoof beats and jangling tack. Neat! The real 2,800 mile journey took 24 days with round-the-clock travel at an average of five miles an hour. Stops were made every 12-20 miles for fresh horses and fresh drivers. Meals were had three times a day mainly consisting of black beans and coffee. Sometimes jerky was also available. 
There were several other replicas in the museum: a replica telegraph office, a general store, a gold dust smelter, even a mine shaft. All of these are filled with info about life in the “old west” and photos of Arizona towns like Tuscon, Tombstone, Yuma and Phoenix. In the back was an art gallery featuring paintings and sculptures from western artists like N. C. Wyeth and Frederic Remington. It was a nice little museum. It was all free of charge too. When you are a huge financial institution, you can offer public services like free history museums. 
Maya is finally getting settled into her job. Our time in Arizona is 1/3 over! It just takes a while to learn all the ropes at a new place. She actually had a day she enjoyed not too long ago and that’s the first time that’s happened in a while. Also, sleep comes easier here for some reason. Matt has started on his WriMo – that’s his quest to write a novel in one month. He talks about it on his own blog.
1 comment:
I'm glad Maya's getting settled in her job. It IS hard to start over and learn everything in a new place. I'm dreading having to do that at some point and I can't even imagine doing it as many times in as little time as Maya has.
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