Tempe Town

There was an arts & craft festival in Tempe (Phoenix suburb) on the weekend of March 31 and April 1. So having this as an excuse we boarded the Light Rail....

This is a fun way to get around much of Phoenix without the hassle of traffic or parking. The Light Rail station in Mesa has a giant "free" parking lot and is only a hop-skip-and-jump from our RV park. It happened that our days activities were all right at one of the stops. However, had it not been, there is a very good bus system and it is all coordinated with the Light Rail and the entire system is all available for the whole day on one ticket.

So we got off right at the entry gates to the festival and spent a couple of hours wandering around. We walked enough to work up an appetite....


so we stopped in an Irish pub named Rula Bula. Food was wonderful, beer was better.


There was also a boat race on the Tempe Town lake. It was called the "Dragon Boat Classic", and even though that sounds Chinese, it was was put on by the local American Indians. There was some mighty paddling by the 20 paddlers per boat. All were trying to row in unison following the pace set by the boats drummer (almost always the only women in the crew). Each heat consisted of 3 boats racing a straight course, making one turn, and returning to the start/finish line. A round trip took about 12 minutes. That is strenuous......


We walked about a half mile from the festival to the boat race. This put us close to another Light Rail stop at the Arizona State University football stadium, home of the Sun Devils.

The Light Rail goes through the ASU campus, and right by the Diamond Backs stadium (Phoenix's pro-baseball team), as well as by a pot full of other Phoenix attractions and businesses. Next year I plan on using it a lot more!!!