Starting shots of the week...

Today I went on my first historic home tour since I moved to Phoenix, which was really cool, but I'm going to expound on that later.

Today I also ate a cajeta-filled churro at La Tolteca's bakery, which was more than incredible and I want to eat another one right now, but I'm going to expound on that later.

After doing both of the above, I decided to wander around downtown Phoenix with my camera, which I am known to do from time to time. Here's a sample of what I took (can you tell I don't feel like writing much?)

The Chase Tower is the tallest building in the entire state. Kind of hard to believe, but it's true. I was driving along 3rd Avenue when I came across this twisted sign on the side of the road. Of course that meant jumping out of my car with my camera and trying to figure out what to do with it. Enter tallest building of Arizona. And a plane which has just taken off from Sky Harbor.

While I was taking shots of the historic Post Office building (built in 1936 in Spanish Colonial Revival style), an employee walked out, smiled, and asked how I was enjoying my trip to Arizona. I told him I lived here. He looked a little confused, like why would a resident Phoenician be wandering around downtown with his camera?

Anyway, the Post Office building is soon going to be used by Arizona State as a student gathering space, which should be interesting. The downtown campus of ASU is bringing a lot of changes. Whether that means downtown Phoenix retains its character or becomes overrun by a train of cheesy college bars remains to be seen...

The Westward Ho is one of my favorite buildings in town. It's currently a senior home, but it used to be one of those grand hotels of yesteryear (when it was completed in 1927 it was the tallest building in Arizona until 1960). I think they occasionally give tours of the inside, but I've never been on one. I might have to look into that. The Downtown Phoenix Public Market takes place in its shadow, and usually by the entrance you'll see a bunch of seniors hanging out in their wheelchairs. Why they hang out on the sidewalk, I don't know (none of them appear to be smoking), but whatever.

I took this shot on the Margeret T Hance Deck Park. You probably can't tell, but Interstate 10 is directly under me. Kind of crazy, eh? I'd actually never been here before so it was cool just to wander around on foot. Also, walking instead of driving allowed me to be slow enough to see that one of the buildings right next to this park is the Great Arizona Puppet Theater. Who knew there was one? I didn't.

Anyway, as for the shot above, I sat there on the footpath with the camera on, waiting for colors to do something crazy. But they didn't. Just some orange and that was about it.

However, on my way back to my car, I crossed the lawn and came across a fairly new-looking paperback book. Just sitting there on the grass. I looked all around to see if anyone looked like the owner.

Nobody.

I then stood there and debated. The book looked and felt really new. It had a bookmark to begin Chapter 3, so it was obviously being read. But if I left it there in the grass, and the owner didn't remember it for a few more hours, the sprinklers would go off and the book would be ruined.

Talk about a moral dilemma.

What would you do?