Friends, Fridays and Memories of John Wayne

We had a wonderful day yesterday visiting with old friends from Phoenix that took the hour + drive down here mid day. We had fun showing them our "Home on Wheels" and catching up having not seen them for a year. It was worth all that rubbing and scrubbings after all to get the desert winter dirt off of Betsy! She looked good and they were pretty impressed. Last year we traveled to their place. Around noon we went into Casa and took them to lunch at "Mimi's", a french cafe and restaurant. After really good turkey baguette sammies and sides, we said goodbye and let them head back through Crazy-ville (Phoenix freeways) before the friday traffic got heavy. I went up through there last year early on a Friday afternoon to go shop at Cabela's and I'll NEVER do that again! Bumper to bumper Friday crabby afternoon drivers...no thanks. I just got an email from her and they made it home fine. We just got back here and some of our park friends were going out for dinner at the Francisco Grande Golf Resort.
DH has been wanting to go back out there as he plays golf there once in a while, so we went. I didn't realize that the place was so full of history! As an old Hotelier, I am fascinated about lodging properties, especially old ones that have been renovated and are doing well. This property debuted in 1961, with much much more than just a hotel! It was the era of the Rat Pack, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle. Together with a hotel, it was a state of the art baseball training facility with 4 fields. The architect that designed the golf course gave it the longest layout in Arizona and one of the longest in the U.S.
He wanted to accomodate the big homerun hitters like Willie Mays and Willie McCovey, who enjoyed playing golf there. The San Francisco Giants trained there from 1962 to 1981 and the CA Angels used the facility from 1982 to 1984. It was the training headquarters for the USFL Arizona Wrangler's and the Denver Gold. The hotel is 9 stories and the north face resembles a baseball helmet, the swimming pool resembles a bat! From the balconies, you can observe the 4 fields, a small stadium and an observation tower.
Today, the "Legends" lounge is decorated with memorabilia from the days that John Wayne spent time there, and celebrities like George Clooney enjoy the resort while shooting feature films or just relaxing.
We didn't see him last night, but since I was with the activities director from our resort, after our dinner we took a tour and went up to the eighth floor where John Wayne and Pat Boone used to entertain at the suites, and the Eagle's Nest room atop the hotel. We were gazing out into the desert night sky, looking over Casa Grande.
I will go back out there before we leave in the daylight and get some daytime pictures. It was awesome. The whole property was completely restored and renovated into a luxury, upscale boutique hotel with a world class, European Style service level. It fully reopened in 2003. We had reservations for 8 at 6 p.m. and since we arrived a little early, we started out in the Legends lounge.
Promptly at 6 p.m. we were taken to our "Private" dining room, over looking the courtyard with swaying palm trees and pristinely groomed grounds. The wait staff was superb, and the food was delicious.
We all had a variety of entrees, I had chicken, DH and several others had the fish special, and several others tried the steaks. We topped it off with desert and coffee. I had creme brulee and DH stuck to the old standby of Choc. fudge cake. They were excellent. We had a great time at dinner, followed by the tour of the hotel and once again, I wish it was still daylight. I love it when I learn about something by accident! Today it was back to the gym and tonight it's to the Arizona Country Club to listen to Bunky. We support our Nebraska friend. He's getting ready to play at the Arizona's equivelent to Country Stampede. The week of the 14th he'll be up there rubbing elbows with Willie Nelson, Miranda Lambert, Keith Urban and Kid Rock. We're all really excited for him. I'm kinda bummed because I would like to go see it! We will be in California by then, so will have to wait for the blow by blow from him later.