My Perfect Town

I was thinking the other day about all the cool stuff in the places I have lived. I really wish I could take little bits and pieces of every town I have ever lived in and made one big perfect town! My perfect town would include:

From Silver City:

• Vintage Fantasies. Seriously the best vintage store I’ve ever been in. Great scarves, jewelry, shoes, dresses, and the best collection of vintage hats I’ve ever seen!!
• The Antique Mall. Rooms and rooms of old stuff. Most of it is junk, some of it is treasure. I could stay there all day!
• The Grinder Mill. Chile cheese fries. What more is there to say??
• The Gila Cliff Dwellings. Native American ruins. A fantastic one mile hike!

From Las Cruces:

• COAS books. A huge used bookstore with floor to ceiling books for amazing prices. All of the paperback books are half off of whatever the cover price is. So that awesome book you found from the 70s that was $0.50? It’ll cost you a quarter! Another place I could stay all day!!
• Andale’s. The tacos. Oh, the tacos…
• The Organ Mountains. I really really miss living in a place with mountains. But I specifically miss these mountains! My last semester of school I made a point to notice the mountains every single day on my way to school. They change colors depending on the weather and time of day. I just love them!
• Keva Juice. Ya, they have them other places. It’s just not the same!

From Tempe/Phoenix:

• The Goodwills. Especially the one in Scottsdale. Half off everything in the store every other Saturday. Man, I got some great stuff!
• Tempe Town Lake. I love the water, and having a ‘lake’ just down the street was great! Lots of restaurants on one side, a walking path on the other side. Just don’t go there on Thursday nights. Unless you like drunk college kids!
• Ra. The best sushi. And if you go during happy hour you’ll feel like you’re stealing it!!
• Ikea. I seriously miss having an Ikea 10 minutes down the road. When I didn’t have anything to do on a Saturday I would go have breakfast there, shop for a while, have lunch, shop some more. I would have moved in, but apparently it’s frowned upon…
• The Mesa temple visitors center/grounds. I feel so blessed to have a temple just a few minutes away, but I really miss having the visitors center and the beautiful grounds to walk around. I miss the Christmas lights and the Easter pageant…
• Merchant Square. It's a mix of a flea market and a thrift store. Lots and lots of cool stuff to look at and buy. Also, they have the only hot dogs I will break my ‘One Hot Dog a Year’ rule for.

From San Antonio:

• The Riverwalk. I fell in love with San Antonio on the Riverwalk. It’s also where Steve proposed! I love the water, I love the atmosphere.
• Thrift Outlet. On Wednesdays, EVERYTHING in the store is a quarter. Everything. Does it get any better? I don’t think so!
• The Cove. A restaurant smashed between a car wash and a laundry mat. Serves locally sourced food, and soda with real sugar. They have live music most nights, and a playground for the kiddos. Get the burger with the goat cheese. It’s amazing.
• The Botanical Garden. Amazing plants as far as the eye can see. They also have really cool live music events. Love it!
• Lulu’s Cafe. A three pound cinnamon roll. Yep.
• The outlets. Just 30 minutes north! Has pretty much every store you can think of. The deals can be hit or miss, but having them so close makes it worth the drive!
• The Spurs. Gotta love some basketball! Go! Spurs! Go!
• The Alamo. Yes, most people are disappointed when they first see it. It’s small. It’s in the middle of town (I think people watch too many movies!). Once you get over that, you can be in awe of how very old the building is, and how many people walked through the very same place you are walking.
• The Hacienda. The first time we ate there all I said the whole time was Oh man, this is so good. I might have been close to tears. Get the fajitas. You won’t be sorry!
• The Missions. Once again, really old buildings with a ton of history. One of them is still a working monastery and church! It almost makes me want to be Catholic just so I could go to church in such an awesome place. 
• Blacks BBQ. An hour drive. Worth every single mile. Every. Single. Mile.
• The Majestic Theater. An old theater from back when people took time to focus on the details of buildings instead of just trying to get them built as quickly as possible. Everything about this building is ornate, gaudy and awesome. I usually miss the first part of the show I'm seeing there because I'm looking around at everything. They even have a stuffed peacock!