Getting It Fixed in Phoenix

 

I had to head down to Phoenix as I had an appointment at D&R's Family RV. My solar install was not working as efficiently as it should be. My friend Jon and I had spent many hours trying to figure out what was the issue but in the end, we decided we needed a solar professional to diagnose the issue. It took Ron about five minutes to figure out the issue. It turns out that I had an inverter installed that was not the correct inverter. Ron ordered one, but seeing as how it was the weekend, it would not be delivered until the following week. So I spent four nights in the RV lot, behind chain link fencing with that circular barb wire all along the top of the fence. They gave me a key so I could come and go. When the new inverter came in, it took them about an hour and a half to do the install and I was on my way. The solar is now working like a charm.

Since I had the whole weekend to myself in Phoenix, I did hit a few museums. In fact, one of the museums ranks right up there with being one of the best museums I have ever been in. This is the Museum of Musical Instruments (MIM). It was fascinating in how they presented the instruments. The galleries were laid out geographical by country within continent. So you would go into the Africa gallery and then there would be a section for each country within Africa displaying the instruments that were indigenous to that country. Each of these instruments were labeled as to what they were but what made this so great was that in each of these sections there was a TV screen that played videos of these instruments being played. You are wearing headphones so whenever you approached the TV screen, the video would start playing. Photo challenged alert: My brother is very musical and I thought it would be great to take my own videos of these videos playing on the TV screens and text him with them so he could be as wowed as I was. I took a zillion videos and sent them off forgetting that all the sound was coming through my headphones. So he got a zillion videos of people playing instruments that he could not hear. Wonderful.

The Harmonica Section (which I had to pay homage to)

A closeup of the harmonicas

This gives new meaning to the words 'Piano Accordion'.  The accordions were right next to the bagpipes which some folks think are rather irritating.  What is MIM trying to say here, anyway?

There was also a special exhibition called Congo Masks and Music where they added the masks and outfits into the mix.

The Phoenix Art Museum had some nice exhibits also. I particularly liked the Throne Miniatures. I've always been enthralled with miniature rooms. People create these rooms or even whole houses and the attention to detail is amazing. They weave tiny little rugs, they paint tiny little pictures to hang on the walls of their rooms. Inconceivable the amount of time and patience that must go into this past time.

This exhibit would take an item from the museum's collection and pair it with Fashion.

One of the exhibits was the Firefly room. You walk into a tiny dark little area and you are surrounded by thousands of tiny little lights that change colors. It does give you an almost magical feeling. It is all, of course, done with mirrors. They hung the lights from the ceiling on strings and then added mirrors all the way around the lights. It is sort of like being in a fun house, but since this is the Phoenix Art Museum, it is way more classy.

I have spent almost four months out in the desert in Arizona and New Mexico.  I'm a Minnesota girl deep down and I'm longing for some real trees and green grass.  While I have seen some wonderful sights, I am tired of desert dust that infiltrates everything, no matter how much you try to keep on top of it.  I decided that I need to take care of my inner needs.  I was going to head up to Oregan and Washington state, but it is still too cold to head up there.  So I've decided to head east.  Not too sure where in the east yet, but just as long as it is sort of green and warm - that is where I am going.