Exploring Mesa

When visiting our family we like to explore their hometowns a bit. I researched some of the top places to visit beforehand, compiling multiple lists into my own, and noting opening dates and times. (A lot of places are closed on Mondays, which is the usual day available for us to visit.) Organ Stop Pizza and the Mesa Temple Visitor's Center were near the top of each list. We'd already checked out the pizza place (more than once) so decided to go to the visitor's center on this trip.

The building had displays on the founding of Mesa and the purpose of the temple, along with a family history center and special children's area. The coloring mural of the creation - which I've also seen in a Salt Lake museum - is quite intriguing to me. Hopefully during one of our future visits we'll be able to visit the temple itself.

The visitor's center didn't take as long as we thought it might, so after lunch at Baja Joe's Mexican Cantina - also on the list of places to try in Mesa - we headed over to Usery Mountain Park, another "top ten attraction" for Mesa. We weren't prepared to do any hiking, but we paid our fee, explored the small visitor's center, including a short nature trail, took a small walk to a spring, checked out the campground, and stopped at the trail head for the Wind Cave Trail. We're looking forward to spending more time there in the future.

Since it was on the way and there was still time before dinner, we stopped at one final Mesa landmark - Falcon Field - a small commuter airport with a special viewing area and a nearby playground. Next time this would be a fun spot to take the grandchildren, although maybe not during the heat of summer.