The Biltmore

Arizona is beautiful. I'd never been. And we were there at the perfect time. The first couple days were pretty hot, but by day three it was only high in the 90s during the day and with a dry heat, that was about perfect.

And the place we stayed, the Biltmore, has a great history as a desert resort for old Hollywood back in the day. Marilyn Monroe used to hang out by this pool in front of our villa where we spent most of our time.


The Biltmore's main front yard


And fountains



This is where we stayed, right by the Marilyn Monroe pool (which is actually called the Catalina Pool). The whole bottom floor of this condo was ours.


We had lunch right here, at the main pool on our first day. There are multiple pools, by the way...


There was a Hydro-Fit class every morning at 10am at our pool. I took it one day.


One of the regulars in the class brought her dog


They have an almost lifesized chess/checkerboard on the grass. Of course by the time I got over to take a picture of it, the chess pieces had been put away.


Our favorite hottub


I thought this was the coolest. I never did a tropical Spring Break getaway, or at least not one where I would have been drinking, so I'd never seen a swim up bar before. I had a pina colada right here and watched a three year old boy swim about in a life vest and just generally be adorable.


These birds were everwhere


Often in groups


And even more often, finishing off someone's leftovers


Deck chairs near the front lawn


Classic palm tree


We spent a ton of time by the pool. I read three books in the week I was there. We made usually two meals a day and went out/ordered in the third. We had a couples massage one night. Geoff was having some chronic neck pain so we had "therapy" for him twice a day, which consisted of us going in the hottub and me rubbing his neck. It worked better than the massage. There is a huge twisty slide for the kids, which Geoff convinced me to go on in the middle of the week and then I wanted to go every day. Made me giggle like how I do on roller coasters. By the time I got over there to take its picture on our last day, they had turned off the waterfall that comes out from the top (which you go under as you exit the slide).


We had good conversations and reconnected. We tried to de-stress. We made mojitos almost daily. We had great Southwestern food. All in all, this was a great home base. I'm so grateful we were able to go there. And for the amazing weather. We didn't take a ton of pictures all week. Which was kind of nice. But there were two occasions that required me to pull out the camera.... those pics coming soon.

Our pool at night - just gorgeous all the time.