This past Saturday, I went on a scooter ride with Vespa AZ.
It was terrific!
Vespa AZ is, quite obviously, a group for Vespa enthusiasts that live in Arizona. It’s run by a guy named Guy. He really likes Vespas. Duh.
Anyhoo. He organized a Vespa ride and was kind enough to invite me, Heather, and Jiminy along.
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It’s Heather! And a hot air balloon! Good morning!
Heather and I decided to check out the Gilbert Market before we met up with everyone else at Bergies Coffee Roast House. On the way, we got treated to a whole bunch of hot air balloons floating all over the place. ‘Twas a lovely sight.
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So many lovely things to buy
The farmer’s market was amazing, and we’ll probably visit it again. I’m not too big on fruits and vegetables, but I still could have easily spent over a hundred bucks there.
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Heather and Ricky at Bergies
We met up with Dawn and Ricky at the market and then made our way over to Bergies for some pastries, coffee, and hot chocolate. Very relaxing. I’m not a coffee drinker (I was the one having the hot chocolate), but I did love Bergies.
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Getting ready for the ride
Eventually, the other two riders, Guy (the aforementioned creator of Vespa AZ) and Charles (another Vespa enthusiast), showed up. We all visited for a short while and then hopped on our Vespas and took off!
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Five Italian beauties…
The ride to the Musical Instrument Museum took about an hour.
It was a nice ride, but not too scenic.
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Way cooler than a Vespa!
Really though, I would have done a ride twice as long to get to the MIM.
Honestly, I didn’t have high hopes for a museum that is focused solely on musical instruments, but holy crap was it amazing. Definitely going to have to visit again and spend, at least, a couple hours there. I believe we stayed for an hour and half. Not enough time for sure.
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Vespa AZ entering the Musical Instrument Museum
So… basically… the place is massive. And it needs to be!
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The air guitar… an important musical instrument indeed
It’s got every instrument imaginable and much more!
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Come for the musical instruments, stay for the scary masks
The instruments are organized into sections. There are some special exhibition spaces that are always changing, and many static displays. Pretty much the entire upstairs is devoted to geographical galleries. There’s “Africa/Middle East”, “Asia/Oceania”, “Latin America and the Caribbean”, “United States/Canada”, and “Europe”. Each region is broken down into countries and each country has all kinds of instruments and traditional outfits.
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Another scary mask
Also… almost every single display has a TV set that automagically beams sound to a really cool headset device whenever you get close. The device is included with admission. Yay!
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These are not musical instruments… these are terrifying!
You guys… I mean… it’s just awesome.
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It’s some old school mouth harps! Exciting!
After the museum, we scooted on over to Andreoli’s Italian Grocer, but there was some event going on so we had to go somewhere else.
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Delicious sandwiches at Defalco’s Italian Eatery
That somewhere else was Defalco’s Italian Eatery!
It’s a cute little Italian Deli that makes some damn good sandwiches.
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They’re so pretty!
After that… we went home.
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Riding home with Dawn and Ricky
Can’t wait to go on more rides!
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