Out and About - Maricopa/Phoenix, Arizona

Maricopa, Arizona - Home #8

Contract assignment #5 brought us to Maricopa, Arizona. What was awesome was our place

of work was only 0.7 miles from our Home #8. It was also about 1 mile away from a huge, affordable, community recreational center/gym called Copper Sky. Not to mention the grocery stores were just 2-3 miles away. Even though the traffic and the drivers were crazy due to everyone losing their minds on the notorious 347 highway, it was a perfect place to spend an extended time for our first 26 week contract!

Our Home #8 was in a growing community about 30 miles or 30 minutes South of Phoenix/Chandler, Arizona. We lived in Maricopa for 6 months from late December 2024 to early June 2025. Our longest stay in any location since our time as students in Gainesville… GO GATORS! Maricopa was different. It was growing rapidly with chain fast-food restaurants, to apartments, to Lowes and Home Depot being built next to each other. Every once in a while you would get treated to the smell of Maricopa, from a nearby cow farm.

We enjoyed the winter months to late spring, before the heat rolled in. The desert night sky is something else, with stillness, and its quietness. Hiking in the desert is unique with its sunny, blue sky days. Since we were here for a longer period, we got to travel through other parts of Arizona from Tucson to the valley to the mountains of Northern Arizona. We will talk about all the things we did!

For our first 26 week contract, it gave us time to have many visitors plan to come see us. It also made us travel back across the country for family events. We began this contract before the holiday season. We worked about a week before we flew back to Florida to spend a few days of the Christmas season with Alyssa’s family, but it was the week before Christmas. We flew back to Arizona to spend our first Christmas together, just the two of us. We then spent most of January hiking and had our first visitor, Alyssa’s mom. During February, we took a long weekend for Andrew’s birthday and Valentine’s day where we traveled to San Diego and went glamping in Joshua Tree National Park. We then went to Sedona for the first time the following weekend. Then 2 weekends in a row we hosted visitors, Alyssa’s sister and then Andrew’s dad. 

Now it was late March and we had to re-group for a relaxing weekend of doing nothing. After that weekend we went to Tucson to hike Mount Lemmon and to see some friends from our time in Georgetown, TX. Then we watched the Gators win a National Championship! We had some friends from PT school come spend a weekend with us hiking in Sedona and exploring some areas in Phoenix. Now it was time for Alyssa’s half marathon with her parents coming to support her! Then our third and last weekend of hosting guests, Andrew’s Aunt and Uncle came out to visit them and see the desert for the first time!

Finally in the homestretch during the first week of May, we decided to head up to Flagstaff for a night before we headed to Horseshoe Bend and the Grand Canyon. This is where Alyssa became inspired to visit the National Parks and got a National Park book to be stamped. The next weekend was The Weeknd concert on opening night! The very next weekend we took some more time off to fly back to Florida for Alyssa’s lil brother’s high school graduation. 

After we came back, we had 3 weekends left and the weather just started to get toasty, touching 100-106 degrees a few times. We went to watch Andrew’s Pittsburgh Pirates lose to the Diamondbacks, then following that weekend, we went to see our favorite musician, Mike. again on maybe, his last tour ever. To cap that weekend off, Andrew finally proposed to Alyssa after 4 years and she said YES!!! Finally, on the last weekend we packed up and headed out on our week trip to Washington State.

Maricopa

We were here for 26 weeks, so this will be a brief condensed version. We loved Arizona, but we do not think we would personally live here due to us loving the dark green colors instead of the sandy brown unique landscapes. Arizona has its own charm, and we will love to visit here again in the future. Maricopa is a good area if you want to be out of the large metro area of Phoenix. It is about 90 minutes North of Tucson, about 45 minutes South of Scottsdale, about 2.5 hours South of Sedona, and about 2.75 hours South of Flagstaff - then another 45 minutes to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Maricopa has a few family-owned restaurants. It is mainly run by fast food chains and food trucks. Our favorite place was a food truck that brought us the wonders of the Sonoran Hot Dog… ugh!

• Cilantros Mexican Cocina: This was the first place we ate at in Maricopa. One of the locally owned restaurants in Maricopa and it was great! A spicier version of Chipotle with authentic SW flavors!

  
  

• Honeycutt Coffee Cafe: 1 of 2 coffee places in town not named Starbucks or Dunkin’. It was alright, but expensive.

  
  

• Neaux Coffee Company: 2 of 2 coffee places in town. Located right by the high school, tiny, but expensive!

  
  

• Mandy’s Wine Bar: Newer and finer than most of Maricopa. A cool place for a romantic dinner or chilling with wine.

  
  

• Cold Beer and Cheeseburgers: A local chain that the locals call “CBCB.” A sports bar with all the burgers and cold beer!

  
  

• Sonora Hot Dogs Quesabirria: Our favorite food truck! Our first taste of the true SW USA! Spicy and flavorful!

  
  

• Native Wing Co: Everyone says this place has the best wings, but we say 7/10!

Chandler

Chandler was the nearest city of the Phoenix Metro area, and one of our favorite places to go. Downtown Chandler was always lively from the live music coming from the bands or the restaurant atmospheres. It was always a good time.

• Hop Social Grill: This is the restaurant we ate at in Arizona. We just finished unpacking and made a shopping run to Chandler and we decided to go here since it was close to Scheels. We were seated in an awkward spot, a wobbly 2 person table made for 1, delayed service, can’t remember much.

  
  

• Pedal Haus Brewery: There are 4 locations in the Phoenix area. This one was downtown and it was great! Seems like a good place for a pre-game.

  
  

• SanTan Brewing Co: Another brewery we went to after a long day of hiking with Alyssa’s sister. Very good!

  
  

• Crust Simply Italian: Italian kiss We sat outside at the bar, chicken parm, pizza, and spicy garlic knots!

  
  

• The Brickyard: Went to this place 2x when Alyssa’s mom was in town. Great little tapas and cocktails!

  
  

• Lola’s Martini Bar: A very cool place. They have security in the front, you walk past some curtains, and you come across a large rectangle bar, with club music, and you guessed it… martinis!

  
  

• The Stillery: This was Andrew’s and Alyssa’s go to line dancing bar. We went there for the live country music and the people watching on Saturday nights.

  
  

• Perfect Pear Bistro: We went to brunch here with our friends from PT school for a healthy bite.

  
  

• Maple House: Our favorite coffee place in Arizona. A nice outdoor space and good coffee!

  
  

• Sicilian Bakery: We had to take Alyssa’s sister here for the cannolis! 

Tempe

A good ole college town with many community street fairs. Many bars and restaurants, and even a river front. It's a pretty city with a mountain backdrop. We also came here for spring training opening day for the Angels vs Mariners.

• Culinary Dropout: There are a few of these around the metro area. They have great food, cocktails, and atmospheres!

  
  

• Taco Chelo: We were hungry after a hike and wanted tacos. Great place for some quick food and views.

  
  

• Zu Izakaya Asian Kitchen Bar: We ate at this asian place with Alyssa’s mom when she was hungry for asian noodles since she got on the plane to come see us. Andrew had his first hot pot style dish here.

  
  

• Snakes and Lattes: A cool concept. Coffee. Cocktails. And Games! Right in downtown Tempe.

  
  

• Ghost Ranch : Modern Southwest Cuisine: Andrew found this place to go eat after our hike with Andrew’s dad. Andrew had the best pork chop and grits, Alyssa had a Mexican Lasagna, and Andrew’s dad had his Green Chile Burger.

Scottsdale

Scottsdale is what everyone thinks it is. Great part of town for folks to hangout, bar hop, hike up Camelback, head to Old Town, meet friends, and count how many guys or girls that are wearing the same outfit. A number of bars are left off this wonderful list.

• JoJo Coffeehouse: We went for brunch one morning. Very demure, cutesy and a Scottsdale classic.

  
  

• Hash Kitchen: Andrew came for the build your own bloody mary. We arrived about an hour before it closed for the day and it was bumping with the DJ. We were with Alyssa’s sister.

  
  

• Diego Pops: The tacos are good and so are the margs! We stopped here with Alyssa’s sister.

  
  

• Boondocks: Our fellow friend took us here to introduce us to the Scottsdale party scene + others.

  
  

• Karsen’s: A very small hole in the wall restaurant that is in Old Town that we went with Andrew’s aunt and uncle.

Florence

Florence is the far East of the Phoenix metro area. We headed out here after a super hot hike in the Superstition Mountains with our friends from PT school. We only ventured out this way one time in the more country-side.

• Windmill Winery: A cool little desert winery. We downed some sangria and wine flights with our friends. Pretty outdoor area.

Phoenix

This is where the sky scrapers are. Really, all the surrounding cities in the Phoenix metro area are better, we think. However, it is close to the Phoenix Suns arena and the Arizona Diamondbacks stadium. We came out here to watch some baseball and to see Mike.

• Blanco Tacos and Tequilla: Some tacos and margs.

• Doghaus Biergarten: We came here before the Mike. concert. Small little place serving some classic sliders, hot dogs, tots, and beer.

Gilbert

Gilbert may be underrated, but we only came through this part of town once with Alyssa’s parents. Pretty much, all of the Phoenix metro city downtowns are similar.

• OHSO Brewery and Distillery: This place is cool, we wished we went there more than once. Cool, lively, family, and friendly atmosphere. Some outdoor games, tvs, and fun.

Glendale

We went here for one of our first weekends in Arizona. We saw a college football playoff game of Penn State vs Boise State at the State Farm Stadium. We went to The Weeknd concert here. We also stayed in a hotel with Alyssa’s parents before her half marathon race.

• SALT: We ate here with Alyssa’s parents after her race.

Sedona

Home of all the red rocks and red dirt. Sedona is beautiful, but touristy. A cute area, and definitely some of the best hikes and views in Arizona. We loved it!

• Cowboy Club: This is where we ate after our hike during our first time in Sedona. We even ate some prickly pear cactus bites, and prickly pear margaritas. Expensive, but great food after many hikes that day.

• Javelina Cantina: We went here with our friends from PT school. Huge margaritas and decent food. Sad note, we never saw a javelina during our time in AZ. We do not know if we were lucky or not.

• Sedonuts: Ugh doughnuts! We still love and miss our frequent doughnut days. A must stop! Also, it is by the blue Mcdonalds arches!

Flagstaff

We made a pit stop here for the night before our grand journey to the Grand Canyon and Horseshoe Bend. A hip, college town. Very chilly and eerie, with a larger homeless crowd.

• Pizzicletta: Some great wood fired Za! Alyssa’s favorite.

• Lumbar Yard Brewing Company: Andrew was here with his dad during his undergrad days when he was interviewing for PT schools. We came back for some drinks to cap the night off before our journey the next day.

Best Wishes,

Andrew & Alyssa