My husband and I have spent a lot of time in Arizona over the years. His family has wintered in AZ for a very long time, and up until this last trip when we sold our house, we made it a point to go there every other year. Somewhere along the line we decided to start bringing our dog along. Her name is Sonora, so obviously she has to set foot in the Sonoran desert right?
Our house was in Sun City West, but we would always take a side trip for a couple of days to explore a different area of the state, and so this time we spent a few nights in Cave Creek. To me, Cave Creek has the most beautiful desert you will find anywhere in Arizona. It’s got such a wide array of plant and animal life, and I can never stop staring at it while we are driving through.
My husband found the perfect little AirBnB for the trip. It was referred to as a kiva, and it was built underground. There is a large main area hosting the kitchen, living room, and bathroom, and then there is a loft up above with one bed. The loft area is surrounded by windows, so you can watch the sunrise from the bed if you’d like. I’ll admit, I have a large fear of desert animals/insects, so I did spend the whole time a little bit freaked out about sleeping underground. My mind would race with thoughts of centipedes and spiders just hanging out near by bed in the cool loft escaping the hot desert sun. I would crawl up there only when I was dead tired, and I refused to open any of the curtains for fear of what might be lurking.
Our first day in Cave Creek, we started out by walking around Frontier Town. The town is a cute little place filled with restaurants, bars, and shops. We buy some of our favorite hot sauces at Suzanne’s Hot Stuff, and since we always drive we can bring back enough bottles to get us through 2 years at a time. There’s a candle shop that we love to go to, but unfortunately we couldn’t hit it at the right time this year and it was closed each time we tried to go. We grabbed a beer and some ice cream, walked a lot, and stopped into the Carefree distillery.
After settling into the kiva for a bit, we ventured back out for dinner. A couple of our favorite restaurants in the area are Big Earl’s Greasy Eats (outdoor seating, very dog friendly), and The Horny Toad (also with a dog friendly patio but with nicer indoor options for those of you without pets). On this particular night we ended up at Hideaway, a biker bar that isn’t normally our scene, but it was raining and so our normal dog friendly options were not available to us. The food wasn’t very good, but we had a good time there anyway.
When we got back to the Airbnb, we started a fire in the fire pit outside. It turned out to be a gorgeous night once it stopped raining. The only problem was that our little fire pit was surrounded by the desert, and we could hear things running around out there and we had no idea what we were dealing with. We were both a bit freaked out constantly shining our flashlights around trying to figure out what made the latest noise. We had to laugh at ourselves for being such chickens, but it was our first time just being in a desert at night…totally different ballgame from our house in Sun City West on a golf course! Thankfully, my husband has learned how to handle me over the years, and so he didn’t tell me about any of the critters that he saw that night. He waited until after we were home to tell me about the giant centipede and the large desert spider. I would not have been willing to stay if I had known those creatures had made appearances!
I seem to be lacking in photos for the rest of our time in Cave Creek, but we found a fun little spot to drink some beer called Dynamite Beer Co. and we had a dinner at the Buffalo Chip Saloon. The Buffalo Chip has bull riding competitions that are a fun touristy draw to the area, and they appeared to have a large dance floor for line dancing, although that wasn’t going on when we were there.
Cave Creek is a beautiful area worth exploring for a few days. We would have loved to do some hiking nearby as well, but with our dog being so old that’s not really an option for us at the moment. It’s also a short drive to other areas like Scottsdale or Lake Pleasant. I’d say 2-3 days is about all you’d need there before moving on to one of these other areas, but I guarantee you’ll find something you enjoy during that time!
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