Paradise Bakery and White Tank Mountain Regional Park

For those familiar with the Panera Bread Co. Paradise Bakery is like Panera on steroids. Same sort of menu and the food is as good or better than Panera but with one added bonus; a chocolate chip cookie with each sandwich. Our favorite sandwich there has to be the turkey cranberry; sliced turkey and cheese with a glob of whole cranberry sauce. Our favorite soup is the tomato basil. Paradise Bakery is mostly out west but there are locations in Indiana, Kansas and Texas. We highly recommend Paradise Bakery so if you get the chance do not hesitate to eat there.

We then went to the White Tank Mountain Regional Park which has a size of 30,000 acres and offers approximately 25 miles of shared-use trails. Most of the park is made up of the rugged and beautiful White Tank Mountains on the Valleys west side. The range, deeply serrated with ridges and canyons, rises sharply from its base to peak at over 4,000 feet. Infrequent heavy rains cause flash floodwaters to plunge through the canyons and pour onto the plain. These torrential flows, pouring down chutes and dropping off ledges, have scoured out a series of depressions, or tanks, in the white granite rock below, thus giving the mountains their name.

We visited the Nature Center and walked the Waterfall Trail which is about 1 mile one way. There was some water from a recent rain but not enough for a waterfall which would have been here. There was another trail where some of the plants were identified. This park is so close we may go there again.

Photos have been added to our set for our current location, Goodyear AZ:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobandjotravel/sets/72157625645802714/

All of our travel photos are at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobandjotravel/sets/

Till next time,

Bob and Jo