Phoenix With Kids Day 4: Heard Museum and Fry Bread House

This is a much delayed post about my trip to Arizona back in December. To read more about Arizona, see related links at the bottom of this post.

As we arrived at the Heard Museum, the southwest's premiere collection of Native American artifacts, we were surprised to see traffic control, crowds of visitors and even a few police officers stationed outside. "Must be some collection" we remarked! Serendipitously, we had timed our visit to coincide with opening day for Phoenix's new light rail system. The system connects several museums in Downtown Phoenix, and is hoped to help create a more a vibrant downtown culture in the urban and suburban sprawl that characterizes the area.

Mariachi Music outside the Phoenix Heard Museum

Normally I would avoid a crowded opening day event, so I'm glad I had been blissfully unaware of this one. As we entered the Heard Museum complex, we were greeted with light-rail shaped pins (anyone know a toddler who WOULDN'T want one of those?), games for the kids, fresh fry bread, and live Mariachi Music that was about 1000 times better than the standard Mexican Restaurant performance. Later in the day we also found Native American dance performances.

A live demonstration of Native American blanket making absolutely entranced E, and he was willing to sit for what seemed like ages in the cold weather watching as the weaver selected one color yarn after another and wove it through her loom.

When we finally proceeded inside, I was impressed at how engaging the displays were. Ancient artifacts can sometimes be hard to relate to, and the museum did a nice job of interspersing the artifacts with interesting tidbits of information and hands-on activities for kids.

One of the premiere destinations for visitors to Phoenix is the Heard Museum. The museum is reputed to have one of the best collections of Native American crafts in the southwest. I'm not a great judge of whether that is true or not, but it's certainly the most engaging displays we've seen. Though the museum has a large section devoted to kids, there are kid-friendly activities and crafts throughout the museum, making it easy to visit the collection.

Native American Blanket Weaving outside the Heard Museum

When the kids finally tired of looking at the artifacts, we headed over to the Fry Bread House (a short ride away on the light rail). The Native American owned restaurant serves fresh fry bead stuffed with chili, chorizo, or other savory fillings. It's not particularly traditional, but the rich, slowly cooked fillings and warm doughy fry bread made an absolutely delicious lunch. The kids were thrilled with rice-and-bean stuffed fry bread, and ready for a nap after so much activity and food!

With a full day of "cultural" activities under our belt, we spent the rest of the afternoon back at the resort splashing in the pool and enjoying the desert sun.

Filed Under: travel-stories

4 comments | Posted on February 18, 2009 | Save to del.icio.us

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