Welcome to Southwest Discovered!

We are thrilled to announce the launch of our re-branded website, Southwest Discovered!

As many of you know, a few months back we decided to expand and re-design our site to bring you a richer and fuller experience of the Southwestern United States.

A new feature we’re excited to introduce is that we will be writing as a couple, with more adventure junkie stories (skydiving over Moab) and great hikes from Mr.D, along with the food, recipes and lifestyle stories you’ve read and given us wonderful tips about through the years.  Writing together is such a pleasure, and at times we can be very independent with different interests as we travel.  So it’s fun to split up some days and then meet back for dinner at a new spot to regale one another with our hiking and climbing stories, or new art gallery or local farmer’s market discovery.

We also have a new SWD Guest Q&A that will feature artists and business owners throughout the Southwest.  These will begin in a month or so, with a new guest every other week to learn about the Southwest through their passions, tips on favorite destinations, and how they came to call the Southwest their home.

Another new feature is our SWD Map where we pin each new discovery with every new post so you can tour, dine and explore along with us as we travel.  It’s also a terrific visual for making your travel plans.  We’ll be adding new pins of restaurants, hikes, national parks, museums, festivals and authentic places for you very soon.  (view map page here)

 

Over the years we’ve met with shop owners and artisan food purveyors to test out our favorite cooking tools and ingredients and have gathered them together in our SWD online shop.  This little market is growing, with only products and gift assortments we believe in whole-heartedly.  It is meant to make your Southwestern culinary endeavors all the more successful and authentic.  Because we realize that while many of these items are readily available to us, they may not be accessible at your local market.  (Where would we be without our dried chile pods?  Our prickly pear syrups?  Our pinion coffee?  We can’t even imagine!)  and you can view the SWD Shop here.

We’ve also recently put 1700 miles on our car from travels to Southern New Mexico and a large part of Arizona.  We discovered historic grande dame hotels, finally made a pilgrimage to Hatch, NM (chile capital of the world), and stayed in a brightly painted town that is quite possibly the most wonderfully quirky place in all of New Mexico, that just happens to be experiencing an arts and food renaissance with a newly refurbished adobe spa hotel / lodge.

 

 

On to Southern Arizona, are we the last ones to find out that Tucson is a fantastic, artsy, foodie oasis with a rich wild west heritage?  Well, we know now!  As well as being up close and personal with those iconic saguaro cactus that always look so surprised … ‘reach for the sky!’  And then the highlight of any trip to the Southwest … The Grand Canyon.  This was Mr.D’s first glimpse, and his response was … after twenty full minutes of silence …”There has got to be a bigger name than grand, it’s so much more.”  We photographed the colors that change as the sun moves across the sky throughout the day, and at long last had lunch at the El Tovar.  Dining on the rim of the canyon … a bucket list moment.

Only half way through our trip, for the first time in her career as a photographer, Amy had to put a bandaid on her shutter finger.  We were snap happy road warriors in our element as we traveled new roads, saw new sights and landscapes.  And we’ve been madly, delightfully piecing this all together to share with you, and pin our finds to the new map!

 

Rather than filling up your email inbox with posts throughout the week, we’ve designed a Weekly Wrap Up for subscribers with an overview of topics and photo essays that have posted.  This way you can scroll through articles that interest you, and of course you’re welcome to check the site as we post during the week.

We will continue our photo essays, and a fantastic feature about the new format is that the images are four times larger than on our previous site!  We also have video footage coming soon, with moments like butterflies fluttering through cactus fields, storms across the desert, to little gems and details we find all the time in this marvelous, majestic, mystical land we call home.

So please have a look around the new site.  Have fun!  Share with your friends!  Follow us on our Facebook, Instagram (yep, we figured it out!) and Pinterest, too.  Let us know what you like, what you’d love to see more of, and if you see a glitch on our new site we’d like to hear about those, too, so we can make adjustments.

To subscribe to our Weekly Wrap Up email, please see the ‘Don’t Miss A Post’ section on the upper right side of this page.  If you’re already a subscriber, you’re all set.

To everyone who has followed us over the years, we thank you.  To everyone new to our SWD family, we thank you.  Because it is our absolute delight to share all of these discoveries with you and hear your stories, suggestions, and to connect with you about all things Southwest.  We also applaud our website designer and internet consultant who have taken this wonderful, crazy ride with us.  We have a great team.

We are forever grateful for your continued support, and remember … All Of Our Discoveries Are For You!

Buen Provecho and Great Discoveries!

xo Amy and Mr.D