Chandler, Ariz., is my new favorite town. That’s partly because of its interesting neighbors but mostly how it blends art and science, fabulous food with games suitable to play at the table, big night skies and incredible weather.

Plenty of fun ways I also played next door in Mesa, Gilbert, Tempe and Apache Junction on a four-day holiday just outside Phoenix, but I kept circling back to Chandler.

Now I want to return, specifically Feb. 14 – 16, 2013 for the second annual Science Spectacular. That’s President’s Day weekend, helping a holiday extend to Monday.

I caught a tiny part of the first annual Science Spectacular, enough to assure me it’s reason to plan a winter holiday in a place I never before considered. Taking the kids would work too.

Innovation and invention reign supreme in this desert city of 238,000 people. Wonder if anybody knows how many patents have been issued for brand-new ideas in Chandler?

Big clever-thinking companies hire here, and bring scientists from all over the country and the world for long extended stays, and special projects.

Their presence seems to influence abundant, affordable leisure pleasures for everyone.

What was my first clue since I knew more about Phoenix than Chandler when I packed my suitcase?

Breakfast in my Hampton Inn and Suites. Steamed rice, seaweed in delicate sheets, three shakers of fishy, spicy powders whose labels I could not read, pickled something—maybe peppers.

Of course plenty of USA eggs, muffins, oatmeal, waffles, fruits and coffee too but that Japanese food told me people outside my routine circle come here.

Science and engineering firms of significant size dream and design in Chandler: Intel with 10,300 employees and a $5 billion, one million square foot expansion under way.

Putting that together, I heard but did not see, is the largest land-based mobile crane in the world. Took more than 100 40-foot containers to ship it from Belgium.

 Microchip Technology is here with 1,540 designers and staff, Freescale Semiconductor with 1,450 scientists and engineers, Orbital Sciences with 1,425.

High-tech thinking and abundant philanthropy, Kimberly Janes told me one morning as we rode to the desert to be among the Saguaro cacti. That’s another story another day.

“Wide range of style and talent here, with festivals, performance, public art,” she said, “because people want to experience abundant culture, and they want to support it.”

    Good news for everybody visiting and living here because of that, it seems to tourist me.

 “Ninety percent of our events are free,” said Janes, and she should know since she works with economic development and tourism for the city.

So I could return for the Ostrich Festival in March, multicultural events in January or jazz in the spring, but I want the three days of science with art.

That’s when to get inside the innovative places. Just like fascinating Oak Ridge, Tenn., much is closed most of the time since research is often secret.

Science insider weekend in Chandler also emphasizes art. Art walks, gallery crawls, downtown open houses also happen other places.

This one is art and science, hand in hand. Sure painters and jewelers and potters were hoping to sell their creations.

They also clearly cared how they created what they did, and loved telling. Chandler artists on my stroll through downtown really wanted to tell the science behind their visions.

Gangplank is the innovation center here; guess as a visitor that means somebody goes to the edge with grand ideas.

Legos, video games, laser cutting, 3-D printing, robotics, circuit board designs: I saw lots beyond my normal on a Friday evening art walk in Chandler.

Also jumped up and down more than usual; apparently science and art communities are also silly.

Chandler has an indoor trampoline park. The weather’s so nice, I wish it had been outside.

Jumpstreet is the name and even though I was happy to have 12-year old grandson Will Rowland with me, this place works fine for grownups too.

I saw plenty of adults doing flips into a pool of soft foam blocks, playing dodge ball on a big rectangle trampoline, raising heartbeats bouncing on side-by-side long trampoline runways that actually run up the wall.

Colorado, Texas and another Arizona town have indoor parks to bounce off the walls but this was my first jumpstreet.

I declined riding the bucking bull, and I didn’t see anybody stay on more than a minute. Remarkable the crowds that gather to watch people fall off.

Crowds gathered also at the sleek, stylish restaurant called bld, which stands for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Considering the flavors in my Benedictine Florentine: eggs, spinach, portabella mushroom, Hollandaise sauce, and the bite I snitched from my colleague’s Gobbler: turkey, egg whites, avocado, spinach, Swiss cheese and tomato, I’d highly recommend bld.

This is where I played at the table, something not sanctioned in my dining room at home.

Guess I’d change my own rule if I set the table with Wikki Stix. Beats coloring placemats and peg-jumping triangle blocks any day.

These toys are knitting yarn coated with food-grade micro crystalline non-toxic wax. No gluten, no latex, no nut oils.

Chandler is a scientific community, right? Seems this coating substance is found in bubble gum and lipstick too.

It strengthens yarn to bend and unbend, shape and reshape. My sixth-grade traveling buddy this trip remembers everything he ever learned and he built a creature with his Wikki Stix that he said is called an amblypygida.

I had to check the spelling with my entomologist daughter-in-law but Will knew his creation in real life has 360-degree sensors, small hairs on its feet to smell its enemies.

All that, playing at the table with a grandchild before breakfast. Chandler triggers family conversation.  

Return trip I intend to try bld’s sister restaurant called Cork, rated four star. Fine dining and fun dining matter on vacations.

Paletas Betty is a fun one with fine flavors — casual, a few inside tables but primarily walk-around food.

Betty Alatorre de Hong creates the kind of fresh fruit cream pops she knew as a child in the Mexican state of Michiachon.

Small batches, hand crafted. No preservatives or coloring. Whole fresh spices she grinds herself.

Cheese I adored in Chandler is another matter; for this, aging matters. Mizithra is its name, sheep’s milk cheese from Greece, and the Dariotis family that owns the 42 Old Spaghetti Factory restaurants is the biggest importer of this cheese in America.

I ate my Mizithra on pasta, tossed with garlic, mushrooms, bacon and browned butter. Played with crayons too, even though they were meant for the children at my table.

Triangle-shaped, easy to grip and tempting to stack like the Lincoln Logs of my childhood.

Sunny Arizona desert stories to come: jeep tours, hikes, horses and abandoned mines in Apache Junction, plus a vegetable gardening live-in community in Gilbert, museums in Mesa and University energies in Tempe.

Quite a region — four hours from the Grand Canyon and a simple drive from Phoenix.