The Drive Thru The Desert

So there I was in California on business for the last time in 2010 that also included a weeklong visit to Phoenix, Arizona. This after having already been on the golden coast for a week and all within days of the Christmas holidays. I prayed to every god known to man that this trip would end quickly because I was due on the East Coast for the family festivities!

The issue with this trip was how to get between our offices in Los Angeles and the ones in Phoenix. Where most of you are automatically saying "fly, silly!" I chose to drive the 400 miles instead. My rationale seemed fairly straightforward at the time, starting with the rental car. I typically use Hertz and saw that the one-way rental between my pick-up in California and the drop-off in Arizona was not that much more than renting a car for a week at each location. The other consideration was in saving the airfare for myself and the co-worker I was traveling with even after filling the topping off the tank before leaving and filling it once again after we'd arrived.

Further, having previously written about the backwardness of checking in two hours ahead of a one hour flight I figured I'd be at the outskirts of Phoenix at roughly the same time any scheduled flight would have arrived from Los Angeles. Here's how I saw the flying option playing out:

a. Leave for the airport at 12 Noon for a 3PM flight out of either LAX or Burbank to Phoenix from our offices in the Valley. ALWAYS plan an hour to get to LAX from anywhere in LA, minimum.

We left the offices at exactly 12 Noon to begin our drive down The 215 towards Pasadena.

b. Arrive at the car rental agency at 1PM, turn in the car and take the shuttle to the terminal.

c. Arrive at the check-in counter at 1:30PM and check-in, including one large suitcase for two weeks worth of clothing. My computer case and camera bag are my two carry-ons.

We'd driven 80 miles to merge with The 10 for the haul through the desert to Phoenix.

d. After making it through security there is roughly an hour before the flight with boarding to begin 30 minutes prior to departure. In this day and age of carry-on space, there is a reason to be there as early as possible. Oh, and though I'm a premium customer on American, they don't fly the route. It would have been either Southwest or USAirways, neither of whom hardly know I exist.

e. IF the departure is on time at 3PM, we arrive in Phoenix at about 5PM after the time change, maybe 5:15 after some generous schedule padding by the airlines.

Roaring down the road past Indio and Blythe we crossed in to Arizona along the lines of 6ish.

f. Collecting luggage again takes until at least 5:30 or 5:45 after the flight has landed followed by the shuttle bus to the car rental counter just outside the west end of the runways.

g. The car is picked up and the hotel maybe 20 minutes away in Tempe, even in the thick of Phoenix afternoon rush hour. If we had flown we'd be checked in at the hotel by 6:30 at the latest.

As it happened we pulled in to the Arizona capital about an hour after that and went straight to dinner. Relaxed, comfortable from the smooth ride and the generous front seats of our Toyota Camry as compared to the convenience of an hour and fifteen minutes in coach.

No bags to check and possibly lose, no long lines at security to deal with and possibly be strip-searched in to the bargain, no cramped seats, lack of carry-on space, delayed flights or overworked and possibly surly crews. We got there when we got there with all of our stuff in the trunk where we put it.

I'd do it again in a minute, even to Tucson!

Gotta go.

Pipes and Snakes

I've never been one when privileged to travel on business simply to confine myself to the hotel, the office and a conference room. While absolutely aware that the company pays the freight for me to be out of town and expects a solid return on its investment I've also felt that as part of the compensation it is not unreasonable to stop and smell a few roses while in new or at least different surroundings. As long as I'm not adding to the company bill I don't mind taking time on my own to explore local attractions and experience why others call the area home where perhaps I never would.

Having flown in to Tucson to save what would add up to almost half off the air fare I took Sunday as the day to make my way north to Phoenix where I would be for the rest of the coming week. The early morning wake-up call saw me heading west along Highway #86 towards the Sonora Desert Museum for the first few hours of the day. I was a teenager the last time I was here but remembered that day well for its extremely large but thankfully caged examples of the Arizona state pet, the Western Diamondback rattlesnake. I was wondering if that same monster was still there.

That one wasn't but the highlight of the day for myself and other tourists was most decidedly of the unplanned variety. Two male rattlers came across each other and decided to engage in a round of "Thumbs," trying to pin each other to the ground in a show of dominance for any females that might also be nearby. The unplanned part was that I was less than five feet from these wild snakes that were loose in the park! The nonplused park ranger said there were about 70 or so slithering around keeping them busy trapping one or two a day. These two were both a good four feet in length and the loser, mad enough at losing the fight was not at all happy at being disturbed by the rangers pincers.

Two hours drive west of town and in the deep Sonoran Desert is Organ Pipe National Monument. I debated even going because of the drive to get there, time at the park and then the two and a half hour drive north to Phoenix at the end of the day. I might never be in this part of the country again so it was a question of going or not bothering. I'm glad I bothered.

The scenery wasn't quite Rand McNally in terms of rugged desert with mesas and peaks surrounding a ruler-straight stretch of asphalt but near enough to a scene like that. Highway #86 ran straight as an arrow for a nearly hypnotic length before flowing with the land to Highway #85 south to the park. I was the only visitor this crisp October day at three-thirty in the afternoon. The rangers suggested the 21-mile drive on unpaved road to see the Arch Canyon which is typically a two-hour drive through the signature pipe organ cacti along with various odds and ends of local flora and fauna.

I didn't see any more rattlers though I surely felt surrounded by them at any given moment I was away from the car. I might not have noticed if one had crawled across my shoe, I was so taken with the surrounding wilderness. This is the Arizona of travel brochures, glossy tourism magazines and films featuring the Duke and Randolph Scott. This is the America that never makes the evening news around the world. This is the kind of land ignored at highway speed and dreamed about once you get home.

And it was surely worth the time to have an entire national park to myself if only for a couple of hours.

Gotta go.

Mission Arizona

By the time the plane landed and I'd collected my luggage and the rental car I had maybe a solid afternoon of dashing about the desert around Greater Tucson to see what there was to see after a 32 year absence from this part of the country. Tombstone and Old Tucson were out as being too kitschy for me at the no longer young age of 40-never mind. I wanted the real Arizona, the living, breathing, historic southern state late of Mexico by way of the Gadsden Purchase and more than a few indigenous cultures. I wanted the Arizona of the Spanish Missions, saguaro cactus reaching nearly three full stories in to the sky and the red rocks of the sun, the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote. Hey, I ain't that old!

A quick bite at In - N - Out Burger by the side of the highway to buy some time to make sure the two dozen travel brochures I'd picked through would yield the right combination of things to do and I was off, roaring down Interstate I-19 towards a previously unknown bit of history - the best kind - called Tumacacori. In this national park lie the ruins of three Spanish missions, the oldest of which dates from 1691. The one pictured here is the only one really worth seeing as it is the only one still standing and largely intact. The grounds evoke an era of no roads, hard scrabble living and unyielding frontier heat as the Jesuits fought wind, weather and warrior to convert the locals. It was a perfect blue sky early afternoon to start the whirlwind tour and a great way to see a nearly forgotten attraction by the side of the highway.

Motoring back north towards Tucson and the next stop on the list of things to do I was trying to decide what to do. Should I should rush through this next one just as quickly so as to try and get in a third before the sun went down and my time-warped body clock started over-drafting energy I knew I wouldn't have later? I had my answer as I pulled in to the parking area for the Mission of San Xavier del Bac, hardly ten miles south of Tucson. It still serves the Tohono O'odham people on whose land it has sat since 1699. The aesthetic claim to fame here is the elaborate, almost overwrought decor of the interior which has led some to describe it as the Sistine Chapel of North America.

I wasn't ready to go that far, for one reason being the setting, while beautiful, was still in the middle of a desert instead of anything even close to the Eternal City. The gold, myrrh and incense of the inside serves the standard purpose of awe and intimidation but the size of the building also detracts from such a lofty claim to greatness. Just the same it was and is a beautiful example of mission architecture and survives where few had before or since. After about an hour I knew what I had left to do.

The Pima Air Museum in South Tucson adjacent to Davis Monthan Air Force Base is a permanent homage to gallant, glorious and ghostly aircraft from days gone by. The airbase itself is the final resting place of over 4,000 military aircraft going back to at least the Korean War but the main attraction is Pima. Here I saw everything from the little "James Bond" spy plane seen in "Octopussy" to marauders like F-14s, F-4 Phantoms, B-52s, one of the 707 NASA "Vomit Comets" and an impossibly enormous beast called the B-36 "Peacemaker."

A splendid example of an old "Air Force One" Boeing 707 used by LBJ was also on hand but the crown jewel for me was the Lockheed Constellation, the inimitable "Connie" in full TWA colors. I'd never seen one up close.

Three stops in roughly seven hours, including driving and I'd seen certainly more than I had expected, all of it new and beautiful, especially Pima. One wonders if a 747 will one day make it over from the nearby commercial aircraft boneyard at Marana.

Gotta go.

Tucson Savings

My offices were in Phoenix but the airlines were demanding some fairly ridiculous air fares to get between Dallas and the capital of Arizona. Someone in their pricing departments still seem to think that they can try for and get over $1100 for a roundtrip ticket on a flight segment of less than 1,000 miles. Not from me, certainly. Yes, my employer is footing the bill but gone also are the days of taking whatever ticket the corporate travel planner came up with. We each are responsible for planning our own itineraries and with that comes the expectation to be as frugal as possible with the company’s money.

I booked a ticket to Tucson. I was going to be in Arizona for a week so the hotel and car rates weren’t going to change because I chose an alternate way there and back. Yea, I’d pick up at least one extra tank of gas but that would be small potatoes compared to the almost 50% savings I got in the airfare. Moreover, since I’m fairly junior in the ranks of management I know better than to think it is imperative at any cost that I arrive nonstop at my destination. The explorer in me has no problem at all tooling around places I haven’t been before or at least in a good long while and seeing what there is to see so long as I’m on time for work come Monday morning.

The one previous trip to Tucson was over 30 year prior during the Summer of my junior year in high school. One of my 9th grade classmates had moved with his family to Sierra Vista, about an hour and a half south and close to the Mexican border. I was visiting for my 16th birthday from my parents and looked forward to my first visit to the State of Arizona. We toured Old Tucson, the Hollywood film set west of town where exterior shots were filmed for any number of movies as well as the popular television western “Gunsmoke.” We toured Tombstone, site of the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral and also the Desert Museum zoological park.

As a teenager I liked Old Tucson but didn’t see much point in returning as an adult by myself. I was disappointed with Tombstone all those years ago as it was highly commercialized even then and nowhere near to what I would have expected a desert ghost town to be. I knew better than to expect anything else this time around. There were some recently discovered cave complexes east of town but caving was never really a strong interest of mine, especially given the prices they were charging for admission so all of this left me standing at the often ignored tourist kiosk thumbing through high gloss brochures for all manner of ways to spend my time and money in the Greater Tucson area.

I had a day and a half before I needed to be in Phoenix and the entire Sonora Desert to figure out what to see to capture the essence of post card Arizona.

Gotta go.

The Knock Kneed Lobster

Incongruity or things that don't always make sense right away come up rather frequently when you're traveling around for business or pleasure. In today's vernacular what I'm essentially saying is "Who'da thunk it?" In this case the two things that don't automatically come together in the mind's eye is Phoenix, Arizona's love for very English fish and chips.

One after the other, some one-off Mom & Pop "chippies" by the side of the road, others with a chain of outlets across the valley, one is never far from one of these greasy delights from across the pond. Having lived and traveled in Europe I've been accustomed to the joys of a golden fried filet paired up with thick, starchy planks of deep fried wedges since I was a child. I remember living in Atlanta and putting in regular calls to Arthur Treacher's for what remains some of the tastiest fish and chips on this side of the Atlantic.

I've been to Long John Silver's and Captain D's on many an occasion and have the gut to show for it but I simply didn't expect to see the number of local varieties that serve Greater Phoenix. Understand also that these are all restaurants dedicated to the art of fish and chips. Other food offerings are on the menu but these are not wanna-be pubs or airport taverns that ALSO serve fish and chips. These establishments and their customers LIVE for fish and chips - in the middle of the Arizona desert.

An uncle encouraged me to visit a favorite haunt of his since the days of his own childhood in Central Phoenix not too far from the airport. Every return trip he makes to visit family includes a stop at the Knock Kneed Lobster at 32nd and Washington for a taste of bygone days and a bit of fish. Who could resist such an endorsement as I made sure to include the place on my list of per diem options for dinner one evening.

To look at the place is to pass right by if you even notice it at all. A low white building sits at the northeast corner of the intersection looking for all the world like someplace only locals would know or care about. No immaculate landscaping, attractive architecture or over-the-top neon screaming to passers-by, it is a typical one-off shop that quietly goes about its business of serving large portions of golden fish and shoe-string potatoes, bottles of vinegar and sauce dispensers at the ready.

The menu was overloaded with other choices but if this is a one and only visit I go with the claim to fame signature dish for my evening of calories, carbohydrates and cholesterol. The verdict? Not bad. I honestly have a (ruined to some) taste for Long John Silver's over the meal I ate at "KKL" but I allowed that if it is something you grew up with there must certainly be nothing else like it. The filets were large but it seemed as if they were pounded rather thin and slightly crunchier than I prefer. They definitely were not in the same size category as those served in England which seem to be the whole fish instead of just one filet of cod. The meal was passable but no real great shakes.

Would I go back? Well, let's just say that I'd probably want to try Ed's, Pete's, Brad's, Mandy's, Lazy Lou's or The Codfather first, if only to have something to compare them with.

Gotta go!

Greek in Phoenix

Ah, Phoenix in the Summertime. I told Boss Lady emphatically that I wasn't gunning for a trip to Phoenix for the sake of air miles. It was July - the locals don't want to be in town at that time of the year so why would I want to go there on purpose? Duty called, however, so off to the desert I went where I found to my surprise that the stated temperature of 108 wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. What turned out to be sadly worse than expected unfortunately was the meal I experienced in neighboring Tempe.

The collegiate among you will know that Tempe is the home of Arizona State University, the Sundevils where all along Mill Avenue, "The Strip" running north/south along the western edge of the campus are bookstores, incense and candle shops, clothing stores and restaurants from greasy spoons to major chains. Co-workers one evening suggested "My Big Fat Greek Restaurant" in the heart of the strip and I figured it would be an interesting evening, Mediterranean food in the middle of the desert.

Two of us arrived well before the third so it was conversation in the well appointed patio area where it was sufficiently cool not to require the ubiquitous misters. These nifty devices that Dallas needs more of spray cooling mist on the patrons to encourage al fresco dining or help in the transition from the swelter of outside to the air-conditioned comfort of hotels and restaurants. We were seated quickly and the waiter was on his game throughout the evening.

There was no Greek band or music playing which actually was quite fine with me. I enjoy "atmosphere" but like Louisiana zydeco, unless it is in my blood it gets old pretty fast.
I started with a bowl of "avgolemono," or Greek chicken soup which was crisp and flavorful while my companion needed to eat early and run (although she ended up staying) and ordered the gyros. Maybe I'm spoiled but I generally refuse to eat gyros in the United States as it consists of "pressed" meat combining lamb and either beef or chicken. In Europe the meat slowly revolving on the vertical spit roaster is clearly carved from something that had hooves and is far more flavorful despite being a tougher chew. Our third companion finally arrived who also ordered gyros while I went with the 20 ounce bone in lamb shank.

What a disappointment. What meat there was to be had was rich, flavorful and fork tender. The majority of the cut in front of me, however, was bone and fat. I enjoy bone-in steaks and am the kind of diner who will strip the bone completely before cutting and tucking in to the meat itself; that way I don't have to wrestle with it all through the meal. By the time I finished de-boning the lamb in front of me I was amazed at how much of it was inedible. Further and final disappointment came when asking the waiter if the 20 ounces was the entire dish or the net weight of the meat itself. It was the whole thing.

Well, it was good for my prodigious waistline at least, and I might dine there again but most definitely on something other than this "new" house specialty!

Gotta go.