Arizona Road Trip!

I have not posted in a long time. A long time indeed. So I thought I'd share a little about my road trip to Arizona last week. Probably won't write about the whole trip, but at least it'll break the dry spell.

Day One
Victor, John Mark, and I set out for Prescott, AZ at 6:30 AM. I bought a pair of Converse shoes last month, years after the trend was at its peak, having taken that long for me to work up the self-confidence to tap into the "cool skater" look. Now, I realize that Converse shoes make my toes amazingly cold. Even so, I'm not getting cold feet: this trip is going to be awesome.

After John Mark, a veritable encyclopedia, names an interesting fact about almost every town we pass, we cross the border into New Mexico. All the buildings are tan adobe on a tan, dirty landscape, hiding in plain sight like soldiers in camo gear. It's kind of ridiculous, actually. New Mexico says "we love tan" like Chic Fil A workers say "my pleasure."

For lunch, we stop in Albuquerque, the Weird Al song soundtracking in my mind until we leave ("Where the sun is always shining and the air smells like warm root beer"). We pull into a parking lot for Subway, but then see an adjacent Mexican grocery store and decide to check it out. As we're walking in, a Texan woman, as evidenced by her big hair and big accent, pulls up in her car and addresses us: "Is this a Mexycan resturaun?"

"We don't know, we're just checking it out."

"Well is it a resturaun?"

"We've never been here. We're on a roadtrip."

She pauses half a beat, comes to a decision, and says, "Well, I'll just wait here and see if you come out."

Sure enough, she follows us in three minutes later. I hear her at the counter asking for "More cheese. More CHEESE. MORE CHEEEESE!"

Albuquerque. ("where anyone on the street will gladly shave your back for a nickel.")

All the workers at the Mexican grocery store speak spanish (go figure). Victor foretells, "They're going to speak to me in spanish." They do. Also, Victor arrives at the counter and pays sixty cents for a drink. Turning to me, he whispers, "Sixty cents! Back in America this would be at least..." and then catches himself. This isn't another country, Victor. Just Albuquerque. ("Where the shriners and the lepers play their ukuleles all day long.")

We cross into Arizona, and somehow the chiles rellenos burrito I ate for lunch doesn't give me any problems. In fact, the entire trip is easy. Sunny skies. Good company. No traffic or construction.

We left Colorado as the sun was rising, and we arrive in Prescott as it's setting. There is spaghetti, a game of Catan, and kids running everywhere. And then bed.

Day Two

An interesting disaster happened that night, namely, that Victor found a very comfortable sheet in the middle of the night and wrapped himself in it. Unfortunately, it was not a sheet. It was a window curtain. During the rest of the trip, I catch our hosts checking on other household items, making sure Victor hasn't put them to some ungodly use. "That's not a napkin, it's our cat." Or, "Can you please use a Q-tip for your ears, instead of our homegrown carrots?"

Shiloh kindly makes us a quiche, which is like Heaven in a crock pot, only filled with cheese and meat instead of God and the saints.

That morning we get the tour of Prescott, which as it turns out, is pronounced by locals to rhyme with "Biscuit." Who knew? Prescott is an amalgamation of old hippies, young students, and outdoorsy folk. Everything is a something/bar. Icecream/beer. Hair salon/saloon. It's weird.

We eat lunch at In-N-Out, which (for me) does not measure up to the hype. Good shakes, though.

And then the afternoon. Oh Lord, the afternoon! After removing the canoe from the backyard, where it is covered with scraps of lumber and dusty from disuse, we set out for a lake ten minutes from their house. This lake is the best of all lakes, at least to a Coloradoan who sees the dog's water dish and calls it a pond. The water is calm, and towers of rock jut up from it. This makes it a perfect place for adventure, as you can maneuver between islands or park your boat and go hiking (Park? That can't be right. Moor? Hitch?).

The afternoon is perfect.

On the way back home, we are in such good spirits that we flirt with a pair of girls who pulls up next to us at a stop light. When the light changes, I keep accelerating or decelerating as necessary to keep in line with their car, making the three of us feel awkward and also a little charming. After a few minutes of this, we are dancing wildly, and so are the girls, they in their jeep and us in our.... uh, minivan. Yes, we're in Shiloh's minivan. But we have a boat strapped to the top, so that has to count for something.

That night we eat chicken teriyaki with rice, which is delicious. (You can tell I'm related to my mom, who will forget entire days of a vacation while remembering every single meal. Also, you can tell I'm fasting today.)

During dinner, the youngest daughter becomes obsessed with finding out how many days remain till her birthday. After shutting herself in a room for fifteen minutes to concentrate on her calculations, she emerges triumphantly with an announcement: "Forty-six hundred days!"

The guys try to teach me Halo, which I have somehow avoided my entire life. I do wonderfully. I'm sorry, did I say wonderfully? I meant to say disastrously. I get killed dozens of times and never shoot a single person. It is enormous fun, actually.

Later, we watch a few episodes of Portlandia and eat icecream. (Is icecream a liquid or solid? I'm only fasting solid food today...)

Before we go to bed, Victor says to me, "Today was a good day."