Showing posts with label Arizona. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arizona. Show all posts
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Vacation Coming to an End
Here we are, at the Phoenix airport. Boarding is expected to begin any minute now. So sad to see the vacation dwindling, but so happy that we did everything we set out to do. Will go into the details after we land, sometime around midnight on the East Coast. Newark here we come.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
And Then There Was That Rattlesnake
We didn't see one - we ate one. After a day 
of taking in the views of the Grand Canyon --perhaps the most spectacular sight I've ever seen -- we headed out of the park, looking for some grub. And nothing says grub like Yippee-Ei-O! Steakhouse, 
where our waitress sported a beer belly and every entree came with a bowl of beans. Without hesitation, Dave decided we needed to try the fried rattlesnake appetizer. And without hesitation, we ate it. It was good. It tasted like a chewy calamari.
We are now on our way to Vista, Calif., just north of San Diego, to see Dave's Aunt Liz and Uncle Richard.
of taking in the views of the Grand Canyon --perhaps the most spectacular sight I've ever seen -- we headed out of the park, looking for some grub. And nothing says grub like Yippee-Ei-O! Steakhouse, 
where our waitress sported a beer belly and every entree came with a bowl of beans. Without hesitation, Dave decided we needed to try the fried rattlesnake appetizer. And without hesitation, we ate it. It was good. It tasted like a chewy calamari.We are now on our way to Vista, Calif., just north of San Diego, to see Dave's Aunt Liz and Uncle Richard.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Wrong Camera
On the hunt for big adventure, we made no mistake in steering our rental vehicle north to the Grand Canyon, a four-hour drive that ended with our overwhelming awe at the sight that suddenly appeared out the passenger-side window.
A hasty parking job and a short walk to the rim, and there it was, so immense, so impossible to put in proper perspective. The best way to describe it is — and those who know me know that I don't drop Steven Spielberg references lightly — to recall that scene from "Jaws" when Roy Scheider catches his first glimpse of the great shark, which is much more than the harmless guppy they thought it would be. The giant shark slinks back into the sea, and Scheider turns to his unsuspecting fellow crew members and says, "I think we're gonna need a bigger boat." (I'd argue, the best moment in any of Spielberg's otherwise overrated movies.)
Well ... so we're looking at the Grand Canyon, and the epiphany comes: I think we're gonna need a bigger camera.
This pocket-sized point-and-shoot Canon, while a trusty piece of equipment, seemed horribly feeble to the task of capturing the majestic, panoramic landscape before us. Nevertheless, I snapped my photos and we wandered the South Rim and we enjoyed ourselves. Maybe some of those photos turned out adequately. Meanwhile, I'm plotting my return. Someday to slay the beast, with an air tank and a well aimed bullet ... or a Nikon D40 with high-powered zoom lens and polarizing filter.
Can't help but dream big.
A hasty parking job and a short walk to the rim, and there it was, so immense, so impossible to put in proper perspective. The best way to describe it is — and those who know me know that I don't drop Steven Spielberg references lightly — to recall that scene from "Jaws" when Roy Scheider catches his first glimpse of the great shark, which is much more than the harmless guppy they thought it would be. The giant shark slinks back into the sea, and Scheider turns to his unsuspecting fellow crew members and says, "I think we're gonna need a bigger boat." (I'd argue, the best moment in any of Spielberg's otherwise overrated movies.)
Well ... so we're looking at the Grand Canyon, and the epiphany comes: I think we're gonna need a bigger camera.
This pocket-sized point-and-shoot Canon, while a trusty piece of equipment, seemed horribly feeble to the task of capturing the majestic, panoramic landscape before us. Nevertheless, I snapped my photos and we wandered the South Rim and we enjoyed ourselves. Maybe some of those photos turned out adequately. Meanwhile, I'm plotting my return. Someday to slay the beast, with an air tank and a well aimed bullet ... or a Nikon D40 with high-powered zoom lens and polarizing filter.
Can't help but dream big.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Retirement Heaven/Hell
Sun City, Ariz., is the most unreal place on the planet. The city basically was single-handedly designed, created and built a few decades ago by a developer named Del Webb, who wrought on the Phoenix suburban landscape thousands of nearly identical condos, apartments and homes laid out in tidy rows with interiors custom designed for the 55 and older crowd, which is 80 percent of the people who live here.
We almost got lost coming in because everything looks the same. The president of the homeowners asso
ciation let us in. He and his wife have been together since 1948, when they met in high school, and they've lived here nearly from the start, more than 30 years. This condo is owned by Liz's uncle through an inheritance arrangement that isn't worth going into here.
Uncle Jimmy has our eternal gratitude for letting us crash here a couple nights while we breathe in the dry, 107-degree Arizona air. The place is sparsely decorated but cozy enough. I'm sitting on a relaxing couch. Going easy on my rear end after our marathon plane ride, which almost didn't happen because of one of the airlines' pesky overbooking fiascoes.
But that's all behind us now, and the vacation lifestyle won't be hard to get used to. They even upgraded us to a Hyundai Santa Fe at the rental dealership — much larger than we need and much less efficient, but what the heck. The Southwest can turn us into gas-guzzlers for a week,
Well, gotta go. I think Liz has found a roadrunner and her chicks in the courtyard. Seriously. (So cool.)
Afternoon update: Upon further review, seems those birds aren't roadrunners, but rather Gambel's quail. Boy, were we fooled. But we haven't given up on the hunt for a real roadrunner. Beep-beep!
We almost got lost coming in because everything looks the same. The president of the homeowners asso
ciation let us in. He and his wife have been together since 1948, when they met in high school, and they've lived here nearly from the start, more than 30 years. This condo is owned by Liz's uncle through an inheritance arrangement that isn't worth going into here.Uncle Jimmy has our eternal gratitude for letting us crash here a couple nights while we breathe in the dry, 107-degree Arizona air. The place is sparsely decorated but cozy enough. I'm sitting on a relaxing couch. Going easy on my rear end after our marathon plane ride, which almost didn't happen because of one of the airlines' pesky overbooking fiascoes.
But that's all behind us now, and the vacation lifestyle won't be hard to get used to. They even upgraded us to a Hyundai Santa Fe at the rental dealership — much larger than we need and much less efficient, but what the heck. The Southwest can turn us into gas-guzzlers for a week,
Well, gotta go. I think Liz has found a roadrunner and her chicks in the courtyard. Seriously. (So cool.)
Afternoon update: Upon further review, seems those birds aren't roadrunners, but rather Gambel's quail. Boy, were we fooled. But we haven't given up on the hunt for a real roadrunner. Beep-beep!
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