| Waking in a strange town is always the same, you don't need the alarm
clock, and you wake 2 hours before you'd planned to.. the morning TV in
America makes up for all that.. 27 ways to purchase a thigh reducer,
15 types of motor oil that will start your engine even if it is encased
in ice with all its bearings removed and a polish that can restore bark
from the cretaceous period to the shiney mahogany you always knew it should
be... on the remaining 3 channels there is news.. but to lighten the mood
they allow "the public" to stand behind "the anchor" waving signs for Auntie
Mimi in Akron who is getting well soon...
Hello Phoenix. Today is day one proper of my spontaneous holiday in Arizona, the cheapest place I could fly to with one days notice that actually has sunshine.. 68 degrees they promised today. |
Day one: view from motel window |
Picacho Peak in all it`s fibre glass glory |
I checked out of my motel & drove the rental boat ('99 Dodge Intrepid..)
into Phoenix proper looking for an IHOP, naturally I failed, bit I did
stumble into the largest electronics retailer I've ever seen.. why don't
they have shops like this in the UK? well, we do but they don't have the
size or the attention to detail on display here, our shops are content
to sell the latest "X" the American shop sells the latest "X" all of its
accessories, competing brands cheap "X" knock offs and an isle full of
"X" accessories.. I love it. consumer heaven. So having resisted the tiny
megapixel digital camera (a snip at 499 (or 320 uk equiv)) I drove to the
airport where I was meetimg my friend Rebecca.
It seems there is inclement weather afoot in America so Rebecca's flight was delayed by 30 mins, not so bad, I used the time to enjoy a TCBY smoothy (sans "food supplement" ..."food supplement????") whilst writing some over due email in the arrivals lounge. Upon Rebecca's arrival we loaded the car and set off for Tucson. Not having seen Rebecca for 3+ years we had some catching up to do, online gossip became real gossip, rumour became fact, the sky stayed blue throughout.. splendid.. our first stop was at "Picacho Peak" where I was introduced to a large fibre glass ambasador from the race formally known as indigenous.. I was informed that the 8 foot tall cowboy boot nearby is a new addition to this reststop, I took photographs and was allowed to put a pin into the giftshop owners map of the world which displays the home town of visiting tourists, ..coolest pin? I'd say the one from Nepal. |
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From Picacho we drove on to the Pima Air Museum which unfortunately was closing up just as we arrived.. so, without hesitation we continued onto Benson home of "The Thing" I can't tell you what "The Thing" is as once you've seen it you are sworn to secrecy, suffice to say that it was worth every one of the 75c I paid to get in... "The Thing" itself is surrounded by many "old" and "rare" items I know they were "old" & "rare" because several of the signs read:"old" or "rare" one sign even said "made in 1654" which was way too informative for this tourist scum. It was now getting dark.. the rocks of "Texas Canyon" looked beautiful in the twilight of dusk, the sky was a shade of purple and the rocks took on the hue of a martian landscape as seen in the sci-fi films of the 50's.. I used to think those films looked like that because the studio lighting wasn't capable of reproducing convincing martian sunshine.. I now think the lighting directors were all giddy on "The Thing" and real life.. Onto Tucson, we are staying at Rebeccas regular motel, the "Lazy 8", having procured a room we went in search of food & entertainment. food was partaken of at a splendid high tech eatery decorated in full western stylee.. "The Bar-Be-Que Ranch" was complete in every detail, down to the spitoon, full length picture of John Wayne, saddles aplenty, Obi Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker a couple of Wookies and Darth Vaders head... ok, in times past this may have been a 100% proof western barbeque, but the current owner sems to have cash in plans for the summer movie hit of 99... Tucson has an "arthouse" cinema the size of a central London first run movie house, we were amazed that on a saturday night only 12 people would show up to fill perhaps 2% of the available seating.. lets say that maybe the quality of the filum on offer, "Gods & Monsters" may have had something to do with this.. on the way back to the hotel we politely critiqued said offering, suffice to say our best of lists (circa 99) won't be troubled..... To bed.. tomorrow we rise early & head towards Mexico... -Yours in a strange land,
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I`m not telling...... |