Day 24: By the time I get to Phoenix

I awoke late, eager to get the hell out of Flagstaff. I made cof­fee, took a shower, and hit the road, stop­ping only for gas on the way out of town. It was a mere two hours and change to Scottsdale, the swanky Phoenix sub­urb where I’d decided to take advan­tage of the off-season rates offered at some of the nicer hotels for the chance to do some free­lance work, stay out of the heat, and get some much-needed rest. Since I wasn’t in a rush to get there, I decided to visit Sedona.

Again, I learned the les­son of not doing my research before­hand, because despite the beau­ti­ful red rock for­ma­tions sur­round­ing the town, Sedona itself is a more expen­sive, hot­ter ver­sion of Nashville, Indiana, a com­mu­nity of art gal­leries, tchotchke shops, hotels and restau­rants. Not my thing at all, so I moved along.

Once back on I-10, I was unable to resist the siren song of the casino and stopped near Camp Verde to blow another $20 on penny slot machines before start­ing to feel the life being sucked out of me by the retirees sur­round­ing me.

I arrived in Scottsdale around 5, took a break from the road in my rel­a­tively fancy suite (rel­a­tive to the Motel 6, any­way) before dis­cov­er­ing another Bevmo nearby and pick­ing up a 12-pack of Full Sail Brewing’s Session Premium Lager, a per­fect beer to keep the 97-degree heat at bay, and order­ing a sausage and mush­room pie at the nearby NYPD Pizza. I retired to my room, had din­ner and a cou­ple of beers, and fell asleep on the lux­u­ri­ously soft (rel­a­tive, again, to the Motel 6) bed while watch­ing Top Gun on HBO.

(Note: there won’t be a Day 25 post; I spent most of the day in the hotel, tak­ing advan­tage of the air con­di­tion­ing, inter­rupted only by updat­ing this site, work­ing on the free­lance project I need to wrap up, get­ting lunch at Chino Bandido, a strange hybrid Chinese/Mexican restau­rant once pro­filed on Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives, going shop­ping for gro­ceries and drink­ing a few more of the Sessions. I didn’t even ven­ture out for din­ner. I’m head­ing to Tucson on Monday, so your reg­u­larly sched­uled pro­gram­ming will resume Tuesday morning.)