Do You Have a Pen: Arizona

Arizona

From my first time through Arizona,  I was in love with the natural beauty.  Driving from another state into Arizona and you almost immediately see a difference in colors and textures of the landscape almost like an oil painting compared to the flatness of watercolors. 

My first experience with Arizona was coming out of Utah on Interstate 15,  headed towards Las Vegas.  It glowed!  The rocks are red,  but a different shade than Utah.  The creek near the highway was gorgeous and it made you want to pull over so you can take pictures.  Since then,  I normally take Interstate 40,  which is the old Route 66 all the way from Oklahoma City in the east to California in the west and it’s equally as beautiful there,  though the three hundred plus mile drive through seems ominous.  The altitude on I 40 can cause some weather issues,  but is generally a better route to Southern California than the before mentioned route in the cold half of the year.  If you drive this route,  please make sure you drive to Kingman at night if going westbound.  You will come out of some mountains and some six thousand feet and drop to about two thousand feet on a long section of five percent grade interstate.  Most importantly,  it is pitch black there and you see the city of Kingman ahead of you and it looks like a surrealistic alien island of light in a black ocean. 

The trip down Interstate 10 is similar with Phoenix as the only thing slowing you down.  It’s just beautiful and the I 10 route is warmer than the I 40 route.  When you stop to use the rest area along the interstate,  you will see signs indicating poisonous snakes,  so do not catch them and eat them.  If you should happen to stop on the side of the road if nature calls,  I’m telling you to be cautious of venomous snakes, because they can kill you.  I have yet to see a snake  (fortunately)  or scorpion  (unfortunately)  close up in my travels,  but I have seen the marks in the sand near rest areas that sidewinders will make.  In that same I 10 corridor,  there are a lot of signs for dust storm warnings and how to survive them on the highway.  Dust storms are most prevalent in late July to early August with an average of three per year.  If you are in one,  visibility drops to about a quarter mile.  If you find yourself in one,  pull off the road as soon as possible.  It is recommended to use the shoulder and turn off your lights.  Other motorists see lights in the low visibility and will ass-end people on the side of the road not realizing the car sitting still is not in a travel lane.  Don’t even leave emergency flashers on!  When the storm clears and you start driving again,  be careful and take it slow.  There is sand on the road after the storm and you will slide around. 

Near Flagstaff,  the speed limit slows down ten miles per hour and the road is really rough.  I’m not sure if this is a safety issue for the city or if it’s a cheaper way to handle a government funding shortfall and not have to repair the roads there because you do not want to do seventy-five miles per hour there regardless of how good of a suspension you think you may have.  I’m pretty sure anyone who has driven more than three hundred miles on Arizona roads is owed a front end alignment by the state. 

I had a chance to hang out with an old friend in Phoenix I hadn’t seen in twenty-five or so years and he gave me the nickel tour of the greater Phoenix metro area,  including an up close of Camelback Mountain.  It was still early spring and a perfect day in Phoenix,  but people don’t realize that less than an hour north is some decent altitude and the same day I could have easily worked on my much needed tan,  there was a near blizzard in the mountains where the roads were impassable.  On another trip a month prior,  my friend was sick and couldn’t meet me for lunch and I had a hotel room with a flight out the next day.  I stayed right downtown in a SureStay,  which is a lower end Best Western property with limited service,  but still overall decent and I get my BW points  (come on Diamond Level)  and across the street was a brew pub I went for dinner.  I hate beer with a passion,  but I like food made with beer,  which seems strange.  This place had the obligatory pretzels with cheese and burgers and the beer cheese for the pretzels was possibly the best I have ever had.  The burger wasn’t my favorite burger,  but really damn good.  Being in Phoenix and the desert,  rain is the last thing I would expect,  but rain is what we were having that day.  It rained so hard that just walking across the street,  my shoes and by default,  my feet,  were soaked and I was drenched to my underwear.  The next day I walked to an Italian place behind the hotel for lunch before I took an Uber to the airport and still had to dodge lake-sized puddles of water.

Phoenix is the largest state capital in the country and the only state capital with over one million people in it.  See the cool shit I learn while driving around the country!  It’s also a place that deserves a lot more exploration,  including a possible hike on the trails at Camelback Mountain.  The area is beautiful.  Being from the midwest and living ten minutes from Lake Michigan,  I never assumed I would have any interest in being in the middle of a desert until I was there.  Phoenix is not on my short list of places I would want to move, but it’s on the list of places I would be okay moving if I had to.  

We’ve all heard that phrase,  “it’s a dry heat.”  First off,  bullshit!  It’s hot and you are in ball soup most of the day.  Second,  you do perspire,  but it’s so dry there that the perspiration evaporates almost immediately so you don’t have physical signs of it,  however, you feel greasy all day from the oils coming out and being left behind by your sweat.  Speaking of oil and water not mixing,  who remembers in drivers education where they told you to be careful of oily slick spots on the road for the first few minutes of a rain storm?  The oil is from cars and the rain washes it away, but it takes a few minutes till that oil is off the road.  It doesn’t rain that much in the desert,  so instead of five minutes,  it takes about fifteen to twenty minutes for that oil to get up off the road so be almost overly cautious and slow down. Also,  the people of Phoenix don’t drive in the rain too often so they suck at it.  Basically, don’t let your guard down if it’s raining in Arizona and you are on or near a road. 

Arizona is on my short list of states I would love to thoroughly explore with more than a quick drive through.  As a side note,  Phoenix Sky Harbor  (PHX)  is usually relatively cheap to fly out of and there are food and shopping options before entering security,  so you can hang out or meet a friend for lunch from the area while waiting on a layover.