Year: 2005

Phoenix

   

Breakfast at Waffle House; the trip was already getting better. Then, we covered Phoenix and assorted suburbs from all angles. It’s amazingly easy to drive in Phoenix; the freeways may be crowded, but even at rush hour, there’s more than enough capacity on the surface streets alone. And it’s all a big grid, so it’s a really easy place to get around…

   

For a variety of reasons, some of which would become apparent later, this was the most photo-intensive day of the trip. As expected, I saw lots of interesting 1960s and 1970s architecture, and surprisingly little which was much older…

  

I’m intrigued by the Uptown area of Phoenix. It’s very close-in, and yet it all seems to have been developed in the past 30 or 40 years. This is an area that — in most cities, even smaller and newer ones — would contain most of the old bungalow neighborhoods and streetcar suburbs from the 1910s and 1920s. Not so in Phoenix; there didn’t even seem to be any evidence that these neighborhoods had once existed and later been bulldozed. Usually, there’s at least a TRACE of something old, but not here. All the same, it also seemed much too large an area to have been a standard urban renewal tract. I don’t quite understand, and we looked without success for a good book on Phoenix history which might have explained it…

  

It being Tuesday, we had our traditional pizza night at a New York-style joint on Camelback and then drove around some more. I finally read the Phoenix paper, which used to be well-known as a quality paper but its now a miserable, Gannett-owned piece of shit. I didn’t know it at this point, but almost every other paper along I-10 is also a miserable, Gannett-owned piece of shit…

Riverside to Phoenix

 

The morning brought a quick tour of Riverside and a chance to resolve some last minute banking issues before leaving California. We saw the theatre where “Gone with the Wind” had its sneak preview, and looked around downtown. Riverside is surprisingly pleasant, although I can’t swear I’ll ever have a craving to return…

   

Then, it was off into the desert. California is an unusual place; its possible to see snow-capped mountains in the distance even in June, when it’s over 90 on the valley floor. We drove through Palm Springs — a first for me, and I’ve now done it sufficiently and see no real reason to return — and Indio and Blythe, where I visited my last California supermarket. Sadly, it was an Albertsons…

Eventually, we arrived in Phoenix, which was a bit of a relief after 125 miles of pretty much nothing. I was excited to see Waffle Houses at most freeway exits. And I spent a good bit of time trying to determine what our really large, formerly fancy (and currently adequate) Red Roof Inn had been in its earlier life. I decided it was probably a Holiday Inn or a Ramada, since it had a restaurant and cocktail lounge…

We had dinner at Whataburger, even though I’d thought we’d have to wait for Texas for that. And we drove around Phoenix a bit, rather instantly liking the place…

Fresno to Riverside

Sunday morning brought a quick breakfast and goodbyes in Fresno before moving south on Highway 99. The car was definitely running much cooler and smoother, I must say. Much of my paranoia was gone and I was ready to start enjoying the trip and to stop worrying about the car, San Francisco, etc…

Our drive was a bit convoluted; we went from Fresno to near Riverside to check in to our motel and then back across to the other end of the LA basin for dinner. Long story. Suffice to say, the Motel 6 is Rubidoux is just about the creepiest place we stayed on the trip. Upon check-in, we were required to sign a non-aggression pact promising we wouldn’t harass any other guests. There were parking permits, liability waivers, and all these signs reminding us that Riverside County ordinance prohibited us from moving into the motel in a residential capacity. All this, mind you, was for a very suburban, almost rural location. I was a touch nervous, but the place seemed OK otherwise…

  

Dinner at the Saddle Peak Lodge in Calabassas was wonderful. Mark had elk. I had buffalo. There were large dead animals everywhere. There was also, for no apparent reason, mandatory valet parking despite the fact that the lot was both spacious and immediately adjacent. Standard LA, I guess. I once went to a Sizzler there which had valet parking…

After dinner, we drove around LA and the Valley for a while and I realized once again how much I was going to miss this strangely wonderful and exciting place. We planned a long visit soon…

Trapped in Fresno

We dropped the car off at Midas, had breakfast with the in-laws, and then returned home to wait for the damage report. The total was $450 for pretty much an entire new exhaust system. Other than that, though, everything seemed fine with the car…

Relieved to be through this first challenge, we hit Wal-Mart for shorts (I owned very few which still fit) and assorted road provisions. Then we picked up Mark’s brother-in-law and had a final dinner at Me-n-Ed’s…