Arizona 2005 (Day 1)
So, this morning, I went to sleep at 2 AM. I was awoken around 5 AM for our 7 AM flight to Phoenix. Our car was a little late, my brother Sam said it smelled a little. I found no problem with it. It is about a five hour flight to Phoenix, and then a two hour drive to Sedona, Arizona. Two hour time difference coupled with some phatty Phish Jams has made the day so far tiring and exciting at the same time.
After we, my dad, mom, and two brothers, got into the Phoenix airport, we had to wait a whole damn hour for us to get our luggage. I mean, it was rediculous how slow it was. When someone complained, they responded that they have less staff around Christmas time. First of all, I thought that Monday was Christmas, shows what I know. Also, why wouldn't they hire a larger staff because of the greater influx of travelers around the holidays? Either way, after an hour and some change, we got out of there and on the road north.
We stopped at Kid Chilleen's Bad Ass Bbq and Steakhouse which on the outside, and the location, did not look very welcoming. However, this was some damn fine food. I got the BBQ Brisket Sandwich which totally hit the spot I had been longing for since not eating the entire day. Snap. Then, we were off!
On our drive up, we took a slight detour (although I had awoken half way through it and kept on asking what was going on and no one said anything to me) to visit Montezuma Castle National Monument. It was some pretty cool dwelling [see lo-quality imagery below].
Afterwards we hopped back in our red rental mini van and drove up to Sedona towards the Enchantment Resort which offers "world-class comforts amid its pristine 70-acre setting." This place is pretty fancy. Way too fancy for me, but I am not complaining... yet. Tonight there is star gazing with a NASA engineer, apparently. All I want to do right now is go to the bar and get a Cherry Coke, but I have absolutely no friggin' idea how to get around this place.
We are in a "casita," whatever that means in German, which is a little home amongst a group of other little homes that is not directly connected to the main lobby. Ergo, if one would want to get a Cherry Coke, one would have to go out side in the pristine 70-acre setting and walk up to the main area to get it. I mean, give me a break. The help here, however, are very perky, but they come off a little insincere, I think. They are like the Zingerman's people who pride themselves on customer service, but the Zingerman's people seem genuine, maybe because I know them outside of work and they wear jeans and t-shirts.
We had dinner at the "casual" dining restaurant, but their inability to seat 11 of us on such short notice after realizing they got the reservation wrong (6 at 6 PM, instead of 11 at 6 30PM) made us sit in our own room off of the regular restaurant. Which is not any problem, because you realize that it makes it feel like more more a family dinner than us at a restaurant. This is the restaurant that is at the same resort, but in a different building. I get the whole idea of the resort, but there is something to be said for tall buildings and elevators. However, in this landscape, it probably would be incredibly stupid to build tall buildings and get nowhere near the height of the mountain landscape.
I got some boneless buffalo wings and some pasta. The wings felt like they had these chicken wings that were frozen, so they cooked them all the way through and they were hot, but they meat just wasn't that tender, I thought. They were too big to be wings, and too small to be tenders. The bleu cheese sauce on the side was watery also. I got the feeling it wasn't their speciality. The pasta, on the other hand, was very good. I can't describe it considering I don't exactly remember what was on there besides cheese, mushrooms and some kind of sauce. I also remember that I did not eat all of it because I was full from wings and chips.
I came back to the "casita" and watched an episode of Family Guy I had downloaded. Tomorrow, the Grand Canyon.