Days 10-11 - Cacti, youth revisited, and breaking a world record

Current location: Gilbert, Arizona
Time / distance traveled since last post: About 2.5 hours, about 175 miles
Total time / distance traveled: About 50 hours, 3400 miles

Today I write to you from the comfort of the guest room of my lovely hostess, Crystal, in Gilbert, AZ, a southeastern suburb of Phoenix. For the first time in a while I knew exactly where I was going to be staying a full day ahead of schedule.

It is at this point in time that I need to begin thanking two people who have made what I am going to describe as an awesome Arizona experience not only possible, but have made it their full-time mission to make a reality. The first person to thank is my cousin-in-law Ryan, who from the inception of this blog had allowed me to rest assured that he would find a spot for me to crash in his home town of Gilbert (a zip code with a name within the greater Phoenix metropolitan area). My oh my did he ever deliver, and this even on a weekend during which many of his aces-in-the-hole were out of town (Coachella, a huge music festival in California, was this weekend). Ryan may have been so willing to pull these strings because he is a relative and all-around good guy, but I'm willing to bet that at least a tiny bit of the motivation was the blogger connection. Reading Ryan's Thousand Beer Year blog in 2010 helped inspire this trip, showing that there is grandeur in setting a goal and accomplishing it, regardless of the merits or lack thereof of whatever that goal may be. Check Ryan's old blog out at http://thousandbeeryear.blogspot.com/

Ryan had referred me to his oldest friend, Crystal, who not only seemed receptive to putting-me-up, but seemed entirely down for the cause. After exchanging schedules and address information, I departed from my Flagstaff hotel room and embarked on the mere 3 hour journey to the greater Phoenix area. The drive was a quick and relaxing one, and as I was coming down from the Flagstaff elevation of 7000ft to the Phoenix elevation of 1350ft I set a new personal record for longest contiguous distance coasting in neutral (over 7 miles at one point, far exceeding the 5 miles I once did in rural Pennsylvania). The drive was a pretty one too, and for the first time I saw wild saguaro cacti!

Here's a quick video update showing the cacti "fields":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLPOZ8sY3_I

Arriving in Gilbert a bit earlier than I had projected to Crystal, I killed some time by grabbing a smoothie loaded with nutrients, vegetables and fiber that I had so desperately been seeking since leaving the northeast, and then heading to the CD store across the street.

Yes, I am one of the few people left on Earth who enjoys buying CDs. I've never owned an iPod and have never downloaded iTunes, but rather prefer to see what I can find used at the store. I enjoy listening to whole albums at a time, and even began using liner notes as wall paper in my room back in Baltimore. This was particularly appropriate for this trip, as I have now listened to every CD I own so many times over that new music has steadily approached the baseline of my hierarchy of needs, somewhere between oxygen and Chipotle. The only problem is that I refuse to pay full price for a brand new disc, and would much sooner stalk a store weekly to see if any of the items on my wish list have come-in used so that I can buy them at half price. I am so glad that I walked into this particular store, as I was able to find 5 CDs that had been on my wish list for some period of time (all of which were used), ranging in price from $4 to $8 each.

Here began a trend that has persisted throughout my entire stay in civilized Arizona: I didn't have to pay full price. On top of the used prices, the CDs were discounted an additional unadvertised 30% for no apparent reason! Behold the receipt below and bear witness to my good fortune.

High on my good fortune, I then traveled to Crystal's home where I met her for the first time. If I had to describe my first impressions of Crystal (aside from small but mighty, as she puts it), I would say that she has got to be one of the easiest people with whom to get along that I have ever met. Within a few minutes I could tell that aside from traditional host-guest formalities ("Oh no I couldn't!" "Oh yes but I insist!") that placing the burden of housing my ass on a stranger (as someone who definitely does not like to burden or take advantage of people) was going to be as minimally awkward as possible.

After settling-in and discussing our interesting jobs (as well as holding a teleconference with Ryan about what was necessary to accomplish in Arizona during my stay), we headed to dinner at a brew-pub in Tempe called Four Peaks, which was universally heralded by Crystal, Ryan and my cousin Liz. Upon arrival and the ordering of some decent nano brews (exhausted by the heat I started with a Kolsch), we were told that the wait for a table was a full hour. Crystal then began building the reputation, at least in my book, that she is in fact the Queen of Arizona. A dental hygienist and teacher of the same, she found one of her former students who worked at the pub and - just like that - we were seated! Significantly impressed (though Crystal helped me to not feel intimidated by seeming equally excited and impressed herself), we sat down to an excellent dinner including a pizza topped with every delicious Mediterranean vegetable imaginable and a very reasonably priced fillet steak sandwich. Dinner was delicious, and my second beer (an oatmeal stout on nitro) topped the meal off beautifully. As the check arrived (I made it perfectly clear to Crystal that I was buying her dinner for helping me out so much), I noticed that not only was my second beer provided gratis, but we also received a 10% "Regulars" discount! Knowing many of my friends are/have been servers, this makes me wonder how many of you have a Regulars discount button with which you've never hooked a brother up. For shame...

After dinner Crystal took me to an outdoor shopping mall where a few cover bands featuring people she knew were playing (she seemed well connected between knowing a friend or patient in every conceivable social outlet in Arizona) and then later to another band's performance at an Irish pub on the main strip for the Arizona State University students. The behavior of the bar-goers on this strip was so outlandish that it almost seemed as though someone was making a coming-of-age college movie and needed to place every absurd drunken behavior into one unrealistic single scene. Walking up and down the strip I would have flashbacks to different points in time throughout my entire college career during which I may have witnessed such things for the first time. Noteworthy behaviors include the man who dropped his pants to his ankles seemingly unprovoked and then continued about his business, the dudebros who needed to feel each other up as they drunkenly told each other how the world works, and the young lady puking into her purse as the girl behind her holds her hair back with one hand and the other hand on a young man's ass. What a place! I was very lucky that Crystal, also only a light-moderate drinker, enjoys people watching as much as I do.

After witnessing the behaviors which parents have taken second jobs to finance over 4 years, we resigned to what I had been told by both Ryan and Crystal was the perfect late-night food: Filiberto's. 

To best attempt description of "Fili-B's" to those of you who are not yet enlightened, it is authentic greasy Mexican food that seems as though served from a food truck that broke down and decided to operate from a stationary address. I ordered an Arizona Burrito (the "A.Z.B.") which came as a fresh, authentic tortilla wrapped around potatoes, melted cheese, steak and pico de gallo. Being the burrito lover I am, this brought me a brand new understanding of the potential of this important food group. The potato and cheese base as opposed to rice made the whole item taste as though delicious over-stuffed potato skins. I am literally salivating as I write this. Please allow me to say no more, and show you this beautiful gem:

And at $4, you really can't do much better. We both retired for the night soon thereafter.

The next morning Crystal had informed me of an event that was to occur that night, about which she had been excited for quite a while now. The event was a record release concert for local heroes Roger Clyne and The Peacemakers, a southern rock band whose lyrical topic matter is most appropriately compared to Jimmy Buffet or Sammy Hagar (I'm going to call the genre "tequila rock"). I was somewhat indifferent until she told me the kicker: they were attempting to set the world record for most sombreros worn in the same place at the same time. YES!!!

Now, the objective of this blog is to document my antics as inspired by whatever internal driving forces may be acting upon me at the moment, but I would be lying if I said that I wasn't at least partially excited that I could potentially write about breaking a world record on my travels. I was so very all-about this that I think at times I may have become even more excited than Crystal, the fan of the band.

Not wanting to arrive ill-prepared, we went on a cross-town search for sombreros. I now wish to ask my readers to take a moment and contemplate exactly where you would go if you were trying to purchase a sombrero. You can't order anything online because it's just hours before the event. What do you do?

Well, this is where we went:

1. Dollar Store: Nope, mostly just Easter paraphernalia.
2. Walgreens: Kind of like a dollar store, but with more random crap. We DID find cowboy hats, but that just wasn't going to cut it.
3. Mexican/Hispanic Supermarket: Let me just say that this place is totally awesome, and much more impressive than the small Mexican groceries you may find in a corner of a strip mall up north, but still no luck. We asked a few people if they knew where we could purchase sombreros but they only knew of where to get the deluxe authentic ones (significantly out of our price ranges).
4. Party City: YES! Why didn't we just come here in the first place? You've got to figure that right after luau parties that fiesta parties have to be the most popular type, and so we found a bounty of sombreros from which to choose.

Not only did we find the sombreros, but for some reason the cashier discounted them from $3.99ea to $1.99ea. What is it with this place and random discounts!?!? Still, can't argue with success, and here's how good we looked:

Having accomplished our goal well in advance of doors for the concert, Crystal and I both wanted to experience the beautiful sunny day in childlike glee, so we went to the nearby skatepark. Crystal road her pimpin' robin's egg blue cruiser bicycle complete with custom off-white basket and cup holder (for her pimp cup of iced tea) and I followed on my old school fish board with my trick board in tow:

 Being a sweetheart and letting me skate for an hour or two, Crystal took video of me very poorly doing two tricks, in case you want to laugh:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvXbxq28-TM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2soDHAtbw0

After skating we came home to a shower and preparations to go out for the concert. Stopping for dinner at a nice wine bar (from which we got discount wine prices... of course), we then proceeded to the Diamondbacks' practice stadium at which the concert was being held. Though we parked on the completely wrong side of the stadium and had to hike through some rocks to get to the gate, we eventually arrived to a sea of sombreros! Some people had really gone all-out and purchased authentic sombreros, and some had decorated their identical party city models with puffy paint. In any event, it was a beautiful sight:

Before we even attempted the record (during the second and third songs of the set) it had been cued to us that we had already broken the record (if one even existed before this attempt) and there was a loud and proud rejoice amongst the crowd. There you go! I helped set a Guinness World Record while on my trip!

The band played a MARATHON 28 song set, and in the middle threw-in one song which I did recognize:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05g96J7QnTY

Evidently this band was formed out of the embers of 90s band The Refreshments, who were notorious for playing the theme song to under-rated Fox cartoon King of the Hill. For some reason this really excited me that the band played it at their show, and so I only apologize that I could not have captured the full song.

After the very long show we came back home and crashed. As of the publishing of this blog I am now showered, packed, and thanks to the unprecedented hostessing by Crystal (whom I sincerely can not thank enough for all of the hospitality and companionship over the past two days; a true hero in my book) FED, with pancakes from scratch and poached eggs (talk about impressive!). Once again, Crystal, thank you!

My final thoughts of Arizona: Arizona does not suck.

I am now about to depart, headed westward towards California (and the western shoreline of America!). Though this will mean that I have successfully traversed the entire width of the United States (considering that I've driven the short path to the Atlantic from Baltimore tons of times, thus making this trip "coast to coast" over the grand enough time line) by no means will the stories end here.

Thanks for reading, and keep posted!