Where we last left off we had reached San Diego. San Diego, as you all may know, is on the absolute opposite side of the continent. We therefore have A LOT to cover.
After finishing our pizza sized pancakes we hopped back in the car and set out for Scottsdale, AZ. The drive through Southern California and Arizona was lovely. The desert is probably the region that fascinated me the most on this trip as I had absolutely nothing to compare it to back East. When we were in mountains I would think "Wow, this is just like New Hampshire...only BIGGER!" when we were in the Redwoods I would think "wow, this is just like down the street...only BIGGER" etc, etc. Driving through Arizona I could only stare and soak in the new experience.
I took a course on the American West last year and a recurring theme was the vastness of land out there (funny side note, I woke Ch'nel up because I was listing the themes of the American West out loud in my sleep one night. Apparently I did learn something in college.). It's no more true than in the southwest. Thousands of acres of land stretch on either side of the highway, bordered by mountains in the distance that you just never seem to reach. They are perpetually in the distance. At one point we pulled over to a rest stop (the only one for hundreds of miles around) which consisted of a bathroom and a memorial marker. The memorial was to a police officer who had been shot on the road back in the fifties. My breath was taken away as I realized how deserted the area was in 2009, I can only imagine how little traffic there had been in the fifties. It's a little morbid but I couldn't help wonder how long he had been there before someone discovered him. I wish I had written the name down to find out more later, but again, morbid.
Arizona also introduced us to a lifestyle that must be so common for their residents, yet so alien to us. Every hundred miles or so we had to slow down to pass through an immigration check point. We had heard about these stops but had no idea what to expect. As we pulled up the the first one Ch'nel was passed out in the front seat. I woke her up and told her to grab any identification that she had because I wasn't sure how intense these checks would be. I gave myself a quick pep talk about how this was neither the time nor the place to crack jokes so just keep your mouth shut and do what the officer asks. We slowly rolled up to the check point and rolled down our window. A friendly officer sauntered up to the window, looked at the mess in the back and yelled "JERSAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!" Chiz and I were silent. How do we respond to that. After five seconds of silence we chuckled and I muttered "jer..sayyyy?" in response. The officer laughed and waved us through without any sort of check. Alright, spread the word, put Jersey plates on your car and you can smuggle as many immigrants through Arizona as you like.
We laugh it off and a hundred miles later get excited as we see another checkpoint approach. Sweet! We love checkpoints. We roll up, far more jauntily than we did to the last one, and are met by a rather stern officer. He stares us down as another officer takes a German shepherd around our car to sniff for god knows what. When he gets the ok from that officer the original officer leans into our car and says "Are you both US citizens?" We nod yes. He steps back and looks into the back of our car, which is covered in clothes and food and other stuff that could easily be hiding a person, before coming back to the window "And there is no one else in this car?" *head shake* "Alright, carry on". Far more intimidating that the first one. The idea that a whole section of the country has come to accept this as a daily part of life is mind-boggling. As we pulled away Ch'nel looked at me and said "What if I wasn't a US citizen but I never told you that? How pissed would you be if you only found that out at an immigration check-point?" I chose not to respond to that question, I felt a strong look conveyed my feelings on that matter.
We continued along our merry way into the Phoenix/Scottsdale area. I've always had mixed feelings on this region as I feel it's a completely inhospitable area that has been altered in a way to support development that will ultimately end up in a catastrophe of epic proportions. There are really just some places that aren't meant to be lived in, folks. The problem, however, is that I know a TON of people from the area including very close friends and family who claim the region is paradise. It's hard to argue when you've never been there, so I was eager to check it out.
We began to see signs of life as we drew closer to the cities. I was less than impressed as the signs of life looked just like New Jersey. This isn't a diss to NJ or AZ...merely an observation that NJ is more hospitable to this sort of development. I don't see this need to move west merely to build the same thing that you had back east. I was hoping that there would be something different about the cities. Also unnerving were the speed traps that were everywhere. Along the highways leading into the city were cameras with speedometers attached. I would later learn that if you went 9mph above the posted speed limit there would be a flash and a picture of your car would be taken and you would be sent a ticket. Arizona is a police state.
We made our way to Scottsdale where we pulled up to my Aunt and Uncle's house where we would be meeting them for dinner. They were out at Tai Chi but told us that the backdoor was open. We weren't exactly sure that this was the right house as there we couldn't find a house number. When we walked up there was music on in the house and I started to get nervous that we were about to break into the wrong house. We opened up the back door and I immediately began to search for a picture of the family that would confirm we were in the right place. Luckily, my Aunt has decorated her hallways with pictures of her grandchildren so we could all breathe a sigh of relief.
Ch'nel set to work trying to remember the names of all of my aunt and uncle's grandchildren, a game she had started when we stayed at their daughters house in Oregon. She was really getting quite good at it, much better than I was to say the least.
The family soon arrived home and my aunt started cooking us dinner while my uncle set to work quizzing us on the meaning of life. The actual meaning of life. He's a very philosophical man. My aunt joined us and began giving us a pitch on why we should live in Arizona. I had to admit her backyard was lovely, purple mountains in the distance, fruit trees in the side yard, the ability to eat dinner outside in October....it was very appealing. "We live where others vacation, how great is that" she closes her pitch with. That stuck with me, why do you want to live where you're supposed to vacation? Doesn't that take the joy out of it? Who am I to judge, though, maybe there is something to waking up to a yard full of lemon trees. Maybe I'm missing out on something, but despite it's beauty I'm still not sold on living in the southwest.
We realized that we had to get a move on as we would be spending the night with our friend Christina. My aunt refused to let us leave without getting a tour of their house, right down to the artwork in their bathroom. Ch'nel pulled out all the stops on this tour, referencing children and grandchildren as well as commenting on their wonderful pieces of wycinakni (Polish paper cuttings). Damn you, Ch'nel, damn you.
We said our goodbyes and set out across town to see Christina. We hadn't seen her since summer 2006, our first summer at CES. This was also the infamous summer when I didn't talk...at all. For some odd reason for an entire summer I showed up to work every day, did my job and said nothing. Now they can't get me to shut up. Driving over I realized just how weird this situation would be. When Christina last knew Ch'nel and I the two of us weren't friends. We didn't really talk to each other, we barely interacted, now we're driving across the country together? I can only imagine what must have been going through her mind when she heard we were stopping by. I wondered if I should retreat back into my silent self, the me that Christina was more familiar with, or go above and beyond to prove to her that I now was quite gregarious. Eventually I chose to be myself, surprisingly not one of my first two options.
All and all everything turned out great. Christina won our hearts over when she already knew quite a bit about our trip as she had been following our blog. That always made the trip recap easier, when people had done their research. After a bottle of wine and a couple hours of "remember whens" we turned in for the night. Christina unfortunately had to leave early the next morning so we said our goodbyes at night. She gave us a tip to check out South Mountain before we began our journey north to Flagstaff, a tip that we gladly took her up on the next day.
Navigating the streets of Scottsdale was a bit rough. After breakfast at Dennys we attempted to follow the GPS to South Mountain. A series of traffic circles and multi street intersections turned us around a couple times but eventually we made our way there. The views were really great. The area is vast, as we touched on before, so you can see quite far. Also interesting was looking down at the city it looks like one large city. I overheard the man next to me explain to the person he was with, however, that what I was looking at was actually three different cities. Phoenix was obviously the largest, then Scottsdale, then...something else that I now forget. I have no idea how they decide where one ends and one begins because from up there it all looks the same.
We came down from the mountain and began our drive north. Tune in shortly (and I promise, it will be shortly) to hear about Sedona, Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon.
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