Finding Arizona

24 March 2017

Vacations are never the way you envision them.

1. Prep. Only direct Buffalo to Phoenix flight is via Southwest at 8 a.m., so to avoid stress, I take an extra night off from work. Envisioned: Easy night of packing for a week in Arizona with the Anderson clan. Actual: All evening at The Buffalo News wrapping up loose ends on standing assignments, all written during late nights Sunday and Monday, but in need of set-up so they would pop up properly on the newspaper website. (Long rant on how website has complicated everyone’s lives, available on request.) Envisioned arrival home: 8 p.m. Actual arrival: midnight. Wake-up time: 5 a.m. Still all packed before our saintly friend Marti comes to pick us up.

The X-5

2. Wheels. Buzzing around for a week in the usual piece-of-crap rental car? Life is too short to do that again. Envisioned: Rental through Turo, the airbnb of rental cars, maybe even a Beemer for cheap. Actual: I don’t trust Turo.  The good cars evaporate from the website. Vision #2: Wanted a Toyota Prius. Last-minute search for hybrids turns one up at Budget. Actual #2: Tell young woman at Budget counter that I wonder which is worse – waiting an hour in line or having to deal with the people who had been waiting so long in that line. Empathy hath its charms. She books me a BMW X-5 for half the price of the Prius.

All together at Whole Foods in Gilbert

3. Family. Arizona is a red state. Envisioned: If people I haven’t seen in five years are Trumpies, I’m rewriting my will. Actual: No rewrite necessary. Grand-niece Edda, who’s 16, regularly confronts her maternal grandfather over his right-wing views. Chat at the first three-generation get-together over take-out at Whole Foods in suburban Chandler on Wednesday evening is a lot like talk over dinner back in Buffalo.

The Rave Ons play at Mesa Arts Center

4. Frolics. Alternatives to tourist stuff, puh-leeze. Envisioned: What about that Lyle Lovett-Vince Gill concert at the Mesa Arts Center Thursday night? Actual: Lyle and Vince sold out ages ago. Mesa Arts Center has a free noontime show Thursday, outdoors if Wednesday night’s rain stops in time. Brother Tom and sister-in-law Karen work there as volunteers. Envisioned: Could be lame. Actual: The Rave Ons, a hot Buddy Holly tribute group with great guitars. Niece Traci knows some of the guys from the Buddy Holly musical she sang in. Lead singer was born in Buffalo. 

Traci

Farewell to Phoenix

31 March 2017

It takes a cold, dreary, rainy day like this Friday in Buffalo to convince me that I’m really home, three days after the flight back from a week in Phoenix. Here are the high points of the trip:

Weather: Couldn’t ask for better. We bring the rain, which breaks the record heat Phoenix was having. Every day is strongly sunny with temperatures in the mid 70s. Nights are cool, comfortable and full of stars.

Saturday night at Sammie's ice cream joint in Gilbert

Family: Finally get to know the grandnieces and grandnephew as dining companions and, more tellingly, as card players. The eldest, 16-year-old Edda, is a competitive swimmer and a beauty, but has little interest in our games of Oh Hell, where we condense the 13 of us into nine competitors by teaming the kids with adults. The youngest, Emmy, who’s 10 or so, is flat-out adorable and loves to hug. Of the twins, Ella and Evan, Ella is bold and shows promise of becoming a card sharp, while Evan is quietly insightful, like his dad.

Museums: Rugs and jugs last Friday at the Heard Museum in downtown Phoenix; lutes and flutes last Saturday at the Musical Instrument Museum on the north end of Scottsdale.

The Heard preserves and handsomely displays Native American artifacts from the Southwest, expanding on a sizable collection started by a wealthy couple who settled in Phoenix in 1895. Established in 1929, it’s a first-class traditional museum.

The MIM, founded by a former CEO of Target and opened in 2010, is more entertaining and relentlessly interactive. It preserves all kinds of musical gear from around the world, has video installations on each display showing people playing the stuff and provides headphones so you can hear what they’re playing. There’s even an “Experience Gallery,” where you can play some of them yourself, including a theremin. How cool is that!

Every instrument has its spotlight in the MIM

Other roadside attractions: The spectacular stalactites, stalagmites, calcified columns and curvy “cave bacon” of Kartchner Caverns, just south of the I-10 east of Tucson. Wasn’t discovered until the early ‘70s, turned into a state park about 20 years ago. Hot, humid and fascinating.

Restaurants: No contest. Both Tripadvisor and Yelp agree that Café Roka has the best food in Bisbee, the artsy mile-high mining town south of Tucson.  That’s where we spend Sunday night and Monday morning on an excursion arranged in great detail by nephew David’s wife Carol.

Cafe Roka

I go for appetizers. Who needs a main course when you’ve got an heirloom organic tomato and mozzarella salad, plus a three-app sampler with bacon-wrapped Medjool dates stuffed with gorgonzola, prosciutto-wrapped artichoke hearts and warm piquillo peppers amply filled with goat cheese.

Wash it down with the best beer of the week – Copper City Ale, a tasty amber made right there in Bisbee’s Brewery Gulch.

Hospitality: Winners are friends Kathy Karneth and Nyle Jenkins, who provide good company, high-speed internet access and terrific breakfasts while we camp at their house in Tempe. Double bed in the guest room reminds us we shouldn’t try to sleep on one of those any more.

The Copper Queen 

Distant second is the venerable century-old Copper Queen Hotel in Bisbee, where the breakfast coffee is instant, the pastries are pre-packaged, the parking is non-existent and the landmark restaurant is closed for remodeling. But at least the beds in our fourth-floor room are comfy and the ghosts who haunt the place don’t keep us awake after we turn out the lights.

Wheels: Budget wants me to pay full freight for that rental BMW X-5 when we return it, but a phone-in complaint from the departure gate reduces the charge to what I thought it was.

It’s more of a beast than a beauty – 18 inches longer, 6 inches taller, 5 inches wider and $20,000 more expensive than my X-1. Brothers Tom and Bill deride it, Monica despises it and I wouldn’t trade my car for it, but it’s a good drive nevertheless and manages 25 mpg on the trip to Bisbee.