Grazing Arizona
National Park Roadtrip – Days 19 – 27
Phoenix
We rolled into Phoenix with 4 big things to accomplish. The first was our car was due for the 45,000 mile service, plus we desperately needed it detailed from the sand, dirt, rain, snow, etc. that we had encountered on the first 3 weeks of the trip. The second was the Fantastic Fan that broke in the 50 MPH winds in Death Valley, among a few other items. The third was G’s bike that needed new wheels after his first ones bent on the first ride. The fourth was to get a required brake controller installed in the car. Not all states require this, but our home state of Oregon does.
I am so lucky that my best friend, whom I’ve known for 32 years, lives in Central Phoenix and just bought a house with a guest bedroom! She graciously allowed us to stay there while we checked our 4 task items off the list. As soon as we pulled into her driveway, we unloaded everything from the car and trailer into her guest bedroom so both could be worked on easily and without all our stuff in the way. Needless to say, the bedroom was completely full. We even brought our bikes in her house for safe keeping. I know that’s what friends are for, but we felt a little guilty to say the least. We met her for dinner at Sierra Bonita, had a few margaritas, went home and had a few glasses of wine, and the next thing we know we are going to bed at 1:30 in the morning. This always happens with us. We start talking about growing up across the street from each other, or the Gilmore Girls, or family, or really anything at all and just talk and talk and talk until it’s the middle of the night. It was a rough next day, that’s all I’m going to say. But it was worth it. As usual.
I woke up starving so while my friend was at work and after G dropped off the car for service, we went to a place that out hipster’ed Portland, MATCH Cuisine & Cocktails. So funny. It was good, but while sitting there I remembered that we were really close to the famous pizzeria, Pizzeria Bianco. And it opened in 30 minutes. And I had never eaten there in 5 years of traveling to Phoenix for work. And we were going to eat there whether or not I had just eaten a little breakfast/brunch. It’s in a small historic building in downtown Phoenix. We were seated right away inside and by the time G had parked the car and walked over, the restaurant was completely full. We ordered a pie and a salad, both of which were amazing, and we still had plenty to take to our home away from home for a later meal.
Pizzeria Bianco
Grapefruit and Fennel Salad
G wanted to check out Wren House Brewing, and I’m so glad we did. The dogs were allowed inside their tasting room, and they had an awesome Kolsch on tap which we promptly filled in a crowler to take home to share with my friend. What is a crowler? A crowler is a large 32 oz can that they fill and seal right in the brewery. The car was finished while we were at Wren, so we drove out to pick it up, and met my friend for dinner at Southern Rail. Phoenix is full of business complexes that have maybe a restaurant, salon, store, perhaps a bar somewhere. They are nicer than strip malls and tend to have some brand new and trendy shops, breweries, and restaurants. Southern Rail is in one of those complexes and they share the building with a artsy plant store and a bookstore with a bar in it called First Draft. Cute. Right? I wanted to browse the books and G took a seat at the bar to try a draft beer. We happened to sit down next to a group of 3 guys who were talking extremely loudly. They were obviously very smart and trading thoughts on obscure philosophies and scientists. G is pretty bright and even he had to look up a word they used on Google. For those interested folks, the word we had to look up is memetic.
32 oz crowler from Wren House Brewing on the left, regular 12 oz can on the right.
The following day we planned on making dinner for my friend as a thank you for her hospitality. While we love eating at restaurants, we didn’t want to eat out every night. She had requested Spaghetti Pie, something I make every now and then. It’s G’s favorite dish in my repertoire and I have made it for many family and friends over the years. It’s a Giada De Laurentiis recipe, but instead of eggplant, I use mushrooms. It’s a fairly simple dish so I try to use high quality ingredients to showcase its simplicity. I noticed (on Yelp) there was a small Italian grocery store/deli near her house. I love grocery stores. The smaller and older and small town-y the better. If Betty-Sue makes to-die-for chocolate chip cookies that the local grocer sells, I want my hands on those cookies. This little store seemed right up my alley, and it would have been had we not ever made it to the cash register. They were charging way too much for nearly every ingredient. Two cups of grated parmesan for $21. Provolone for over $20 a pound. San Daniele Prosciutto for $49 a pound! I’m so happy with what we purchased there, and I love supporting small, local business, so oh well. A full belly is a happy belly.
Niccoli's in Phoenix
Spaghetti Pie
My friend’s little sister arrived the following day, whom I have also known for 32 years. We are like family, but it’s great to catch up with her sisters as I don’t see them often. We took a day trip up to Page Springs Winery. If you are in the Verde Valley/Jerome/Sedona area, and you like tasting rooms, this one is a must visit. Meanwhile, G visited 4 brewery tasting rooms while the girls went wine tasting, Helio Basin, Helton, O.H.S.O., and Mother Bunch. Rather than do a lot of tasting, he just picked up some crowlers and cans for consumption later and also to re-stock our cooler. When you’re in the middle of nowhere, it’s awesome to open your cooler and pull out a craft beer from somewhere you’ve traveled!
As we continued to “graze” Arizona for the next few days, we were just waiting on our trailer and G’s bike the whole time. If they had been fixed on time, we would have been out of there 2 days sooner. During the “Great Wait”, we had the opportunity to indulge in the fantastic “Original Chopped Salad” and other brunch items at The Gladly (the salad has it’s own Facebook page) and other meals and stops at Federal Pizza, North Mountain Brewing Company, O.H.S.O. again, Joe’s Midnight Run, Port of Subs twice (because…it’s Port of Subs!!!!), Chelsea’s Kitchen, Daily Dose, Third Space, Capriotti’s, and Hula’s Modern Tiki. Just writing all those spots down makes me want to run a couple miles. Ugh. But it was oh so much fun to hang out with my friend and have the time and opportunity for G and I to experience the Phoenix food and beer scene together. So. Much. Fun.
Trying to sniff the pork "wings" at O.H.S.O.
Excellent Mai Tai at Hula's Modern Tiki
Now for the not so fun:
Our tow vehicle is a 2015 BMW X5 that we purchased used last year. Instead of getting the factory installed seven pin, they installed it after market, which meant we couldn’t get the BMW brake controller installed while it was in for a service. They recommended Quality Bumper and we brought it to them the following day. They installed it in about 3 hours, however, after driving the trailer around (when we thought we were leaving Phoenix the first time) G noticed that whenever he put on his left turn signal, the brakes pumped on their own. No Bueno. More on this in a sec.
The bike is a whole other fiasco. We took it to a reputable shop in Scottsdale, Bike Haus. I think it is normally a great shop, but we just had a bad customer service experience. First things first, G is a big tall guy with a fancy lightweight bike. The tires weren’t strong enough for him to ride uphill with a little bit of force, so the tires bent in Joshua Tree. Bike Haus ordered a new wheel set for him, but instead of ordering just his wheel set, they piggy backed another order on top of his and either didn’t place the order or didn’t order them overnight (even though we paid for it). The tires didn’t come the following day and they never let us know they didn’t arrive. A few phone calls, emails, and some heated moments later, they promised the bike would be ready the following day. Keep in mind that we thought we were leaving that day so we packed everything in the trailer, stripped and cleaned the sheets at my friend’s house, locked the key in her house, and drove over to Bike Haus in Scottsdale to pick it up. Not only were we without a bike, we were without a way back into her house.
There was a silver lining to this trip, however. G is a HUGE San Francisco Giants fan and I am a fan by marriage! The Giants spring training was about to start in a few days so we walked over to the dugout store to check it out. As we walked up, there were a bunch of people just waiting outside a roped off area. I waited outside while G browsed, not sure what I was waiting for. After about 5 minutes, players and coaches started walking in and out. At the end of an hour, we had seen Buster Posey, Brandon Belt, Conner Gillespie, Kelby Tomlinson, and Coach Bruce Bochy. I think a special mention is also due for seeing Brandon Belt’s car, a McLaren. What an awesome spectacle of nice cars, huge guys, and of course our Giants Heroes!
Buster Posey!
Brandon Belt and his McLaren
The following day we packed up all our belongings again and brought the car over to Quality Bumper to repair the wiring. After about 2 hours of frustrating waiting time, they still couldn’t fix the issue. They said the Tucson shop had done work on an X5 last year so they recommended we go there since Tucson was our next stop. There was one “hitch”, we would need to get it there by 2 pm in order for them to have time to work on it. Not exactly happy with this solution, but having no other option, we hitched up the trailer for the second time and drove over to Scottsdale to collect the bike. Bike was not ready. This meant we weren’t going to make it to Tucson until after 2 pm. About an hour and a half later they finally called to say the bike was ready. Apparently, there were some missing parts that the manufacturer needed to send so we gave them my brother’s address in Texas, which was our next multi-day family pit stop. We officially left Phoenix at around 2 pm and called Quality Bumper in Tucson. They said they might be able to work on it the following day as long as we brought it in at 8:30 a.m. on the dot. We got to the beautiful Gilbert Ray Campground outside of Tucson around 5 pm and arranged a rental car for the following day. Everything had settled into place and we were so relieved to be back in business and on the road, again.
Sunset picture in Tucson. Happy to be back on the road again!
Highlights:
The Gladly
Page Springs Cellars
Chelsea’s Kitchen
Federal Pizza
Wren House Brewing
Helio Brewing
