Tuesday, February 22, 2005

The Big Weekend with the Little Bopper

Written at 1:40 pm and thereafter at the Phoenix Airport:

It’s 1:40 at Phoenix SkyHarbor and our flight home has been delayed - the first onion in our ointment all weekend long.  We got up on time on Friday and broke our fast with some tasty tofu scramble I’d set up the night before.  As rain poured from the sky we made our way swiftly to the airport, encountering almost no traffic; we parked and had a shuttle waiting to whisk us to the terminal before we’d pulled out our bags, and within moments we were all checked in and wading through a gargantuan but fastmoving security checkline, which, you will be proud to read, I PASSED, and then we waited as dawn broke, for our ride to be readied for us.  We boarded, rode to Phoenix (oh, the conversations I had to ignore!  the boring, boring, loud, boring people who fly to Phoenix!), and found our bag without incident, then grabbed a very decent and fairly-priced airport burrito for lunch before hopping a convenient shuttle to Enterprise - a car rental agency I’ll actually plug even though they rented us more car than we’d planned to get: we’d reserved a compact car but our Enterprise buddy Travis thought we’d want more power for mountainclimbing and more clearance for weather and rough conditions; I was persuaded to spend $50 more to uprade from compact to fullsize, and then Travis checked the weather for us and saw that we faced the possibility of flash floods so he bumped us up to the biggest passenger vehicle I’ve ever piloted: a F150 XLT 5.4 Triton silver megalith-on-wheels.  It was gleaming, brand-new (1500 miles); there were eight cupholders within the driver’s easy reach, and from its lofty cockpit I could survey all of creation and crush any bits of it I found irritating.  It had great views, loads of power, enough room to play foosball with real fooses, and it shrugged off potholes and weather as if they were pockmarks and humidity.  I’ve also never sat in auto seats that felt so solid and supportive to my back - an absolute pleasure for all 2-1/2 hours we drove to Flagstaff.

Fun geography fact: though Arizona is a desert state, the upper bits of it are mountaneous and Flagstaff is up at about 7,000 feet above sea level - higher than Denver or or even Tahoe.  It’s the ancient west and it’s up in the high country.  The drive in was gorgeous - wet weather had turned the sere hillsides bright green, speckled with wildflowers and saguros like frozen sentinels clad in spines and shiva-armed, just waiting for you to look away before solemnly flipping you the bird.  The air kept getting cleaner and colder (it was already pretty damn dry); as we powered our way north through elk country I celebrated with a slab of gen-u-wine elk jerky and then before I could get sleepy or achy we had arrived at Evi and Scott’s place, where we finally got to meet Delia. 

I’m biased, I admit it freely - but this is one fabulous baby
.  She’s congenial, well-mannered, garulous, smiley, loves to be held, is okay not being held, eats and sleeps appropriately, and says “hi!” with fetching enthusiasm.  She laughs a lot more than she cries.  It will be a delight to be her uncle. 

That night Scott made us homemade pizzas with delicious scratch crusts, giving rise to two important scientific principles: the Doctrine of Comparable Peppers, and the Doctrine of Conservation of Pizza (that no two pizzas can occupy the same space at the same time, and that any pizza can only be eaten once).  We gorged and giggled and caught up with each other and ate delicious desserts, which themselves raised two noteworthy points: 1) the Marlborough Toffee recipe posted here a few weeks ago has been updated and is significantly improved by Randa, bless her snowbound soul: double the toffee portion.  No, really - it’s good.  2) The SHOTMALLOW: tired of boring old jelloshots?  Here’s a great new way to combine glucose and booze: get big marshmallows (we used special gormet ones but I bet they’d all work pretty well) and put one in a shot glass or little teacup.  Then pour a shot of brandy, bourbon or rum over it; it’ll soak up like a sponge.  Then eat the marshmallow.  Then roar with laughter and repeat.  Damn good stuff.  Several of these, a few hands of Fluxx, and I crashed out on Friday night pretty hard. 

We awoke Saturday morning a little late, to find that a cozy snowfall had hit during the night.  The frontier vistas looked totally new, different, cleansed and clarified.  It was warm, too, relatively, though, so it all melted within several hours… no matter to us, we just lounged around, had a relaxing soak in their outdoor hottub on the deck (high point: comfortably enjoying the waters as it rained and snowed, and the sun shone brightly on us), finally taking a short tour of town for a mellow lunch and an introduction to a local graphic artist and a glassblower in their respective studios.  By the time we’d all finished this brief low-impact foray I was as good as comatose and collapsed on the airmattress for a two-hour nap, but was naturally revived by the availability of a delicous stirfry supper, a jack-daniels pecan pie, and lots of lovely spamMonty Python DVDs.  Deelie fell asleep in my arms and after I forced myself to put her down we all wandered off to bed at a suitable time.

Sunday we woke up to a little more snow on the ground and lots of soccer on television (favorite aspect: the name of the international soccer sensation P. Dikov - what a biocatastrophe for him); then Scott and I went off to rent the last available pair of showshoes and we all of us went for a tramp in the woods.  On the good side, the F150 just ate up the crude logging road we travelled to the trailhead - probably the worst road I’ve ever druv other than the road to Green Sand Beach on Hawaii.  Also, the snowshoes were very easy to attach and use.  On the downside, I got my cotton gloves wet very early on and started feeling altitude sickness shortly thereafter, and wound up not getting very far before turning back to groan and shudder with nausea and chillblanes for a while with Evi and Deelie (who decided to sit out the outdoors adventures because it was blustery).  I found it quite therapeutic to hold a three-month-old who warmed my hands and calmed my nerves by her very presence.  By the time Kel and Scott eventually got back I was feeling much better and we all went out for another big lunch at the local blewpub, where I enjoyed some very servicable fish-n-chips.  We then had to get back home again for the Delia G Show, her weekly webcam broadcast to grandparents, for which Evi had made Kel and me both matching “guest star” t-shirts which I wore and will wear with pride.  This was followed by another blissful nap (starring myself), and then some succulent chicken parm with noodles and red sauce, a hearty dinner that went went very well with some Ravenswood zin and a terrific 2000 Quivera Dry Creek blend, and of course a few more shotmallows and a couple hands of Fluxx… by this point we were all all in and sleep came swiftly and mercifully to us all. 

Monday morning we got up at 7 and Scott made us high-quality scratch waffles for our breakfast, which I ate till I was nigh-on personally Belgian myself.  We packed our bag, gave the baby a few more tender moments (they’ll have to last, now), loaded out to the F150 and drove out.  We visited one rest stop for some urgently-needed rest on the way to Phoenix, which also afforded us an inspirational but entertaining photo op - and then straight through to Rebirth City. 

Two observations about that drive: 1) It’s strange to come into town and see yet another of those ubiquitous “University of Phoenix” signs, but to realize that it’s actually in the right place for once.  2) Some of the placenames and roadways on the way between Flagstaff and Phoenix: Happy Valley, Carefree Highway (near Phoenix, before the harshness of the frontier asserts itself), Deadman Wash, Horsethief Basin, Bloody Basin, Big Bug Creek, and Dry Beaver Creek (yes really, and it’s adjacent to Cornville and Rim Rock ((two placenames that would do better less closely connected)) and the SR69 underpass). 

Now the airplane we will take back to California has just landed in Phoenix from Toronto, an hour late, so we should be able to board shortly and won’t be home too late.  Then, a trip to Trader Joe’s (note: blew it off for Albertson’s due to gridlock in the TJ’s parking lot and roads thereto), and a peaceful night of sleep in the big new bed before startign a new week’s worth of elation.  Tuesday will be another very dense and busy day, in a very dense and busy week.  Luckily, I had one hell of a great weekend to keep me going through it all.  Evi, Scott and especially Delia - it was a pleasure to see you all.