This Desert Life

Amanda and I went to Phoenix this weekend with our friend Aaron. I'd been to Arizona once, stopping only long enough to sleep at a Motel 6 and eat breakfast at the Waffle House in Tuscon before crossing the state and entering California, and Amanda had never been at all, so we decided to make the trip for the weekend. We went to Yom Kippur services Sunday night and Monday, then drove back late Monday night.

While we were there, we had a really great time. Saturday, we drove up to Flagstaff for the Fat Tire Beer Festival, which was a blast, if just a little too crowded. The beer was good, though, no doubt about that. We stopped in Sedona (which happens to be the name of Jean's dog) on the way up, and it was a really nice little town that has really good ice cream. Flagstaff was great, though. A little hippie town (Amanda said it reminded her of Asheville, NC), lots of cool stores and bars, and of course, the Fat Tire Beer Festival. It was a little chilly (in Arizona, no less), so I bought a long-sleeved t-shirt for 5 bucks, and the beers helped keep me warm as well. We met up with a bunch of Jean's med school classmates there, then the 4 of us grabbed a quick dinner at a burrito shop and walked around for a little while before heading back. I ended up buying a really cool reprint of a Chinese advertisement. I have no idea what it says or what it is advertising, and it's kind of hard to describe here, but it's got drawings of what looks to be a bunch of Chinese generals, like Mao and others, and they're all talking about something. Like I said, hard to describe, but for $12.95, it's going to make one hell of an addition to the apartment once I get it framed, which might be never.

Sunday, after we got up, the rest of the group indulged me against their better judgment and we all went to Waffle House for breakfast. I have to say, I don't think I will ever get sick of that place. Afterwards, we took a driving tour of Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale, etc. We checked out Arizona State University, saw a ton of strip malls, and took a mini-hike part of the way up Camelback Mountain, which was really, really hot. I liked Flagstaff better. Less sweating involved.

After Camelback, we drove out to Glendale so Aaron and I could see the new stadium where the Arizona Cardinals play, which was recently named University of Phoenix Stadium. If you're not familiar, U of Phoenix is one of those online colleges. Not a real college. Aaron thought it was pretty funny that the University of Phoenix, which does not have a football team, now has a much bigger and nicer stadium than the University of Arizona, or ASU. This stadium was AWESOME. Usually it's the team that's the attraction, or the game itself. Maybe not with the Cardinals. This stadium is brand new and is unlike anything I've ever seen that doesn't involve aliens or a government conspiracy. The thing just looks like a UFO, and it's sitting out in the middle of nowhere, among the cornfields. Weird, but very cool. The field is grass, not turf, but somehow they figured out how to put an actual grass field on rollers so it can slide outside and get sunlight. We're working on figuring out when we can get back for a game. In the meantime, here are some pics of the front of the stadium and the field out back.