Out of Arizona and into Las Vegas

Las Vegas coming up…

We went on a Road Trip, Carol and I. Our main objective was Giants Spring Training in Scottsdale AZ. We got down to Scottsdale expeditiously — bypassing Las Vegas as we headed south and spent a swell six days in Arizona.

So we leave Arizona and embark on the Las Vegas eats part of the recollection.

TUESDAY March 5th
Out of Arizona.
An IHOP was located conveniently in the parking lot of our hotel. I looked carefully over the menu to try to find something appealing and the right size. IHOP specializes in “way too much.”

2 eggs with bacon and two pancakes with fruit compote. “What kind of compote?” I asked. She told. “Can I substitute just plain fruit?”

“What’s your favorite?”

“Pineapple.”

“We have pineapple chunks.”

“Great.”

A spare and odd, but fine IHOP breakfast.

I borrowed some browned shredded potatoes from Carol’s breakfast to help with the eggs. We need to drive north on Scottsdale Road and find a gas station.

We soon find ourselves on Rt 74 going west through Joshua Tree National Forest. By now, we’re in a nice highway driving mode. We take a pit stop at a McDonald’s in Wickenberg. 140 miles to Kingman, we can catch lunch there. NOT.

What happens is Rt 93 joins I-40 and you fly by Kingman. Try and think of a fast food chain that’s not at one of the three exits. We got gas on Rt. 93 in Kingman going south, there must be a greasy spoon or mom and pop once we get off the interstate and on to 93. Nope. What we find is no town and no food.

There’s an exit for Bullhead City that promises a Sonic (2 miles). We take it. The next civilization is Boulder Dam, 80 miles away.

Well, it’s more than a couple miles and we pass a couple of mom-and-pops and reach SONIC. You know those Sonic commercials; 2 guys sitting in a car eating a burger and suckin’ on a shake? (I hate those.) So we drive up to Sonic and they have these 1950’s stations where you drive up and order and presumedly a car hop comes out and clamps one of those trays on your window.

Carol went in… no service inside… the idea is you eat in your car. HELL NO.

We went back the road to Caroline’s Cafe. HooBaby, we’re in luck. The special is open face meatloaf sandwich with mashed potatoes and brown gravy. I’ll have some of that! Carol had the Paddy Melt with sweet potato fries. What we have here is down home cookin’! Eat your heart out, Sonic.

Ready to dig in.

Caroline’s Cafe

Back to the joys of 93 North.
Out of Arizona.
Frankly, I’m glad. I didn’t find Arizona user-friendly. Even in little ol’ Reno, driving downtown I’ll pass a number of restaurants; the ones I’ve sampled are pretty good, almost none are chains. Good luck with that in Phoenix. And the signs along the roadside aren’t particularly informative. They might have cautioned us, “last chance to eat for 80 miles.” And the roads we traveled were string straight and not very pretty.

As far as I got today. Stay tuned… more stuff to come.

Giants Spring Training
plus Las Vegas on the way home

Ahhh… Spring (it is in Arizona)

We went on a Road Trip, Carol and I. Our main objective was Giants Spring Training in Scottsdale AZ. Every year, I’ve talked about going to spring training and every year Carol would say, “I can’t take time off at that time of year.” Carol retired — WooHoo — so this year, we bought the Giants Spring Training package. Tickets to 3 games and hotel for three nights, tee shirts, caps and other goodies. We’re going to spring training! We will meet our friend and Carol’s former colleague, Sarah and her friend Scott in Scottsdale.

We decided to make it a Road Trip, and decided to rent a car for the trip for two reasons: a) we have enough *Miles* to cover a 10 day car rental, b) our Altures road trip mishap; and c) why put nearly 2000 hard miles on our fabulous 2008 VW GTI? That’s 3 reasons. All the better.

We planned to get down to Scottsdale expeditiously — bypassing Las Vegas and spending the night in a town to the west — and stop for two days in Vegas on the way home. If you reduce your map enough Reno to Scottsdale is pretty much a straight line.

Reno NV to Scottsdale AZ

This is the eats part of the recollection. Not all our meals were great… the first one is kind of ugly, but I decided “warts and all” was the way to go. Not every meal was perfect… although some neared perfection. You can skip the ugly one or two if you want but we couldn’t.

WEDNESDAY February 27
We ate breakfast at home before leaving at 8:30am. Don’t remember what we ate.

Lunch at El Marquise, Tonopah NV $31

My Carne Asada with a side salad

Our Guidebook described “a dark, comforting room and good food.”

It was that. The guidebook did not say the food was picturesque.
I had the Carne Asada and a salad.  Carol had a Taco Salad with chicken.
Carne Asada — pork with green chili sauce, refried beans and rice — is my go-to dish in a Mexican Restaurant. Despite its looks, the pork was extremely tender and the beans just right. I’m not a sandwich lover and a taco is a sandwich, a particularly messy sandwich. Carol loved her Taco Salad, she always does.

As with many roadside restaurants, the servings were way too big.

We arrived at Pahrump, a town uglier than its name just before 5pm. Not bad, this was the longest leg of our trip.

The Best Western is nice enough and their companion restaurant, Wulfy’s, is a sports bar kind of place.
Dinner Wulfy’s Fried Chicken + Pizza $31.

Our swell car at the Best Western

Carol had a 9-inch pizza. Mine was the deep fried chicken — choice of wing and thigh or breast — I chose the former. The food was okay, moist and everything, just not seasoned. When I complained, Carol said, “You want good, well seasoned fried chicken, go to KFC, they built a business on their seasoning. MacDonald’s fish is pretty good too… or Jack-in-the-Box burgers.”

my fried chicken with a side of cole slaw

“Yeah,” I responded, “but they have bright lights, hard surfaces, moms with kids and no beer. At least this place with just okay food has good lighting, the Warriors on the TV and Fat Tire on draft. Also salt, pepper and ketchup to apply to taste.”

THURSDAY February 28
Best Western offered a complementary breakfast at Wulfy’s, and it was good. Almost anything you would want for breakfast except eggs-to-order. I had scrambled eggs, sausage links and fried potatoes. The potatoes were particularly good. They had been cubed, roasted and then deep fried. Crispy outside, creamy inside. Carol had the same, except a warm biscuit instead of potatoes.

About 290 miles southeast of Pahrump on US-93, we stopped at Wickenburg for lunch. Believe me, there is almost nothing in Arizona between Boulder Dam City and here except straight roads and horizons; mountains in the distance. (More on that when we travel north.) Continue reading →