It's Too Darn Hot!

Phoenix is proving too hot for me to handle! We got up early to try to beat the heat, but it just could not be avoided. We stopped for breakfast at Over Easy, a breakfast joint that was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Drives on the Food Network. I had the best French Toast of my life - caramelized banana and pecan on brioche. Ah-maze-ing! KT had a pretty solid omelet as well. If you're ever in Phoenix or Scottsdale, I recommend stopping in.

After breakfast, we headed to the Desert Botanical Gardens. While it was a bunch of different cacti, as you would expect, it was cooler than I thought it would be. I had no idea there were so many types of cactus! We also go to see some desert wildlife like different little lizards, round tail squirrels, and mourning doves. We thought about spending our day at Castles & Coasters, or salt water tubing, but the heat proved too much and we ended up spending the hottest part of the day in our hotel room applying for jobs and networking online.

As the sun was setting we headed out to Rawhide - an old west "town" for dinner and a show. It got pretty mixed reviews overall on yelp, but the food was consistently rated highly so we figured why not. Worst case, we'd get good food and a laugh out of it. Well, we were right about that. The food was great - filet mignon steak with potatoes and fruit and the strongest $6 margaritas I've ever had. As for the show part.....if I were 5 I would have loved it! A gun fight filled with bad acting and only one real stunt where you could see the mat, killing the illusion of it. Oh well, the town was cute and straight out of that South Park episode about the old west actors who wouldn't break character.

After the show, instead of sticking around for Act 2 we headed to the nearby casino. When traveling with KT, you can count on some gambling happening. Since there were no roulette tables, we stuck to $5 minimum Black Jack. Luck was on our side tonight since we both ended up leaving with more money than when we came in! We should probably stop while we're ahead.

Tomorrow we leave Phoenix and no longer have any booked rooms or truly set plans. Our next major city is Dallas, where we'll be staying with one of my friends from Mystic Yankee (Girl Scouts 4 Life!). However, to get there we need to drive through 22 hours worth of desert. We'll be stopping somewhere to crash for the night, but have noooo idea what city or even what state that will be in. Wish us luck!

First day in Phoenix

So Kristal and I left the house at 10:15 this morning and after stopping by USC we were saying goodbye to downtown LA at around 11 am. We stopped by Cici's pizza in Chino Hills for lunch, and it was delicious as usual. There wasn't much to look at on the drive over. There was a weird elephant on a random hillside, and a pretty expansive and cool wind farm. Other then that, it was mostly mountains and deserts as far as the eye could see.

After a couple rest stops, we finally pulled into Phoenix, and after hitting our first round of traffic just outside the city, we pull into our hotel around 6. After a half hour of relaxing, we were all set to go to Rawhide Steakhouse and Old West Town until I was a genius and called ahead for a reservation. Turns out its only open on Thursday through Saturday, so good thing I call. We are going to swing by it tomorrow, and based on the ad in the hotel, it looks an awful lot like the western town in that South Park episode where they get taken hostage.

So instead of that we decided to go to a really good pizza place where Oprah apparently flies into Arizona just to eat there! But it was over a 90 minute wait so we decided to defer for a highly rated Mexican place. On the way out, we saw Chase field, home of the Diamondbacks, the ASU downtown campus, and I got splintered by a deceptive cactus.

We ended up eating at a nice Mexican place called Gallo Blanco Cafe. We both got margaritas, and for food I got a carne asada burrito while Kristal got a pork Torta. Unfortunately for me, Kristal got the better dish, so the count is 1-0 in her favor right now. After that, we swung by Downtown Scottsdale, but not much was going on, so we called it an early night.

Tomorrow we have plans all day, including trying out a Food Network recommended breakfast joint, the botanical gardens, and hopefully actually going to the Rawhide Steakhouse/Town we know will be cheesy goodness. Check back for a full update on that!