Confessions of a Hit and Run Tourist - Day Eight

Riverbrian · August 22, 2022

I have recently completed a solo 18 day road trip covering 8 ballparks, 9 games, 14 states, national parks, normal tourist traps and not so normal stops. My fairly new 2022 Kia Seltos had 6,400 miles on it before the trip and the journey tacked on 8,522 additional miles. Some of you may find this interesting and some may say what's the big deal, it's a crazy man with a torture filled vacation plan. I was encouraged to tell the story here by individual day because it would be a very lengthy post if not broken down by day. Some days are not that interesting, some days were more interesting than others and some days need a new adjective, but each day was different and they were days that I couldn't experience in my living room.

Feel free to comment, shake your head at my moments of stupidity or tell your own experiences of the places I experienced. This is hit and run tourism... I didn't have a lot of time to hit all the stops but I wanted to hit all the stops because who knows if I would ever be back in any of the areas travelled. I researched and scheduled the trip to the minute and followed the schedule to the letter.

Day Eight - August 5 - Willcox AZ to Phoenix

Today, I had time on my hands. The only thing that was time sensitive was the baseball game that night in Phoenix and I had more than enough time to make that. I actually timed the start of the day just to make the 3PM check in time at the hotel, which would have left me 3.5 hours to spare before first pitch in case I wanted to walk around Phoenix.

The first THING on the agenda was Tombstone, Arizona. However, on the way, there was this THING. Driving west on I-10 the day before, there are billboards, lots of them throughout New Mexico, billboard after billboard telling you to come see "The THING". I'm sorry that is not on my schedule, I am not going to see "The THING" whatever it is and that is what I told myself. The next morning on the way to Tombstone, I don't know, maybe 15 miles west on I-10 from Willcox. One Last billboard "Exit now to see the THING". I don't recall making an impulse decision at that very moment to take the exit, however, the Kia took the exit. I assume, it is all these new features in these new cars, adaptive cruise control, lane assist, blind spot detection, back up camera, rear seat monitor and billboard cognitive recognition. Anyway, I want to be clear... I didn't decide to see the "THING", my Kia did.

How do I describe it? Well... first off it's a combination truck stop/museum.

How do I describe the Museum? It's a museum that manages to tie Dinosaurs, Aliens and Elvis Presley together.

What is the "THING"? I can't post it here, because I don't want to spoil it for future visitors. I'll just say that it was something that looked like it spent way too much time in the desert. Perhaps the whole concept of this Truck Stop/Museum/Thing was created by someone who had spent too much time in the desert.

OK, on to the OK Corral. I haven't talked about the scenery for awhile, that's mainly because it hasn't changed much, if at all. Since I left downhill out of Las Cruces, the scenery stabilized or the scenery atrophied into the same thing for 12 billion miles. I have been in the Chihuahuan Desert for quite some time and haven't seen a single Chihuahua. Don't get me wrong, it is still beautiful but I've seen this same beautiful for a while now. Desert, scrub bush, mesquite trees, the rare flowers all seem to be purple and little mountain ranges off in the distance only to be replaced by the next one and the next one and the next one. Ever since I headed west out of San Antonio, I couldn't tell you how many little creeks I have driven over, 20? 30? 50? I don't know. They all have little bridges spanning them with a green sign telling you the name of the creek that you are crossing. Johnson Creek, Armadillo Creek, I'm making up names but you get the idea. Every creek I drove over, I'd look down and there was no water in those creeks. All of them, every single one, no water in the creek, I get that it's the desert so it's probably normal. Then I drove over one with a green sign telling me it was called "Dry Creek". I laughed because I thought that every creek should have that name, then I looked down and you guessed it... there was water in it, that made me laugh even harder.

Tombstone is 20 times better than Dodge City. The whole town seems to play along with the 1800's theme, when Dodge City just commits a little section to it. I walked around the entire town, checked out everything and I bought my ticket to the performance... the gunfight at the OK corral was going to be re-enacted before my very eyes. Before the play began I ran into the Earp Brothers along with Doc Holliday out on the street and I managed to get a picture with them taken by Doc Holliday himself. Not many of us can say that we have a picture with the Earp's taken by Doc. At first I doubted their legitimacy but after talking with them for a while, they really seemed to have a firm grasp on what life was like in 1881 so I think it was really them. They looked amazing for 176 years old. After the performance concluded, I came to the conclusion that the gunfight was over pretty quick, maybe 30 seconds and I'm pretty sure that there have been longer gunfights in a random bar in Memphis in the past month. I think the legend that it became probably had a lot to do with people out east having nothing else to read about and therefore marketing made the story larger than life and they are still marketing it successfully today because here I am, many many miles from home.

After Tombstone it was on to Tucson for lunch. Tucson did manage to change the scenery by producing a larger mountain and I was pleased when Cactus started to make it's introduction to my journey, I was on the phone with a friend when I saw the first Cactus and I stopped the conversation mid-sentence just to says "Ooo Ooo Cactus... We got Cactus... the Cactus has arrived". The smart-ass I was talking to said... "You mean Cacti, they are called Cacti". I corrected myself... "OK... there is one Cacti out there... First one I've seen in the wild". The lunch spot I picked out was called El Charro's and it was chosen specifically because this was where the Chimichanga was invented. Just to be clear... I'm not a Chimichanga fan in the first place... A plain ole' burrito smothered in Gravy is my preference. However, when in Rome... I'm going to have one where it was invented and I can tell my grand kids about it when I'm complaining about the Chimichanga that we are eating. The restaurant was very busy, it was lunch time, according to the waiter who was really too busy to tell me the history of the invention but did anyway. It was invented by accident... a plain ole' burrito (just like I prefer) was dropped into hot oil by accident, just like the invention of penicillin we have an unintentional Chimichanga. Chimichanga means "Pick that up off the floor" in Spanish. To tie a ribbon around it, this means that I... Riverbrian... chose to eat at a restaurant that became famous for mis-handling food. I told you that my food choices are not always pretty. BTW... I haven't changed my mind about Chimichangas.

I'm a little behind schedule, I am still being stubborn and insisting that it's mountain time so that intentionally cost me an hour, watching the gun fight knocked me back a bit but I wasn't worried because I have plenty of time. It's a casual Friday and I am just a couple of hours away from Phoenix.

When I arrived in Phoenix, it was 106 degrees. Just like it was in Dallas and it felt the same... this wasn't that famous dry heat... it was a wet heat just like Dallas. I was told it is the monsoon season. I didn't see any monsoon activity but... maybe that's why Dry Creek wasn't dry. You step out of the air conditioned vehicle and you just go "Uff Da... Dis is Hot". That's right... It is so hot that the Norwegian accent you have suppressed for decades and generations... comes back in an attempt to remind you of colder times. I immediately scrap the plan to hoof around Phoenix before the game, I sat in my hotel room, turned the thermostat down to 17 degrees and I tried to figure out how to use the Uber App that I downloaded back home before I left (I have never taken an Uber before) because Uber was how I was getting to and from the game.

Uber was easy... You push that come get me button or whatever it said and some guy named Keith came and got me. I didn't even have to tell it where I was.

At the game, I had decent seats along the left field line. I mentioned this in an earlier posting... Chase Field belongs in the same group as the 4 roofed stadiums that I have now seen. I'll Rank those 4: Milwaukee, Houston, Arizona, Texas in that order and then I will place that group behind the really interesting outdoor stadiums that I have seen. However, Let's be clear... it's 106 degrees... I am once again grateful for the roof so I am not knocking it. I didn't really check out the food choices because I was focused on the Sonoran Hot Dog. My research told me that this type of dog was really a Tucson deal but I used my Tucson time on the Chimichanga. The Sonoran Hot Dog is a Hot Dog and then they throw everything on it. It's probably the stuff that has fallen on the floor when they make other stuff... I have no idea, it's got white stuff, red stuff, green stuff, I have a hard time recognizing vegetables, there was definitely bacon on it. It was very good... I enjoyed it, yet I still felt like I probably had a watered down version of it. They were probably made full strength in Tucson.

After the game... I had the Uber thing down now so I pushed the come get me button and it didn't work so well this time. It immediately told me that some Guy named Guy... (I'm not making that up but I do admit that I thought, it was a designation for some driver who didn't want to enter his real name in)... was 15 minutes away. I was standing outside the stadium on a street that was blocked for post game traffic control when I pushed the button and put the phone back in my pocket. I immediately deduced that there was no way that an Uber could get to me with the street blocked, so I followed the crowd under the impression that the driver could follow my movements and readjust. I figured the crowd and I would eventually hit a clear intersection for easy pick up. The direction I walked was the opposite direction that Uber wanted me to go. Apparently, there was a designated pick up spot that I was supposed to walk toward and that spot was listed BY STREET NAME which was useless to me. I later found out that there was an arrow that would have pointed what direction I was walking but I swear to god... I didn't know and I couldn't see that arrow with the phone in my pocket. Eventually Guy, was able to find me sometime around 5AM and he got me back to the Hotel.

I have a long drive ahead of me tomorrow. I am scheduled to depart at 8:01AM

Squirrel · August 22, 2022

See, now, you really should have visited the Chiricahua National Monument instead of The Thing. A national monument! It has a national designation like a national park. But maybe visit there in March or October instead of the dead of summer ?

Oh, and you really need to insert some photos. Seeing is believing.

Craig Arko · August 22, 2022

The Truth is out there.

Squirrel · August 22, 2022

3 minutes ago, Craig Arko said:

The Truth is out there.

I don’t think he went to Roswell, NM

Craig Arko · August 22, 2022

Just now, Squirrel said:

I don’t think he went to Roswell, NM

That just means he hasn't found The Truth yet, But it abides...

Riverbrian · August 24, 2022

On 8/22/2022 at 9:02 AM, Squirrel said:

See, now, you really should have visited the Chiricahua National Monument instead of The Thing. A national monument! It has a national designation like a national park. But maybe visit there in March or October instead of the dead of summer ?

Oh, and you really need to insert some photos. Seeing is believing.

I have photo's on my phone. Badly taken photo's for the most part because I'm not the best at that sort of thing. Got to find the time to transfer them to my PC and with my limited skills it seems to be a lengthy process. Maybe I'll do a photo dump at the end.