A State Named Arizona.

[retromike22]

I'll be in Phoenix until Sunday evening, hoping to explore more of Arizona. I hope to hike in the Grand Canyon tomorrow and maybe see Tombstone on Saturday

On the flight over, I had an empty seat next to me for the very first time!


#movingonup #secondclass

I'm currently alone at my niece's apartment since she wanted to see the Avengers movie and I wasn't interested in it. But I found lemon meringue pie in the refrigerator!

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

RIP person next to retromike : (

[Murica!]

RIP person next to retromike

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

RIP another state.

[retromike22]

Some background:

A week ago, my niece told me that she had a new roommate.... who was a guy. I was concerned, but I tried not to make any assumptions. My niece picks me up from the airport, and we go to her apartment. I just meet him for less than a few minutes before they rush out to see the Avengers movie. First impressions: This guy is ghetto.

I do a little bit of homework, and decide to watch the movie Tombstone, which was really good and almost felt as if it was filmed in the 1950s or 1960s.

They come back around 1:30, which is around the same time I go to sleep.

I make a few more observations: This guy is one of those mostly fat/buff guys who thinks he's buff but is mostly fat. He cusses a lot, is vulgar, carries a gun everywhere he goes, and.... he doesn't use a seat belt!

I try really, really hard not to say anything. As I'm going to sleep, I keep feeling that this dynamic is extremely familiar: Out of state relative visits close relative who lives with someone that the visiting relative is immediately disgusted by.

I'm trying to figure it out, and then I realize it's .... A Streetcar named Desire. The guy is Stanley, my niece is Stella, and I'm......Blanche.

[retromike22]

Day 2:

We go to the Grand Canyon. Thankfully the guy doesn't come with us because he has a job interview because, he's unemployed. (oh joy)

The drive is longer than I remember from a year and a half ago. My niece and I walk along the rim for a while which is is really nice and the air is so clean

[Adam Griffin]

We go to the Grand Canyon. Thankfully the guy doesn't come with us because he has a job interview because, he's unemployed. (oh joy)

The drive is longer than I remember from a year and a half ago. My niece and I walk along the rim for a while which is is really nice and the air is so clean

RIP retromike's sister

[retromike22]

Day 2, cont. A few more pictures from the hike. The crowd at the park is moderately sized and I'm guessing about 40-50% were foreigners. I noticed the same thing when I went to Yosemite Nat'l Park a few years ago, and when you combine that with a shuttle bus system, it almost feels cosmopolitan. There were a lot of French and Japanese visitors, several Russian as well. My only regret from this day is that since it's a day trip from Phoenix, we can't spend more time there. The next time I visit, I'll spend the night so I can try to see more. South Kaibab Trail I will conquer you one day despite the acrophobia!

[retromike22]

Day 2, cont: We arrive back very late, around 9pm and we are starving. We go with my niece's roommate  to Buffalo Wild Wings, a place that both have bragged about but I have never been to. I ate a lot of food, but I just thought it was okay. The roommate had two Coronas. After we finished eating around 11pm, my niece's roommate goes to pick up hot wings from a neighboring bar/restaurant where he used to be a bouncer. That's what he told us. That we were just going to pick up hot wings. After about an hour of him casually chatting with new people and having 2 more Coronas my niece apologized, saying "When he starts he can't stop." But she could sense that I was exhausted from the drive + hiking + no shower and drove me back to the apartment to drop me off around midnight. On the drive she asked me what I thought about him. I gave my full and honest opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SISMyPbU3s

My niece and the roommate returned from the bar a bit after 2am.

Roommate's Corona Count: 4

[free my dawg]

...my God, I'm one of the skinniest guys on here and I don't even get drunk off of four Coronas.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

...my God, I'm one of the skinniest guys on here and I don't even get drunk off of four Coronas.

Wait... drunk off four Coronas? Lol

[retromike22]

...my God, I'm one of the skinniest guys on here and I don't even get drunk off of four Coronas.

Wait... drunk off four Coronas? Lol

Oh he had an unknown number of shots when my niece was dropping me off.

[retromike22]

Day 3: The roommate, my niece, and I go to the south toward Tucson. The roommate is sitting in the back, very quiet, and probably napped most of the time. I'm not sure if this was from boredom or from hearing my Disney music playlist. We stop a few miles before downtown Tucson because we're staving and so we have Domino's pizza. Tucson is very, sad for the lack of a better word. If it wasn't for the skyscrapers it would look like Iraq. We drive past the downtown area and head to the Pima Air & Space Museum. HOLY COW this place was amazing.

[retromike22]

Day 3, cont: The museum has several hangers that we can enter and one is a space themed hanger. This hanger that has a few simple simulators and a tiny, tiny piece of the MOON that an eager employee informed me was insured for $10 million. Outside it's hot but there's enough planes that I can follow the shade.

This is Air Force One, when used by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson:



I've never seen this type of plane before:



They had a model of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the engine was huge:



Another shameless selfie:


After a few hours at the museum, I decide to hurry up so we can continue our drive to... Tombstone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQFVeAeKqWM

[retromike22]

Day 3, cont: Tombstone is about 40 minutes from the museum, and on the way the sky darkens and we pass through some rain. It stops by the time we arrive.



We get to the town later than I had hoped, probably around 4:30pm, and all the reenactments are done for the day But the courthouse is still open and we start our walk there. Inside it's full of old mining tools and some historical artifacts. Outside in a small yard they have the gallows.



"Please don't hang me Sheriff, I swore I thoughts yer wifi was free!"

[retromike22]

Day 3, cont: After the courthouse we walk to the main street, which is closed off to cars. It's mostly dead, either because it's late in the day or too early in the year. I see the O.K. Corral for less than five seconds before they close it at 5pm



But since I just saw it for the first time two days earlier, the movie is still fresh in my mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRiWAxMMX5o

There are a few reenactors, and an offer for a ghost tour. But we're hungry and decide to go to a restaurant where I order a fried onion and a giant steak. The roommate has 3 Coronas.

Roommate Corona Count: 7

The rest of the town is so quiet, it almost feels like I've traveled through time. Also with no cell phone reception, no one is texting or calling on their phones. (Which is actually very pleasant to see).







A few moments before it closes, I go to the photography store to do what must be done.



I'm trying so hard to make as masculine a face as possible. As my dad warned me: "No one smiles in cowboy pictures. You'd get shot for smiling!"

[retromike22]

Day 3, cont:

I should mention that on the drive on the road from the 10 Freeway to Tombstone I noticed a checkpoint. So on the way back, I was not surprised that we had to stop. There were three officers and one of them asked us if we were all citizens. We all replied "yes" in unison and then he said, "Okay, have a nice drive." And so we did. He didn't ask us for our papers. It's okay fellow Hispanics, Arizona didn't deport me

We arrive back at my niece's apartment pretty late and the roommate wants to watch my movie. So he does and he likes it, which improves my opinion of him.

My niece has had a new puppy for a few months, and although I had been warned that he was very irritating, I get along with him fairly well. Until..... I get ready to go to sleep that night, and he jumps on my air mattress and pisses right on it. I punch him with my fist and he runs away. Thankfully my niece has spare sheets.

[retromike22]

Day 4:

Both my niece and the roommate leave the apartment early because apparently both of them go to church every Sunday. It's a Protestant church, but I think to myself that his behavior is such a Roman Catholic thing to do. Party, drink, and sin all week, but go to church on Sunday in the belief that it balances out. I politely declined ahead of time, partially due to agnostic reasons and partially due to sleepy reasons.

I play fetch with the dog for a while, until the time passes 1pm and I become very hungry. I text my niece that I am, and she tells me they will be home soon. I jokingly text back that I should eat the dog and she tells me not to. While I'm on the internet I decide to google "dog meat" and stumble upon this gem:

http://koreandogs.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/dog-elixir2.jpg

I spend a while thinking about food taboos and how certain meats are acceptable and others are not, but it's all based on cultural reasons and not health or taste reasons. Such as how many non-western cultures eat insects and that it is more economically efficient to produce. Thankfully my niece and the roommate arrive to put an end to this contemplating and we go to Chili's.

Roommate Corona count: 10

After the gluttony we're exhausted and so we go back to the apartment where the two of them watch my DVD of Tombstone and I work on some homework.

At 5pm my niece drives me to the airport. I give more of my opinion of the roommate and warn her about the family's reaction should she choose to bring him to visit next month (which she plans to). I'm still very concerned about the whole "roommate living with niece but he's not a boyfriend" situation. But as my momma says: "When people make bad choices, they have to learn things the hard way." The family is expecting a full gossip report at the next family event so I can already feel the pressure. (That's not a joke, I seriously got asked questions about the situation less than 5 minutes after I was picked up from the airport)

The Phoenix airport is packed but I arrive with enough time to wait about 40 minutes before I enter the airplane. The flight is bumpy but not too bad. One of the flight attendants is really, really cute. We make eye contact a few times. Later he's taking requests for drinks and asks me what I would like. I reply: "Just water." That water was so good, with just the right amount of ice. I arrive at my local airport safely and say thank you to the cute flight attendant as I depart. Thank you unknown cute flight attendant for the cool water and for the company as you help me escape the "Streetcar Named Desire" real life simulation.

Whoever you are, I've always depended on the kindness of strangers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSTd1LuiVUs

THE END

[free my dawg]

Bravo. Dare I say this has filled the space of Update.