Trying New Restaurants: Mezcal

I've started a series recently about trying new restaurants in the area. It stems from our New Years-ish resolution to try new restaurants & revisit old ones we haven't been to in almost forever. Already I've written about a few in the "revisit" category. Now it's time for one that's genuinely, completely new to us!

Mezcal is a Mexican/Oaxacan restaurant in downtown San Jose. We don't go to downtown SJ a lot. In fact we almost never go. There's... not exactly a lot there that's a draw. But part of exploring new restaurants is exploring new or rarely visited places.

The restaurant is sort of like an overgrown cantina/bar. There are a few small-ish tables in the bar area then a bunch more tables in a semi-outdoors area next door. The evening we visited was a bit chilly outside. The dining area was only tolerable because we sat next to a heat lamp and brought sweaters because we expected it would be cool at night. I could see it being more fun on a warm summer evening.

As a restaurant that specializes in regional dishes from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca (pronounced Wah-HA-ka, if you're curious) Mezcal is a bit different from the northern Mexican and Mexican-American styles of cuisine served at most Mexican restaurants in the US. With Oaxacan style cuisine they have a few different takes on mole. I like mole so it was fun to sample different types.

The food at Mezcal was solidly good. Prices seemed too high, though. Food was a notch too expensive for the area, and alcohol was, like, two notches overpriced. I chose not to sweat the prices in the moment and instead focused on enjoying my meal and drinks. But in the overall analysis I would not go back as I felt it was more expensive than it was worth. And it's in downtown SJ, which seems like a fuss to get to just for dinner— even though the city is generally deadsville after 7 on weeknights and all day on weekends.

The Price of Gas in Phoenix

Phoenix Getaway Travelog #12

I forgot to mention in my previous blogs about our weekend trip to Phoenix that I was surprised by how high gas prices were. They were even higher than California... at least vs. where I live.

When I bought gas for our rental car on Monday the cheapest Costco station was $4.399 (Costco shows prices in their app, making them easy to check and compare) and the cheapest station of any other kind I saw was $4.499. Back here in Silicon Valley yesterday gas at the nearby Costco was $4.249 and the cheapest non-Costco station in my part of town was $4.399.

This was surprising because California is so routinely maligned for having gas prices higher than the rest of the country. Indeed, gas is a lot cheaper in many other states. Why is Arizona now one of the more expensive ones? A quick search on recent news articles indicates that Arizona now requires different formulations of gas at different times of year in different parts of the state. Example coverage: ABC 15 article/video (28 Mar 2023). Right now Arizona is in a changeover period, and there's a demand spike due to Spring Break travel.

Steep, Steeper, Steeper-er: Ascending Camelback Peak, part 2

Phoenix Getaway Travelog #6
Echo Canyon Trail - Sun, 1 Apr 2023, 9am

The Echo Canyon Trail to Camelback Peak is up, up, up. And it is steep. The trail begins with a graded ascent to Echo Saddle then climbs a set of stairs made of railroad ties. After that it really gets steep. And you're doing the ascent on bare rock.



Trail? Ha ha. There's barely anything like a trail here. Over by that fence, which has a sturdy rail you can hold onto, there are some vague steps blasted into the rock. But they're so irregular you pretty much need to hold onto the rail if you try to use them.

We scrambled up the bare rock freehand, relying on the traction of our footwear and our familiarity with route-finding on bare rock to get us through.



The next steep section, even steeper, had a rail running right down the middle of it. We needed to use it to pull ourselves up through a few steep spots. Most of the people coming down were holding onto the rail on the left (their right) to descend. Coming down really steep sections is, in some ways, harder than going up.



After these steep sections we hit a flattish part of the trail for a while. This stretch offered our first real view of Camelback Peak from the trail. As you can see (pic above) there's a still a lot of up remaining.

When we hiked this trail years ago, this is as far as we got. We may even have turned around partway up the steep section shown in the previous photo. We were in better physical condition then but the weather was against us. It was hot. It was already over 90° not long after dawn, making those super steep sections absolutely grueling. 🥵 The weather today is so much nicer for this hike. With a high temperature forecast of 81° F (27° C) mid-afternoon it's at most in the low 70s (about 22° C) here at 9am.

The flattish section gave way to ascent soon enough again. And despite the cooler weather now than on our previous attempt, it was still a grueling slog.



After another steep section or two we hit another flattish stretch. Here I scrambled up the ridge to sneak a view out over the valley to downtown Phoenix.

Around this part we also found a trail sign indicating we still had another 500+ feet of ascent. I was... nonplussed. 🥵 Okay, I'm more than nonplussed, I'm frankly demotivated. As tired as I am from all the climbing to get to this point I'm not sure I have enough energy left to make it all the way.

Hawk reminded me of our hike up the Koko Head Tramline Trail in Hawaii a year ago. At various times on that trail we weren't sure we'd make it all the way but we did. We did that by taking it one bit at a time, allowing ourselves rests, and keeping an eye on the prize— the top.

To be continued....