Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Phoenix late April travelog #3
Arizona Grand Hotel - Friday, 28 Apr 2023, 7:45am

When Hawk and our friends and I were discussing plans last night we agreed that we'd do an evening soak in the hot tub between 9-10pm, hang until maybe 11pm, get up this morning around 8, and meet for our first laps at the lazy river around 10. It was a grand idea for a relaxing vacation. But then my body had other ideas.

I zonked out not long after 9pm with no energy for the hot tub. Fortunately everyone else was tired, too, so I didn't miss out on much. Then I woke up this morning a little after 5am. That was definitely not my plan! 😡 Blame it on a combination of jetlag (I was in a timezone 2 hours ahead the previous 7 days) and Arizona not doing Daylight Saving Time— so the first light of dawn was already brightening our room through the balcony doors before 5:30.

Being out of alignment with my own plans feels frustrating. At the same time, though, I remind myself I'm on vacation. This is purposefully a relaxing vacation, so keeping a schedule doesn't matter as much as other times. But still, the purpose of making— and keeping— a schedule is to ensure I have opportunities to enjoy myself while doing stuff. Just sitting around the hotel at odd hours is relaxing... but also frustrating because I'm paying a lot to be here. If I just wanted to sit around and relax, I could do it at home for free.

Phoenix late April travelog #1
38,000' over Texas - Thursday, 27 Apr 2023, 9am

This morning we awoke early, alarms ringing at 5am, for our fligth to Phoenix. We had a 7:25am departure out of New Orleans. I say had because by the time we returned the rental car and checked our flight status....



...Our flight was already delayed.

It's surprising to see a delay this early in the morning. I've noted before that Southwest usually has delays later in the day but not in the morning. That's partly because they don't do overnight flights. In fact they use the overnight period when no planes are flying to reboot their systems. Yes, they do preventive reboot of their entire IT system every single night. They stated this in the news recently after their latest operational meltdown. While there are all kinds of problems with the situation that makes that necessary, one benefit is that usually first-of-the-morning flights run fine as nothing's had time to go wrong yet. Usually. Edit: it wasn't a first-of-the-morning flight. Our aircraft already made a trip from Austin to New Orleans.

Well, now we're in the air. Our delay at one point looked to be as bad as 30 minutes, but amounted to just under 15 minutes when we left. I don't even mind terribly as we were getting in to Phoenix plenty early anyway. We'll see what's ready when we get there.

This weekend we've been replanning our next trip: the one we leave for on Friday! For a while things were looking... not good. We canceled our 4 days in Pensacola Beach, Florida. That made sense because they were duplicative with another trip we've got in May. But that left me wondering if the rest of the trip the trip held together. Yesterday we explored a few alternatives to fill out the trip again, but none of them worked. Today we had one last idea to try... and it clicked!

We're replacing our 4 days at the beach in Florida with 4 days at a resort in Phoenix. It's another splashy-pools resort like we visited two weeks ago. Except this one has an even bigger waterpark. (it was recommended by some folks we shared a hot tub with at the other hotel.) And it's not merely a repeat of something we did two weeks ago because we'll be going there with friends.

We were over at these friends' house today. They were already planning a trip to this resort because we'd mentioned it to them. They were talking about going in May. "What do you think about going in late April instead, and we meet you there?" we asked. They jumped at the suggestion. We checked flight and hotel reservations together from the dining room table, determined it was doable, and started booking.

So now our trip starting this coming Friday morning is:

• Fly to New Orleans, spending 4 days there


• Rent a car to drive to Mississippi, hiking a few trails over the course of 2 days


• Return the car and fly to Phoenix


• 3-4 days of splashing around in the pools in Phoenix, plus maybe do other stuff


• Fly home

I'm glad we're back to a full 10/10 days with this trip instead of 6/10. And as a bonus, it's an even better 10/10 now because we'll share part of the trip with friends.

Phoenix Getaway Travelog #9
Back at the hotel - Mon, 3 Apr 2023, 10:30pm

After we finished our hike up-up-up and back down-down-down Camelback Peak this afternoon it was time for lunch. We ate at a small Navajo-Mex restaurant. It's "-Mex" because the styles of food are (northern) Mexican, with tacos and tostadas and burritos. But it's Navajo because a) the owners and staff are all/mostly Navajo, and b) the specialty on the menu is frybread. We both had open-face frybreads piled high with various toppings (meat, beans, cheese, lettuce, sauce) a la tostadas.

Muscle stiffness was setting in for me so I gobbled a bunch of Ibuprofen with my meal. Afterwards we visited a Walgreen's drugstore to buy topical painkiller for my wrenched shoulder. I considered Voltaren gel and Aspercream. I went with the Aspercream figuring I was already taking Ibuprofen in pill form for my legs. Voltaren is basically topical Ibuprofen, and I didn't want to overdose it. Aspercream is a different type of medication, an analgesic versus an NSAID, so they're safer to combine.

Back at the hotel I slathered some of the pain cream on my shoulder and changed for the pool. That's right, after a butt-kicker of a hike we're going to the pool! And not just a pool but the hotel's lazy river.



Hawk and I both wondered if me lying prone atop a float and going around the loop for 2 hours would aggravate my shoulder. You know what? It didn't. It was actually awesome. Awesome not just to relax but to actually be lazy. I mean, it's a lazy river. If you paddle to go faster, the lifeguards throw you out. ...Or I imagine they would, if there were actually any lifeguards.

Our lazy rest of the day included more than just the lazy river. After lazily floating around for about 2 hours I stretched out on a chaise lounge under some shade. I lazed there until Hawk was ready to go in, around 5pm. Then we lazed up in the room toghether. I stretched out on the bed while Hawk took the sofa. (There was room for both on the bed but she preferred the sofa.)

After a few hours of lazing in the room it was time for dinner. We'd had a late lunch— and I'd supplemented mine with a delicious milkshake from Jack in the Box— so we weren't super hungry. We ate leftovers in the room. I still had several slices of deep dish pizza left over from dinner the night before. I ate two and left the rest for Monday's breakfast.

After dinner we changed back into our swimsuits, which were still damp, and headed down to the hot tub. We had a good long soak and made conversation with the other folks there. One works at a company that is a customer of mine but hasn't heard about our product— and desperately needs it. She didn't want to give me more than her first name (I understand women feeling a bit cautious when meeting strangers half-naked) but I told her how to find out more about our software, and she said she'd look it up.

Okay, doing some selling in the hot tub was definitely not lazy! But soon we toweled off, came back to our room, and vegged with TV and computers. I've rubbed on another treatment of Aspercream as my shoulder was getting achy again. The cream definitely helps though it doesn't completely solve the pain. It's enough at least to make it ignorable when I don't think about it.

Now, it's off to bed. We've got more lazing to do tomorrow morning!

Phoenix Getaway Travelog #7
Echo Canyon Trail - Sun, 1 Apr 2023, 10am

Whew! We made it to the top of Phoenix's Camelback Peak. There were several times on the way up many steep sections of "trail" I doubted I'd make it. But like I encouraged Hawk on the Koko Head Tramline Trail a year ago to keep taking it one bit at a time, she was my voice of inspiration here. Oh, and after all those steep sections earlier... there were more.



The last four or so steep sections were like this, basically boulder-choked canyons. The funny thing about the steep sections lower down with rails on them is that by the time you get up here you wish there were more rails!



Through these final stretches there's no trail. I mean, you can't get lost. A) you keep going up until you can't go up any more. And B) in case you forget which way is up, there are dozens of other people going that way, too, on a nice weekend morning.



The views from the top are impressive. They're true 360° views. Almost nothing else for miles around is as tall as Camelback Peak.



Of course, on the aforementioned nice weekend morning one gets to share those nice views with dozens of other hikers. It's still possible, though, to find a bit of solitude atop the busy peak....



While everyone else is looking to the southwest, across the city of Phoenix, it's quieter out here with the view to the east. The green ridge below us is the eastern flank of Camelback Mountain. There's a trail that comes up it from the valley below. That's the Cholla trail. Maybe next time we'll try hiking up from that side!

Before there's a next time, though, we have to get down. All those steep parts... yeah, not gonna be fun on the descent. Especially as my legs are already feeling rubbery from the climb.

Stay tuned for more!

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.

Phoenix Getaway Travelog #11
Back home - Mon, 3 Apr 2023, 10:15pm

Flying from point A to point B always takes way longer than the scheduled flight time. In the case of getting home from Phoenix on Monday, a nominally 1:55 flight was part of a door-to-door journey that took 8 hours.

No, the difference of 6 hours wasn't the dreaded flight delay. Yes, there was a flight delay. After all, we were flying Southwest!



...But the delay only added 45 minutes to the trip. Here's how the whole 8 hour thing worked out:

• We left the hotel at 2pm after our last hurrah (previous blog)


• We drove to the airport, stopping for gas along the way and shopping at 2 bead stores


• We returned the car at 3:35pm and took the tram to the airport


• Security screening took only about 5 minutes, unlike at Oakland Saturday morning where it took almost 30 even in the TSA PreCheck lane


• At 4:50pm boarding for our flight was paused for sudden maintenance. The pilot later joked, "The 'Check Engine' light was on."
  
  


• Waiting through the delay was kind of weird because Hawk had already boarded and I was still in the queue in the terminal. I used the free time to unpack a protein bar from my suitcase and buy a soda from the newsstand.


• At 5:30pm we resumed boarding. It would be another half hour before the flight took off


• We landed at OAK commensurately late and walked to our car parked in the daily lot. Brrr, it was cold out! Only about 50° and windy, and we were dressed for sunny and 80°.


• Driving and parking at the airport was part of our plan for saving time getting home. Plus, with a discount on the parking, it was no more costly than taking Uber/Lyft both ways. And it did save time. But still it was well past 8pm when we were rolling.


• Another planned benefit of driving our own car was knowing we could stop for dinner en route home. We were famished! We hit a favorite chain sit-down restaurant for a quick, late dinner.


• At 10pm we walked through our own front door.

"Why not drive all the way instead of flying?" a number of folks we chatted with at the waterpark over the past few days asked. "Because it's 12 hours each way plus stops!" I told them. Actually, doing a quick map check now I see that it's really only about 11 hours plus stops... plus traffic. Even so, on a drive that long that's going to be closer to 14 hours. We're so much happier with "only" 8 hours even with the waiting and delays flying entailed.

Phoenix Getaway Travelog #4
At the hotel - Sat, 1 Apr 2023, 10:30pm

Our simple plan this afternoon of "visit a gem shop then get an easy dinner" wound up taking, like, four hours for a multitude of little problems I don't care to repeat. Like, nothing went right the first time. But now I'm relaxed and happy and don't care to rehash it.

Why happy? Because once we got back to our hotel we ate some dessert we'd bought at the store then went outside to one of the hot tubs for a nice, long soak. The water was really hot (many hotel hot tubs are not hot enough) and, surprisingly, it didn't sting anywhere. That means I didn't get burned while floating around on the lazy river earlier today. Yay, sun tan lotion! ...Especially because being really selective with packing sun tan lotion was one of the tradeoffs we had to make with our decision last night to travel only with carry-on bags this trip.

We're winding down now a good first day on this weekend getaway. I wish it were a bit earlier as today was an early day— up at 5:30am— and we've got another early day planned for tomorrow. Okay, we've only set our alarms for 6am this time, but it's going to be a tiring day as we're going to start with a hike up Camelback Peak. It's an ascent of about 1,400 feet on a trail that is brutally steep.

Phoenix Getaway Travelog #2
Around and about in Phoenix - Sat, 1 Apr 2023, 1pm

Although things were flowing well on schedule this morning as we waited at the airport we wound up taking off 20 minutes late from Oakland today. The crew opened the aircraft door again after locking it. They never open the door, not for me anyway. "Whoa, must be some super VIP late boarding," I figured. Then nobody came. I asked one of the flight attendants after it was closed the second time. "It was for baggage," she explained. What?

Running late carried through to arrival. We were about 15 minutes late there. And somewhere a few rows behind me was a child who coughed for the entire flight.

Hawk and I saved ourselves time in the schedule today by not checking a bag. We made that decision last night. Our original plan had been to take a large, checked bag, filled with our hiking gear. Then we decided, let's go gear-light and save ourselves the time and hassles of checking and retrieving a bag. I'm glad we did, because Oakland airport was heaving. And claiming the bag at Phoenix likely wouldn't have been fast, either.

One thing that has improved at PHX airport is the tram to the rental car center. Yes, there's a tram! It's still a long ride, but the tram is a vast improvement over the rattle-trap buses they ran for years. It's probably a loss for area dentists, who now have fewer patients needing to replace fillings that fell out.

Once we had our car we decided to go shopping. Yes, we traveled all the way to Phoenix to shop. ...But seriously, we figured the hotel may not be ready to give us a room at 12, and Hawk found a gem store nearby she wanted to visit. So we shopped there then ate a quickie lunch in the area. Now it's off to the hotel to enjoy the swimming pools!

We're going to Phoenix this coming weekend. That sounds like a nice little last-minute getaway, right? Well, it's not last minute. We've had this trip planned for months. What is last minute is us wondering whether to pull the plug. 😰

Five Things:

1) We planned this trip at the start of the year. Basically we spent part of the New Year holiday break discussing, "Where do we want to travel this year?" One of the ideas was to spend a few days in Phoenix at the hotel where we love splashing around in the pools. If you click click that link and look at the date of the journal I linked to, you'll see it's from 2017. Yes, that's the last time we were there!

2) The planning for this trip really goes back three years. We had this trip planned for April 2020 but canceled it when Coronavirus became a true global pandemic. It took us until this year to get it back on our calendar. It's not that we're taking a long trip; it's a 3-day weekend. But every day off takes planning as it's always a question of "What best could we do with our limited time off from work?" Finding the right time to reschedule this put it out into 2023. 😔

3) Weather WTF? We chose early April for this trip because it's shoulder season in Phoenix. It's a time of the year when weather is warm enough to enjoy swimming outdoors but not middle-of-the-summer 113° (45° C) 🥵 hot. In the past early April has always seemed like a good time. For the past two weeks, though, Phoenix has been in a cold snap. I've been watching the daily weather; for several days in a row the temps didn't rise about the 60s. WTF, Phoenix?

4) We almost canceled several times. Seeing weather in Phoenix way too cool for enjoying swimming I started considering alternatives. We could pull the plug on Phoenix without losing money (reservations are all refundable)... but where would we go? A lot of other places on our list are too snowy right now. We'll have to leave those for later in the year, especially with the big snow season we've had in the west this year. And trips further east than Phoenix don't really work in the short, 3 day timeframe we have.

5) Phoenix, it is. Getting warmer. Ultimately I didn't cancel the Phoenix trip because I refused to do so until I had something credible as an alternative lined up. Nothing lined up. And now the weather forecast for next weekend is getting a bit warmer. Forecasts of upper 70s have climbed to 80 and now to the low 80s. That's still not quite warm enough for real swimming weather... but maybe the warming trend will continue! And if it doesn't, we'll spend less time swimming and more time hiking.