We're back ...

... but still on West Coast time. I've been walking around all day like a zombie with that certain slight headache/nausea caused by exhaustion. Definitely should be in bed by now.

We had a great time although Phoenix itself was slightly disappointing. It turns out that staying in downtown Phoenix is sort of like staying in downtown Raleigh (I would imagine): clean, safe, dead after 5 and on weekends.

Over the course of the first day we did a lot of walking from the hotel. A huge religious convention was being held at the civic center across the street and most of our hotel was full of attendees. We were about three seconds from a symphony hall, a theater, a couple of museums and the Arizona Suns (?) stadium, so we thought we'd be able to find something to do, but we were wrong. It seemed that everything was on hiatus and scheduled to wind back up after Labor Day.

You can only walk so far in 115-degree heat, and the bus system was very slow, and the cabs were very expensive, so on Sunday we decided to rent a car for the remainder of the trip. (One perk of visiting over Labor Day weekend: free parking everywhere!) There was an Enterprise place at our hotel so we tried it first but they were out of cars so we had to go back to the airport, where we wound up renting from Alamo. They were inexpensive and friendly and gave us a free upgrade to a little black Nissan Sentra that reminded me so much of my/Amanda's/Dad's little silver Toyota Camry. I loved it!

Matt navigated and I drove and we spent most of the rest of our time in Scottsdale, Tempe and a couple of smaller towns I can't think of right now. We didn't venture too far but we got in some good window shopping and saw some nice views and ate some good food.

One of the places we ate was a fast-growing chain called The Yard House. Its slogan is "Great food. Classic rock. World's largest selection of draft beer." Of course all that was right up Matt's alley and then he found out they sold pint glasses for $1 each. He wanted to buy 20. I talked him down to five. I think I have persuaded him to give away four.

Yay! It's time to switch the last load of laundry and then we're off to bed. I'll try to finish writing about the trip tomorrow.