Travel Diary: Tucson, a tale of two cities
It’s funny how sometimes we can live in a particular area for years and never truly explore the world we live in. Like lifelong New Yorkers who have never been the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty. I’ve lived in Arizona off and on for over 20 years and have only rarely driven to Tucson, mostly through. And given what most of us see as we pass through the former capital of the state, there doesn’t appear to be much to see. It’s old, it’s ugly, and if they didn’t have the University of Arizona, it would be a ghost town. Needless to say when I found out I had a 9am meeting in Tucson last week, I was less than excited. When I did the math and realized I’d have to be on the road before 7am, I was even less excited. So get up way too early, 110 mile drive, visit one of the ugliest cities in the state, yeah I was psyched, thank God for Starbucks.
On Friday however, I learned that Tucson is indeed a tale of two cities. Much like Batman’s nemesis Two-Face, Tucson also has two sides which are indeed polar opposites. I have now visited the oft rumored about, but seldom see ‘nice part’ of Tucson, the ‘foothills’. I’ve long heard that the ‘foothills’ are beautiful, but much like Bigfoot or the Lochness Monster, they were merely the stuff of legend. I’m here to report that this northern part of Tucson is indeed exists and is quite beautiful. Rolling hills and canyons with lush landscape, it almost made me forget I was in Tucson.
We had a great meeting with a resort company and I was all set to revise my thinking about our southern sister city when we journeyed to our second stop closer to downtown. We went from beautiful desert oasis to nasty rundownsville in about 10 mins. Now this was the Tucson I’d been loathing all these years. We had a so-so meeting with a pest control company and then thankfully I was on my way home. At least they had an In-N-Out Burger, so they do have that going for them. All in all I’d still recommend passing on your next invitation to Tucson, but if you must go, be sure to exit at Ina Road. Anything south of there is at your own risk.
Until next time…
Travel Diary; Do you know the way to San Jose? I do
So if you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been traveling much lately, which is actually fine with me. As much as I love dealing with the TSA, rental cars and room service, I’d much rather stay close to home.
However, this week called for a little road trip, so off I went to lovely (so not) San Jose.
First class Soutwest style…sort of -In case you missed the commercials, Southwest has a new business Business Select pricing to go along with their new ‘A-list’ rewards program. The long and short of it is this, you pay more, but not a lot more and get automatic ‘A’ boarding group and a free drink coupon. The only thing that makes this worth it is if you forget to check in or can’t, you’re still in ‘A’ vs in up front in a middle seat surrounded by screaming kids. I’ll take it.
Some things never change- For all their advances with seating, boarding groups and amateur comedian flight attendants, Southwest still can’t seem to get anywhere on time. Nothing like a 45 min delay to start your trip.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day- I’ve railed loud and long about my distaste for Avis and they’re ‘not trying harder’ customer service. Today however, my name was on the big board where it’s supposed to be and my car was less than a 1/4 mile away, I even got an upgrade to a Chrysler 300…saweeeet!
Sometimes the stars align…in my favor -My travels can take me literally anywhere in the US and frequently a 2-3 hour plane ride is just the beginning, as a 30-60 mile trek to the hotel/company site from the airport is not unheard of. This time however, 10 mins after leaving Avis I pulled into the Marriott right next door to Yahoo’s headquarters. No sign of Bill Gates and his cronies.
CPK is once again A-OK- One of my favorite airport restaurants in California Pizza Kitchen. A little Thai Chicken Pizza and Diet Coke is frequently good for my weary travelers soul. Today was such a day. As Hannibal from the A-team used to say ‘I love it when a plan comes together’.
Well that’s about it for this little adventure. If all goes well (fingers crossed), I’ll be home in time for dinner. Until next time, I’m off to the ‘A’ boarding group.
Travel Diary: The Griswold Family Vacation
Ah, the family vacation, a chance to trade the hassles of the daily grind and pack up the whole fam damily and really see what stress is really like. For spring break we decided to take our clan on a little history oriented trip to the birthplace of our nation, Philadelphia. Hang on to your hats and glasses, it was quite an adventure.
Missed it by that much -turns out getting the wife, the 13 yr old and the 1 yr old on an airplane is much harder than doing it solo. We headed out to the airport, what I thought was plenty early and even with a bit of a delay at Starbucks, the HOV lane saved us some time on the way to the airport, so far so good. Once there, we divided and conquered; my wife and son took the luggage and got us checked in, while my daughter and I parked the car and hurried back to the terminal. Parking should have been simple, but $25/day at the terminal was ruled out since I couldn’t expense it, so off to satellite parking we went along with the 78 stops to get back to the terminal, time was suddenly no longer our friend. The line at security offered the wait of Space Mountain in June with none of the reward. Then came the challenge of getting 4 people, 4 bags, a stroller, a carseat, 4 pairs of shoes, 3 cellphones, a laptop and partridge in a pear tree through security. Why are we doing this? We rolled up to our gate, what I thought was right on time. Turned out we were a minute late, and even though the door was still open, they weren’t letting us on. Crap, now what!
The Amazing Race Family style -Since we missed our booked flight we had to look at our options for later flights. We could a: take a flight through Columbus in 2 hours where we would be standby to get to Columbus and then go on to Philly or b: we could take a flight through Chicago where we would be booked through Chicago, but on standby to Philly , but guaranteed a 9pm flight (hmm Chicago, I’ve seen that movie, I know how it ends) or c: we could call the whole thing off. If our bags weren’t already on their way I think ‘C’ would have won hands down. So with no where to go but forward, on we went. The Southwest attendants were actually very helpful and early on assured us we would have at least 3 seats…but wait I have 4 people.
A different kind of lapdance -Yeah, so we made the Columbus flight, but could only get 3 seats. So with the 13 yr old tucked up front with his newly adopted grandparents, my wife and I sat in the LAST row with our 1 yr old on our laps for the 3 1/2 hour flight to Columbus. What sounds hellish was actually not that bad, our daughter slept for over 90 mins and was fairly easily entertained for the rest of the flight, she even made all kinds of friends with those around us.
The road less traveled -packed up and loaded into our rental car we headed for downtown Philly. I had printed directions to the hotel, but I also inquired from the rental car dude on how best to get to downtown. Turns out his directions quickly deviated from the printed ones as my wife pointed out several times. After a couple of wrong turns and asking a cabbie for directions (see it is kind of like the Amazing Race) we found our hotel and got checked in sometime around 10pm. Thank God for room service!
Highlights -So while the weather wasn’t always accommodating and the 3 hour time difference made starting early tough, we saw some great stuff and ate some great food. Sights -Ben Franklin Institute; loads of hands on exhibits from the mind of Franklin and others, The Philadelphia Art Museum; Run up (or walk) the 99 steps Rocky made famous and have your picture taken with his statue from Rocky III, once inside there’s a nice display of American and European art. Independence Hall; the birthplace of America, we saw where the founding fathers met, argued about, and eventually signed the Declaration of Independence (great tour), the Liberty Bell; the icon of America is on display along with some great info about it’s history, Federal Reserve Bank; great exhibit on the history of money in America, Baseball as America; select items from the Baseball Hall of Fame, a must for baseball fans, Princeton; beautiful campus and downtown area, the kids better study hard. Food - Jones Restaurant; hip, fun and family friendly. Great food, we went there twice, El Vez - another fun and family friendly place, great margaritas and guacamole (this place would do well in AZ too), Ricks Steaks; tucked into Rittenhouse square, Ricks is one of the places that claims to have invented the cheesesteak. I don’t know about that, but the cheesesteak was very good.
There’s no place like home - As much as getting to Philadelphia was excruciating, getting home was a breeze. We made the flight and arrived back in Phoenix without a hitch. We even managed to joke about the trip on the drive from the airport so I’d say we had fun. We’re already talking about how to make the next one better. Stay tuned.
Until next time…
