Trip to Arizona

Last week I boarded a plane to go to Arizona to spend time with my mom, brother and grandfather. I love going back to spend time with them, friends and eat all the foods I can't get in Austin, but I don't love the weather. The average high while I was there was around 104 degrees. Normally I don't think I would have cared that much but I was just leaving Austin as they were going in to a cold front, where the high was right around 80 degrees. Aside from the weather, I had a fantastic time.

Lee picked me up at the airport, and we headed to a sports bar in Tempe. Sunday football starts at 10am in Phx, due to the time change. It was a little weird eating breakfast while watching football, but we had a really good time!!

Lee and his girlfriend Tracy

Aaron, Tracy and Lee

Sunday night I met up with my girls, Angie and Angela! We ate at a restaurant that had just so so food, but the food didn't really matter, what mattered was spending time with friends!!! We spent about 2.5 hrs there talking and catching up, and the time flew by. I miss these girls a ton and I love how we can pick up where we left off, even it it has been 6 months since we have talked. They are truly good friends that I know I can count on, and that they know they can count on me!!

Another highlight of my trip is going to Some Burros! This is not fine dining, this is not where you take a foodie to impress them with unique combination of flavors, but this IS where you get a DAMN DELICIOUS shredded beef chimi. I will tell you now, you will not find this in Austin. Austin likes to use ground beef or chicken in their chimis. Shredded beef is key, and so is their sauce. Oh Some Burros Chimi... how I love thee!! :)

After inhaling our Some Burros, we headed over to the casino near my mom's house. The Indian Reservations have casino's in Arizona and they are really nice. The casino that we went to is fairly new, has lots of slots and a decent amount of tables.

Pop Pop came out to join us at the casino! He did the best at the slots, winning lots of "bonus" pulls at the machine.

Electronic Roulette!!! LOVED this!

Hmmmm... this is a little scary. Mom with a big knife

Mom is the ASS of the month :)

Beautiful sunset in AZ

Cyrus, Lee's dog. I think he barked every time I tried to take a picture of him

I met Lee for breakfast one morning and ordered the Mexican Omelet... it was HUGE and really good! It was enough food for 2 different people.

One morning mom and I drove up to South Mountain to check out the view of the city. It had been years since we have been up there. It is about 5 miles above the city.

Waaaaatch Ouuuuuututttt!! I' m pretending to fall

Mom and I on South Mountain

I guess this is a chipmunk or some type of desert squirrel,,, SOOOOO cute!

Mom and I with her Halloween decorations

Family Dinner!

Pop Pop, Mom, Tracy, and Lee

Pop Pop, Mom, Tracy, and me

Pop Pop, Mom, Lee and me

Tracy, Lee and Me view of the sun coming up behind the mountains the morning I left AZ

Arizona, it has been fun! Waiting on my flight back to Austin, enjoying my Bucky's

My mom bought me a Grinch stuffed toy while I was visiting (LOVE the Grinch!) and Abby took it upon herself to take the toy out of my luggage and start gnawing on it! :) I had to wrestle it away from her. She loves stuffed toys, but she loves destroying them even more!

Arizona

I'm in the big AZ visiting my mom, brother and grandfather. I had a little time this morning, so I thought I would update my blog. The pictures below are from my camera phone and are only a few of what I have taken! I've been here 48 hrs and I have already hung out with my family, met up with my good friends Angie and Angela, ate at Some Burros, watched football with my brother, his girlfriend and his friend, drove around some of my old "stomping grounds", got lost in Phoenix at 10pm, slept really well, watched Phillies clinch the NL East, went to the casino, found TWO purses (I never find anything I like, I'm that picky, but I am amazed that I found TWO purses!!), found shoes at Nordy's Rack, and just having a nice relaxing time with everybody!!!


Enjoying my coffee, my book, and a surprisingly nice temperature morning on my mom's porch

Pop Pop, Mom and I went grocery shopping for dinner

Lee and I at the sports bar off of Mill in Tempe
This might be my favorite dish on earth. A very simple shredded beef chimichanga from Some Burros. I was about 5 bites away from finishing and I totally felt like a pig but I didn't want it to go to waste! :)

The casino's in AZ are run by the Indian Reservations and are VERY nice! We went on a day where it was 55 years and older day so you can imagine that I was the youngest person there playing the slots. So if a older lady is a cougar, would I be considered a kitten? Hmmmmmm..

Food In Arizona

While I was in Arizona I ate some damn fine food!!! There is a restaurant that is near and dear to my heart and it pisses me off that I can't find a chimichanga in Austin. Someburro's is awesome. Plain and simple. And I miss it. But I did find quite a few other good meals while in Arizona....

My brother and his girlfriend picked me up from the airport and took me to.....damn... can't remember the name (Lee? Tracey? Leave a comment and tell me what the name is). I think it is something like O'Malley's but I can't find anything about it on the Internet. Anywho- I got the Huevo Rancheros. I liked it, but the sauce really over powered the eggs, so I didn't really get any egg flavor, just the green salsa. Not bad, but next time I would get the salsa on the side.

Here is my love, my dear shredded beef chimichanga. I ate almost the entire thing, with a smile on my face. I love the crispy fried tortilla, the tender shredded beef, the red sauce and the cool sour cream. I am getting hungry just looking at the picture.

For lunch one day mom and I picked up take out from Joe's Farm Grill. I saw it on Food Networks Diners, Dives and Drive In's and it stuck in my mine. It was a bit of a drive from her house, but it was totally worth it. Before stepping a foot into the restaurant, we fell in love with the grapefruit trees surrounding the building. Such a cute area. I went with the special of the day, which was a grilled salad. It was Romain, topped with bacon, tomato's and blue cheese. Oh mama... so damn good. BUT what made me stop in my tracks was the GIANT slice of lemon (see picture below). The salad was really good, and since it was grilled, it gave a nice smoky flavor but it was not over powering.

This lemon slice was bigger than my hand. We had a lemon tree at the house I grew up in and we had huge lemons like this all of the time. I made the best lemon aid using those giant lemons and miss that tree. It was a fine tree that would give us hundreds of fist size or bigger lemons each season. Good to see there are other lemon trees that are producing giant lemons!

I met up with my girls, Angie and Angela, for appetizers and dinner one night. Angela and I met up at Frashers for appetizers while we waited for Angie to get off of work. I saw this restaurant and wanted to check it out, and since they had half off appetizers during happy hour, I thought it was the perfect time. Frashers was not what I was expecting... from the outside, it looks like it might be a pretty nice place, but on the inside, it was nice but it was more comfortable and cozy. I felt a bit like an outsider (I got there before Angela) because the bartenders seemed to know everybody that walked in the doors, they greeted them all by name. We ordered the fried raviolis and the brushetta. There was nothing exceptional about the food, but it was good bar food.

For dinner, we met up at Cowboy Ciao. I had been eyeballing the short ribs dish ever since Angela suggest we meet up there for dinner. The meat fell off of the bones and was perfectly tender. There was some type of cherry BBQ sauce that came with the dish, and it was pretty strong so I used it sparingly. Honestly, the meat was seasoned perfectly, and it didn't need the sauce. The short ribs were resting on grilled veggies and a Gouda cheese grits. I thought that I didn't like grits, but apparently when they are done right and with a shit load of Gouda, I love them! :) I knew I would be pushing my stomach limits this night, so I only had a couple of veggies. I needed the room for the short ribs and the grits :)

1042.5 miles

Rather than fly back to Austin, we drove my grandfathers car. Normally we would just fly, but I bought my grandfathers car from him. My car was on it's last legs, and I was really getting sick of my car leaking every time it rained. It was getting worse and worse... just imagine my passenger floor board full of water after an hour of rain. Seriously annoying, and wet, and smelly. So in came my wonderful grandfather and offered to sell me his car for an extremly reasonable rate!! And I even get a good navigator for our trip back to Austin.

This is what my mom and I thought would be enough goodies for our 2 day road trip. Seriously, WTF were we thinking? We ate like .5% of these goodies.

Beginning of our trip... 8am.... in Chandler Arizona
Me and my navigator

After 1 hour and 54 minutes on the road, I heard a rustle from the back seat....

mother needed a munchie to tide her over.

I seeeeeeEEEEEEeeeeee you

Our 2nd bathroom break was taken in South Az...

no idea where, but I can say it was in the middle of nowhere

Making the trek up to the potty

Along the ride, I decided to put the iPhone in Mom's hands to let her play on the internet while we still had a signal. I think she got about 5 minutes into playing with the phone before she realized that she didn't like it.

Hello

After having a few cashews, we moved on to a sweet treat for our ride. This is a little dainty chocolate cookie.

We saw a lot of trains along the highway.

Good bye Arizona, Hello New Mexico

Our pitstop for gas, changing some clothes and getting our lunch. We made some ham and cheese sandwiches, which were really good

Playing around with Pop-Pop's walker

Along I-10 in New Mexico

Already through New Mexico and in Texas

We made it to Van Horn Texas... we drove until around 5pm (7pm Central Time). We wanted to make sure we got in a hotel, eat dinner and ready to watch the Phillies game. So, I probably would not recommend anybody go to Van Horn for vacation, not much to see or do there.

Howdy

It was a chilly morning in Van Horn

Hmmmm... so... um...... this is quite the mountain. Ummmm.... yeah... NIPPLE!

I was going to attempt to shove 3 cheese puffs into my mouth, but I thought it wouldn't be the best idea while mom was driving and we were in the middle of BFE.

Pop Pop leading the way... some where in West Texas

Ahhhh... we made it! It wasn't a terrible trip, but there is zilch to look at during the drive. At least my mom and grandfather made it a fun trip