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Published: November 15th 2007
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Nothing like a brutal migraine to start off my trip to Arizona.
So I was eternally grateful on Tuesday evening to finally be off the plane, out of our taxi and here at the
Fairmont Scottsdale Princess. I would certainly consider it more of a resort than a hotel, with my room being in one of the several "casitas" at the edge of the property. Though it sounds far away, it's only about a five minute walk to the lobby and the room (or rooms, I should say) certainly make up for it. I have a huge living room, complete with a fireplace, dining table and sitting area with a pull-out couch. My bedroom has two double beds, with lovely and soft pillowtop mattresses and a huge bathroom boasting a walk-in closet. I marvalled at all of this when I arrived and decided to take a bath in my oversized tub to try to feel a little better. Unfortunately, I only felt worse.
My migraine continued to haunt me through a restless night and all yesterday. I managed to make it to both my meetings and then we had rented a car to explore the area. I wanted to give it
a shot, so I just kept popping my Excedrin and hoping for the best.
We headed north to
Cave Creek, what we understood to be a cute town with shops and restaurants, which would be a little bit touristy. What we got was the land that time forgot. It seemed to be a ghost town, and not in a good way. We first came to the
Buffalo Chip Saloon, supposedly "one of the last truly western saloons and restaurants." It certainly looked to be the last of something. We walked past a couple of cowboys by the door, who, if I didn't know any better, I would have suspected were paid actors and headed inside. There was nobody - no one greeting anyone at the door, and no patrons. O-kay. So we left in search of somewhere else to eat. We tried another restaurant, but it was closed. Everywhere we passed looked empty and we saw only a handful of people walking around the whole time. It was eerily quiet.
We finally ended up at
Harold's Corral, which promised the best food in town and was "Steeler Country." Apparently no one out here likes the local teams - everyone seemed to have
signs for the Packers or the Steelers or someone further east! Our waitress was Katie, who looked like she'd be fairly effective in a bar fight and wore a tattoo of the eye of Horus (for protection) on her right arm. I felt very silly in my Ralph Lauren polo shirt (even if it was black), but still fighting my headache, I wasn't going to think about it too much. I particularly enjoyed the single cowboy boots nailed to the ceiling and was trying to see which famous people were highlighted in the tons of pictures on the walls (Rascal Flatts was probably the best one).
I was willing to try some pizza and was excited to find out they had ginger ale. The service was slow, but where were we rushing to? The pizza was good, and I was happy to eat something besides toast and stale cheerios. Over lunch, we decided to head east to the Tonto National Forest and Bartlett Dam. Perhaps the desert scenery would be worth it.
It really was a beautiful drive, with loads of "vistas," everyone's favorite saguaro cactus and literally no one around. I mentioned that in NJ, all of
this land would have been developed already. I took a few pictures from the window of the car and was surprised to see how blue the water was when we arrived at the dam (where there also seemed to be almost no people). But it was pretty and peaceful, so we spent a few minutes enjoying the fresh air before heading back to Scottsdale.
For seemingly having no people around, there certainly are a lot of drivers on the road, and the apparently millions of stoplights in Scottsdale don't help the traffic any. We thought we'd find "Old Scottsdale," and it felt like it took us forever to get down there! Eventually we saw signs for some of the roads we recognized from our dine around restaurants for Friday night in Old Scottsdale, and it was funny to see that it didn't look that old. Maybe I was misled by the "old" moniker and have been spoiled by too many trips to Europe or maybe I forgot that Scottsdale and the West are not that old in US history (or any history for that matter). Eventually we parked in the art district, and we were happy to see that
Buffalo Chip Saloon
See the Green Bay sign? the whole street was full of galleries - but again, NO people. It was very strange. We continued along and at the end of the street, finally saw a big sign for "Old Scottsdale" and here we found some restaurants, cheesy touristy shops and the like. This was a relief, because we realized there was more to see here than just the desert and the cacti! So now we can recommend that our group goes into town on Saturday afternoon to wander around and enjoy the area. We wandered around for a bit, enjoying the artwork on the street, and decided to call it a night since I still wasn't 100%. I figured I would enjoy a nice quiet evening by the fire, which was going as planned until another group here decided to have a rock concert ten steps away from my casita. It felt more like they were IN my casita, and although the music stopped at ten, to this east-coaster, it felt like 12 and my migraine wasn't helped by the pulsating beat. But it did eventually stop and I managed to get a solid night's sleep in preparation for the craziness to begin today. I have
a board meeting to look forward to at noon. and then our Welcome Reception and Dinner will be held at La Hacienda, one of only two four-diamond Mexican restaurants in the country - should be good!
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