Tucson/Tombstone

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Early start to the day, up and having first cup of coffee at 5:30. Kitty is fed and seems well rested and ready for the adventure to begin. I am very much out of practice of the blog post. With Covid our trips have been short and frankly often when recovering from an eye surgery. This is our first real vacation in 2 years. Hopefully, it is a trip back to normal travel again. We already have 3 trips planned for 2022.

Since I am a bit rusty on my blogging routine and I was very tired last night, there are some things I failed to mention.

First, this trip has been in the making for 3 years. It was first scheduled for Christmas 2018, but 3 weeks before that trip I broke my ankle and required surgery, travel was not possible. In 2019 after a year of cataract surgery we opted to have our fall trip be on over Thanksgiving and went to Charleston instead. Christmas 2020 was the next time it was planned, reservations and itinerary set. Well, we all know what happened last year, Covid and the great lock down. Just made any real travel no possible. Finally, still amidst the Covid nightmare, we made it on this trip. Changes have been made to the original itinerary (more added) but we are at last here.

Second, we are traveling during Covid so things are not “normal”. Masks still required on planes and in airports. We are not only fully vaccinated but have received the booster shot. While we are wearing our mask in public, you would thing we were freaks. Last night when we walked into the café for the complimentary happy hour, we had our masks on (there were signs posted everywhere that all guests were required to wear mask in public spaces) The people sitting in the bar looked at us as if we were aliens. We are in Arizona not the bluest of states in the country so mindsets are different, and they carry guns openly so who is going to argue with them.

Finally, the hotel clearly used to be a no tell motel before Hilton took it over. The rooms are very tattered, the toilet seat broken, dirty towels from the previous guest behind the couch, need I go on. On the bright side it can only get better from this point forward and we are getting Hilton points.

Today is a full day in the Grand Canyon state (we are no where near the Grand Canyon). We will be heading to Tombstone and the OK Corral and spending the night in Tucson. The rest of the trip is all New Mexico, except the final two days in Denver as we fly home out of Denver. This trip will tick off two more states of the 50, New Mexico and Colorado. Just the south and Alaska remain and I will have hit my goal of visiting all 50 states before retiring to Europe.

Change in Plans

The original plan was to drive straight from Phoenix to Tombstone, tour the town have lunch, then drive back to Tucson for the night. However, not wanting to stress Prince Tarragon out more than needed, I called the hotel to see if we could get an early check in, which we could, so we drove straight to Tucson and checked into the hotel so Tarragon could just chill out instead of being in the care for 7 hours. That settled, we headed down to the complimentary breakfast, which was the best thing about this particular hotel. It was actually cook to order, plus the usual free breakfast items. I had a fairly decent omelet with mushrooms, sausage and cheese. Cherry had eggs over easy, sausage and home fries (ok the home fries needed serious help including salt). But for an American included breakfast it was decent.

After breakfast we loaded up the car and headed to Tombstone, but as I said above, we made the last minute (and I mean last minute about 3 miles from the exit we needed to take) decision to drop Tarragon off first at the hotel. Once we got him settled, we headed to Trader Joes, to buy essentials and yes that means wine for wine-thirty, which we are partaking of as I blog. Jerry napped most of the way to Tucson, I just enjoyed the dessert scenery, including cactus upon cactus, an ostrich farm and a lot of dry land.

The drive to Tombstone took just over an hour and not much to see, just high dessert. Tombstone itself was a cute little town and very very geared towards the tourists. We mainly just walked around and had lunch at a place called the Crystal Palace, which was kitty corner to the Longhorn (oldest restaurant in Tombstone) which is where we intended to have lunch but they were closed for maintenance. We can now say we have seen the OK Corral.

We had a late lunch so I shied away from anything fried. Instead, I had a taco salad, in the big shell. It was pretty good, a little heavy on the raw jalapeno (I could only manage three before the heat was to much) but still a good put together. Jerry had the Six Shooter BLT, meaning six slices of bacon, otherwise known as a heart attack between two slices of toast. After lunch we drove back to Tucson, just in time to hit rush hour traffic, wasn’t horrible, but still wouldn’t want to sit in traffic everyday commuting.

Back at the hotel, Jerry wants some pictures of the Church across the street from out hotel and I took a very brief dip in the pool. It was nice but a bit cool, given it was only 58 outside, the pool was not much warmer. But then again, I have plunged into the freezing waters of the Pacific Ocean off the Oregon Coast, so the pool was tame in comparison. After the dip we poured some wine and went back out to the pool to get some sunset pictures, and were lucky to witness a proposal on the steps of the church. After she said yes, we gave them a round of applause from the pool deck.

Tarragon had a nice walk through the halls of the hotel and some good petting. Now he is on the couch for a bit of a nap. We will be off to dinner shortly so more blogging after that.

Dinner at Charro Steak

The family that owns this restaurant have been in the business since 1922, according to the internet they are the Frist Family of Mexican food. It was within walking distance from the hotel, which was nice we didn’t have to worry about having wine with dinner then driving back to the hotel (turns out wouldn’t have been a problem since there wine list was not good).

We arrived on time, but the place was packed. This is to be expected when the only way to get a reservation is on Yelp (I am not a fan of Yelp.) They had at least 4 tables of 10 or more one as large as 30. Appeared to all be company Christmas Parties. Needless to say, our table was not ready, but after first trying to seat us in the bar, they did manage to find a table for us, they broke down one of the larger parties, that did not use all of the tables they had reserved. Anyway, we were seated and ordered some Cava (Spanish Champagne) and looked over the menu. The menu had so many good things to choose from, we wanted to sample them all but that would of course mean we would not be able to move afterwards.

Before I get into the food, just want to get the negative comments out of the way. The food was exceptionally good, flavors perfect, steak cooked perfectly just a very nice meal. Three issues, timing, they brought our appetizer and salad at the same time, so the salad had to be sent back so we could enjoy our first course and Cava. Second issue, the food was great the wine list sucked. If you are going to have exceptional food, then you need to have a decent wine list, not Robert Mondavi. They focused more on cocktails than the wine that would accompanying their food perfectly. Finally, temperature. My food tasted great and was nicely presented, it was just lukewarm and I hate lukewarm food more than anything. That out of the way, let’s get to it.

The appetizer was Cast Iron Mushrooms. Mushroom caps stuffed with Chorizo, corn masa and a queso Blanco (white cheese sauce). The Chorizo had a bite to it and was really good, it did slightly over power the queso Blanco, which was exceptional.

Next, we had what else a Caesar Salad, while it was not made table side it was made to order and was enough to fee four. The presented in a salad bowl and we tossed and served ourselves. It was a pretty good decent Caesar, maybe just outside of the top 5 we have ever had.

The entrées were: Jerry had carne asada with Estillo Charro (charred chilies and cheese.) It was cooked to perfection and literally melted in your mouth and the chilies were a great addition. They were a tad skimpy with the tortillas (2 small) that were served with it. I had Surf & Turf Enchiladas Banderas. Three enchiladas each with a different sauce. There was one steak, one lobster and one shrimp. The sauces were a suiza, classic red enchilada sauce, and a crema. They were delicious, just not hot. Jerry’s carne asada clearly wins dish of the day.

It was a happening place, and certainly worth the visit. The staff are all pretty much newbies and need a bit more training. One server spilled an entire tray of food right next to us. Luckily it all landed on the tray and not us.

It’s been a long day; tomorrow should be a bit shorter. No real activity planed, driving to Las Cruces to spend the night, with lunch in Hatch. No real sights tomorrow, but it will be the beginning of our time in the Land of Enchantment.

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Photos

Carne Asada con Estillo Charro
Dish of the Day