BrownAmazon's Swellerrific Tour of the Southwest, Part I

Well, I'm back from visiting the wonderful AmyH and Elvis, The Best Cat in the Whole WorldTM, in their home in Arizona.

Apart from US(eless) Air losing my luggage on the way down, it was a delectable and perfect holiday from start to finish. every day was 90 degrees and sunny and filled with fun and margaritas and great food and margaritas and  museums and awe-inspiring natural monuments and margaritas.

There's almost too much to tell in one post. So while I get my thoughts together, I'll share a few pics and highlights.

The photo above was taken after a day at the spa. We got up at the crack of dawn to go horseback riding. I got a bad-tempered mare (me: "is she in heat?" them: "no, she's just a bitch all the time."). Amy got a cute cowboy to flirt with.


This is Sedona, land of the red rocks and hippie candle shops where you can get your chi realigned for only $50. We went for a hike and Amy flirted with a couple of cute guys from Chicago (notice a pattern here?).

At the Grand Canyon, majestic and rare California condors, which have recently been reintroduced into the park, flew so close to our heads you could count their feathers. They fix you with their reptilian yellow eye and say "I can haz carrion?"

More thumbnail sketches:

Most embarrassing/hysterically funny thing uttered by an American tourist:
"I wonder if it's Easter in Brazil" (overheard during lunch in Sedona. Tequila almost came snorting out of our noses.)
Runner up:
Ditzy blonde girl visiting her ASU BF sees a sign for the Arizona Republic, a local paper: "Do you think that's like Banana Republic?"

Best margarita:
OMG, they were all sooooo good. How to choose? But I'm going to have to go with the Organic Margarita at El Barrio in Phoenix. Made with agave nectar. Yum. This place also had the best guacamole I've ever had in my life, people. Chopped fresh at your table (by a hot latino waiter). With pomegranate seeds. I could have just eaten that all night.


Best random encounter:
The impossibly good looking young Danish couple who were at our B&B. We went out for dinner with them in Flagstaff. They were both tall, fit, blonde, blue-eyed doctors. She's pregnant. I started calling them The Aryans in my head. They were totally funny and cool, and really sick of French fries.

Runner-up: The woman selling elk and buffalo jerky on the side of the road outside Flagstaff. Her story: "12 years ago, I was driving up to Flagstaff with my then husband. I saw this guy selling jerky out of the back of his truck. I wanted to stop. My husband said, 'don't be crazy, you don't just buy jerky from some guy selling it on the side of the road.' Well, here I am, the husband is long gone and I'm still with the guy who was selling jerky by the side of the road."