Current mood:	hot
Entry tags:	arizona, matt, travel

Back from the desert...
...and back into the soup that is NC. Average temperature in AZ was around 103F, average humidity was around 40%. According to Weatherbug, it's 88F and 67% humidity in NC--AZ felt so much better.

We got in to AZ (Sky Harbor airport) around 5:30 MST. Arizona doesn't do daylight savings, so we were about three hours behind NC. We flew Southwest Airlines, which is a no-frills airline: no assigned seatong, no meal, no movie, etc. They seat in groups: we got our boarding passes at the airport and were in the last boarding group. I ended up sitting two rows from the back of the plane, between two women about Mom's age, and Matt was three rows from the front of the plane.


The women I sat with...WHOO. Holy cow. I think they were both on second marriages (they said I was just a baby, and when, after they asked if this was my first marriage, I replied, "First and last," they both laughed and said, "Oh, NEVER say that!"), and the one on my right was seriously planning to leave her husband of 34 years, because she wanted to move back to Maryland from Prescott, AZ.

I don't think either of those women had anything positive to say about anything. They hated Californians, retirement communities, fish fries, cod... But I will say this. I had some trouble on the approach to the airport (major motion sickness, got dizzy, lightheaded, sweaty), and the one on my left just took hold of my hand and held it through
landing, then got me some wet-naps and insisted I put one on the back of my neck right then to cool off. She did seem impressed that Matt waited for me at the front of the plane, instead of just disembarking and waiting in the terminal.

We went out to eat with Matt's friend Sean Rosenberg (we were staying with Shaun and his parents Dick and Judy while we were there) that night at a place called Bill Johnson's Big Apple. The chain is currently celebrating their 50 year anniversary, so their August special was 50 cent ice cream with any entree purchase. It was okay, but I didn't really think it was something great.



Thursday was "hurry up and wait." We couldn't rent a car for the day, as most places wanted a $250 deposit/hold for a $35 rental. Plus, when Matt found a place that DIDN'T need the deposit, he got down there, and found out we'd missed an insurance payment and the coverage had been cancelled! So that was $130 we weren't expecting to have to pay right then and there. :-P The voice post I made was when Matt was out finding out about that rental.

Sean had to work, and Dick went out in service that morning, so we didn't have access to a vehicle at all. I was still
on NC time, so I was awake around 4 am AZ time. Dick got home about 11:30 AZ time, at which point my head and stomach were telling me it was 2:30. We went to another local place, Dillon's, for lunch. Decent, but something in the combination of chicken, roll, lettuce, onion and barbecue sauce didn't taste right, and I ended up disassembling my sandwich. I think that's when I started feeling sick at meals. Part of the problem may have been back-seats of cars, and not quite strong enough AC in the cars. By the time we got where we were going, I didn't feel well.

But anyway, after lunch, we went to the Arrowhead Mall. Penney's was having a GREAT sale, and we spent about $20, got Matt 2 pairs of NICE shorts (shorts he can actually wear out places, not just workout and sleeping shorts!). One pair is white, though, and I either need to train him not to wear them with white tops, or get him a belt so he doesn't look... odd. :) I bought a pretty postcard to send to Mom, but never got a stamp for it, so I'm gonna have to mail it from
Raleigh. :-P

We got back to the house between four and five...and Matt and I crashed (after a quick trip to the bank to cash the check from my savings). We slept until maybe nine or so, when Sean got home, and then went to WalMart to get food for convention (spent about $20: three footlong sandwiches, half a sandwich each a day, a bag of cheddar Ritz Chips, a pack of Little Debbie things, a bag of precut apples that tasted weird from the preservatives, and a six-pack of Dasani), and a
stop at Sonic (yay Sonic!) for a late dinner. And cherry limeade. We have a Sonic around here, over in Holly Springs, but it's somewhat out of the way. So despite being here a year and a half, a little over, even, we've never gone.



Friday was day one of the convention. I can't tell you much about it; I freaked out and Matt took me home on the lunch break. I slept and browsed the few broadcast channels that afternoon (no cable). There are no less than SIX Spanish channels!! When they got home, I kind of made noise about wanting to check my e-mail. The Rosenberg's don't really have
internet access. Sean has dial-up. Matt and I brought our laptop with wireless card, so we went out to McDonald's, and decided to ask first if they had the wi-fi hotspot. Holy cow.

Us: Hi, you have a wi-fi hotspot, right?
Them: A what?
Us: Wireless internet access?
Them: Que?
Us: IN-TER-NET.
Sean: You used to have a sign right there about it.
Manager: No, no, I don't think so, I've been here a year, I don't think we ever had that.

Meanwhile, Matt has grabbed a corner table, and is firing up the laptop, under the theory, "Never ask the employees." Sure enough, there IS a wifi hotspot. Access is $3 for 2 hours. Great. Wonderful. We're reconnected to the land of the living for about 45 minutes (short battery life, and didn't bring the power supply). I went and got Matt and I each a small chocolate shake (which also didn't sit well for me); we checked our e-mails, I got to chat on AIM for a
bit, and it was back to the house.



Saturday was day two of the convention. Beforehand, to ward off another episode, we stopped at WalMart so I could get some "sanity sugar"-pastel mints and gummi bears. Also saw somethng I wanted to try. It's called Morning Burst, and it's in the vein of the Crystal Light singles or the KoolAid Shake-Up singles. Packets of drink mix meant to go into half-liter bottles of water. But these are sugar free and caffeinated. I saw 4 flavors: apple, orange, ruby red grapefruit, and cranberry. Only a buck for a box with ten packets.Matt suggested getting a separate bottle of water, so I didn't use my main water bottle, in case I didn't like it. So, I got a bottle of Aquafina out of the machine.

It was warm. Not just warm to the touch, warm enough I could have brewed tea with it. Customer service was nice and swapped it out for me, though, with a colder one from the cooler.

After, the Rosenberg family and Matt & I went out to eat at Black Bear Diner.

Let me interject here: so far, all the places we've gone have been "family" or "home cookin'" type places. My palate is starting to crave DIFFERENT. So I see nothing on the menu that appeals to me, and in fact, I start to feel sick looking at it. It's kind of, "Y'know, I sort of know what I want, they don't offer it, nothing else really appeals to me: if I don't see something I want, I'm not going to force myself to eat something I don't want." So I just had lemonade, and
split Matt's dessert with him (chocolate creme pie: okay, but nothing special other than the size). Although sitting in the van, waiting for Sean to wrap up, I could smell the teppenyaki place in the same plaza, Ah So Sushi and Steak, and BOY, did it smell good. If we'd known Sean was going to be so long wrapping up (which we don't begrudge him, it's family
:) ), I'd have run over and gotten an order of teriyaki shrimp, japanese fried rice, and hibachi veggies to go. But we didn't, so I didn't, and back home go we.



Sunday, last day of convention. We rode with Dick and Judy rather than Sean, since Sean had to do something else. I started to get antsy near the end, but we got through it. Matt found the last few people he wanted to see on the way out. Dinner that night was at Coco's Bakery and Restaurant. I got spinach artichoke dip (which was what I was hoping to get at Black Bear, but it wasn't offered) and some type of shrimp pasta. The dip was good, the shrimp was great, and the pasta was eh. The coconut cream pie was good, too.



Monday, another wait-around morning. Sean had meetings, but that afternoon, we went out to the Arizona Mills mall (which has a 3-D Imax theater) and Claim Jumpers for dinner.

Arizona Mills is nifty. Aside from the 3-D Imax, it also has GameWorx, which looks like a Jillians or a Dave & Busters type place, a decent food court, and an awesome bead/mineral shop, Black Market Minerals. I'd like to get into jewelry making, once we have the cash flow to allow me ANY hobbies again, and that's a place I could easily spend a lot of money on semi-precious beads and stones.

Now, Matt had been talking up one of Claim Jumper's desserts oh, ever since I met him! It's a six-layer chocolate cake. When most places do anything over two or three layers, they'll slice a normal round through the center, making it two layers. Not this place. The whole cake is about a foot or so tall. Each layer is a 2" tall round. And there's anywhere from .25" to .5" of icing between the layers. Yeah, we knew what dessert was going to be, so we split a "light" entree: the "Loaded Baked Idaho." That was the biggest potato I had EVER seen. We didn't overeat; we took about 4 of the layers home with us; I had one for breakfast in the terminal, Matt had the other two on the plane. Back to the house, time to start gathering things together, since we wanted to be out of the house by 6 am the next morning.



We managed that; plane left around 8:10 AZ time, and we got in around 3:15 or so NC time. We found a Kinkos on Monday (before hitting the mall) and printed off our boarding passes, getting in group A this time, so I actually got a window seat (even if it was by the wing) and we got to sit together.

Now we're just trying to get the apartment back to a livable temperature. Fans and AC, fans and AC.
((Side note, this was originally an e-mail I sent to family and close friends to let them know we got in okay. It's now around quarter to eleven, EDT, and the apartment is around 82F. That's down from the off-the-scale reading the thermostat gave us when we came in))


So when people at work ask me how the trip was, overall, it was positive, and I'm looking forward to moving there, hopefully in late December/early January. Matt really didn't want to fly home today; he was leaning against me yesterday, and said, "Jen, I don't wanna go back to Raleigh tomorrow. I AM home."