A Few Days in Phoenix

Last week I tagged along with Skip on an work trip to Phoenix. We had a blast!

Here's what transpired:

Day One: We spent the morning traveling (early flight to Phoenix through Atlanta). I don't want to brag, but I think I successfully established that I am fun to travel with. I'm not sure how Skip will handle his next work flight without me. (Just kidding, obviously.) We landed and met up with the rest of his group at the rental car area. We checked in, and then grabbed lunch by the pool at the Arizona Biltmore. The property was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and is as spectacular as one might imagine. After lunch, we went shopping (one of many perks of traveling with two women!), and then we had dinner at The Henry.

Day Two: Skip worked all day Thursday. I slept in, ordered room service and spent a leisurely morning showering (read: longer than the usual two minutes), getting ready and packing. We relocated to a resort, and I spent the day reading by the pool. It was heavenly.

After Skip's day concluded, we went to Scottsdale for dinner. Since Skip was having a Chinese or Thai craving and since I am very suggestible, we settled on PF Chang's. I know... a chain... don't judge. When a craving strikes, you have to satisfy it.

Day Three: Skip took Friday off. Since I made the afternoon at the pool sound so enticing, Skip and I repeated it on Friday. We read, lounged and took in some desert sun.

Later we went to Cowboy Ciao. We started with the famous Stetson Salad (smoked salmon, dried corn, lettuce, couscous, black currants and pine nuts), and then followed up with the filet and the pastrami-style smoked short ribs, the latter of which was a show stopper. It blew my filet away. We'll be spending significant amounts of time trying to recreate the magic of their three-day brine.

Day Three: On Saturday, we struck out for the mountains. Ideally, we would have planned this outing for Friday and then lounged on Saturday, but the weather for the mountains was clearer on Saturday. We had gotten lots of opinions about scheduling a day trip to the Grand Canyon from Phoenix, most of those were of the don't-do-it/it's-too-hard variety. Ultimately, we decided we were relatively too close to pass it up, and so we left early Saturday morning. We went by Sedona and Flagstaff, both of which are beautiful, making the drive fun in and of itself. We arrived at the Canyon and did more of a driving tour in order to get the most out of the day. We were unable to hike or do the mule sightseeing, but we were able to walk out onto the rocks and take in the spectacular view. We had a late lunch and made our way back to the desert.

After a very lengthy day, we were ready for an indulgent meal at Culinary Dropout. Although the food was good and there was live music, the name is the best part of the establishment. To be fair, maybe we were exhausted, or maybe Cowboy Ciao is a tough act to follow.

Day Four: By Sunday, we were ready to get home to our sweet trio. We got in, scooped them up from Gran & Poppa (Thanks again for watching them! Can't thank you enough!) and came home. There's no place like it.