Las Cruces, New Mexico--- Scottsdale, Arizona--- Las Vegas, Nevada
We left Las Cruces around 10am and found a cute diner on the outskirts of town where we had a great breakfast. I also had my first experience with Menudo (and not the 80s boy band variety). It is a spicy Mexican stew with tripe and other animal organs, but everyone raved about it on the blogs and yelp.com, so I decided to give it a shot. I guess I looked a little skeptical when I asked our waitress about it so she was kind enough to offer me a sample. It looked like a red, spicy broth with bits of things floating in it that couldn’t quite pass for chicken. I had a few bites but couldn’t get past the texture so I decided against a whole bowl of my own. I instead went with the All-American breakfast of 2 eggs over easy, bacon, white toast, and well done hashbrowns; doesn’t get much more American than that.
We drove for about 4 hours through some really cool desert areas
and arrived in Tucson, AZ around 2:30, in time to have a late lunch. While driving into town we checked the external thermometer and we couldn’t believe it when it read:
We rolled down the window and we were no longer surprised by the number. It was so hot I felt like I was suffocating upon my first breath of hot air. We pulled into the shopping center where the restaurant, Blue Fin, was and in the short walk to the front door I thought my eyeballs had dried out. I was tempted to walk directly through the misters lining the majority of restaurants and stores of every street in Tucson in order to obtain brief relief from the brutal heat, but then quickly made a beeline for the AC filled restaurant instead.
Blue Fin was a trendy, dark wood kind of bar with a great outdoor seating area (which was shockingly occupied by several people… clearly all superhuman to voluntarily subject themselves to that amount of heat) and an interesting menu. Mom had the mussels and they came in a typical mussel pot but it comes with the top wrapped in plastic wrap which they ceremoniously burst tableside so that you can instantly smell the deliciously, garlic and lemon broth drowning the mussels. The mussels were well cooked and the broth was so tasty that not only did we ask for more bread to sop it up with but we were even tempted to ask for a straw so we wouldn’t leave any behind.
I ordered the seared ahi tuna salad because I felt like I had been gorging for days and I figured I might as well give myself a break from all the big eating. The salad was actually quite impressive and a great combination of flavors. It was a cabbage style salad with carrots, celery, etc. tossed with an Asian sesame dressing (which was finger licking good) and topped with the tuna.
After lunch we drove around a few neighborhoods and then got back on the road to head to Scottsdale. Along the way we encountered some of the coolest looking dust storms, dust twisters, and rainstorms.
The dust twisters didn’t show up that well when photographed, but you can definitely see the dust storms because they look almost like atom bomb smoke clouds in the distance.
We arrived in Phoenix, AZ around 5:30pm and decided to drive around downtown to see the area. It was the weekend of the MLB All-Star game so there were lots of events going on downtown with people everywhere. The downtown area has a cool feel to it with a public tram system
interesting buildings, lots of misters here as well, and one of the most unique things was a park area with a piece of artwork suspended above it that was made to look like a dust storm.
Then we started to look for places to have dinner and lots of locals recommended that we try something called Fry Bread. It was created by Native Americans and it has become quite popular in Arizona. I had never heard of it before but the pictures online looked really good so we decided to try it. The place that got the best reviews was called “The Fry Bread House” so we headed in that direction. It is a small house looking building set back from a main road
and we ordered a ground beef fry bread with cheese, sour cream, and tomatoes to share because they looked huge.
It was $9 because each topping is 85 cents regardless of what it is, but it was well worth it because it was delicious. It is similar to a chalupa at Taco Bell but it is a softer version of it. The beef has a great flavor to it and the toppings went very well with it. It was a shame that that filled us up so much because the dessert fry breads looked amazing. They are the most famous for their chocolate (special recipe- as it says on the menu) and butter one, but they also have powdered sugar, cinnamon and sugar, etc.
After dinner we decided to go see a movie because it was still only 6:45 and it was too hot to really do anything else. We went to see Horrible Bosses and it was hilarious! We were laughing out loud for the majority of the movie; the characters all worked so well together. We would definitely recommend it!
Then we headed towards Scottsdale where we were offered a place to stay for the night through a mutual friend of my mom’s. Kathy and Chuck were so nice to take us in for the night and their house was INCREDIBLE. Mom and I both agreed that it was one of the coolest homes we had ever stayed in. When you first pulled into the circle driveway you look to your right and there is a gate and then a long outdoor hallway. Once inside the gate we realize that they are all doors to guest bedrooms which are on the left side of the hallway and the right side opens onto the pool and hot tub. Once inside the main part of the house they had a beautiful family room, master bedroom, breakfast area, and an awesome kitchen that opened up onto the porch overlooking the pool area. The house was gorgeous and they were so welcoming the entire time we were there. Thank you Kathy and Chuck!!
Our wonderful hosts
Their kitchen!
The next two pictures are the views from the bedroom I stayed in.
They had great blinds that you could see through
and it looked like you could walk right out of the
window and into the desert!
The next morning we had breakfast and Kathy had a fun art project for us to do. For every guest that comes to stay with them they get to paint a small picture to leave behind. Here is what we came up with:
Mine was supposed to be a move reel, but it looks more
like a wagon wheel on a winding train track.
Needless to say mom and I were not ready to leave but Vegas was calling so we hit the road around noon. We decided to stop for lunch in a little town called Wickenburg,
which was the quintessential old timey Western town with replicas of outlaws chained to trees
and cowboys propositioning dancers at the saloon,
and cute restaurants and soda shops along the street. We chose a place called Chaparral for lunch
which looked like an old ice cream parlor. Mom got the sausage and boysenberry onions on a roll:
And I got the “Jail Tree Sandwich” which was thinly sliced meat, caramelized onions, roasted red peppers, sautéed mushrooms, and a homemade white cheddar cheese sauce. It was delicious and also came with their famous white cheddar cheese spread and wheat thins that was very good as well.
After Wickenburg the only big attraction we saw was the Hoover Dam where they had finished the new bridge and then that was our last stop before we took our exit for the Las Vegas strip!
We checked into Treasure Island, threw our bags in the room
, and headed back out! It was 7pm by this point so we headed straight to dinner at the Burger Bar in the Mandalay Bay hotel.
We have been once before and it was the best burger we had ever had, so we knew we wanted to go again. They have 4 options for kinds of meat for the burger, regular, choice sirloin, kobe beef, and bison, but we stuck with regular because we already knew they were good and it is more about the toppings anyway. They have a list of over 30 toppings to choose from and it’s everything from the standard onions, tomatoes, pickles, to pickled beet roots and seared foie gras. We decided to build one huge burger and split it, along with an order of sweet potato fries. We ordered our burger with caramelized onions, guacamole, coleslaw, pickled beet root, garlic aioli, bacon, and a fried egg on top. IT WAS AMAZING!
We could have done without the pickled beet root because they were a little sour, but other than that it was delicious. The sweet potato fries were good as well.
After dinner we gambled a little bit at Mandalay Bay but lost a quick $20 because we thought we were playing regular Blackjack but it ended up being Switch Blackjack, which we were not familiar with. This was a turn off so we cashed in our chips and decided where to go next. We made a quick stop at The Cosmopolitan hotel to check it out since I had never seen it before. It was super swanky:
We stayed there for a little while but then headed to the Rio hotel to find Nelson at the World Series of Poker.
There's Nelson with the sunglasses on!
Main event table
Trying out my luck! :)
Luckily they are allowed to have their cell phones at the table because he was able to tell us his room and table number. I couldn’t believe how many people were there; they said over 7,000 people started out in the tournament. This was the fourth “Day 1” and Nelson was doing well. We asked him if he had seen any of the poker celebrities (Mom is surprisingly very in to poker and watches it on TV all the time) and he said not yet but that Nelly just busted out at the table next to him. The camera crew got it on tape so I’m sure they will air that at some point. We wandered around for a little while and then found Hewitt! He had just flown in and he still had his suitcase with him. Luckily he was “up” on poker enough so he could answer mom’s hundred questions. There were a few poker celebrities around mom insisted that I take their pictures, so here they are!
We went back to watch Nelson for a little bit and then mom and I headed back to Treasure Island. We lost a little more money on blackjack and then we decided to call it a night around 1:30!
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