Out of Arizona and into Las Vegas

We went on a Road Trip, Carol and I. Our main objective was Giants Spring Training in Scottsdale AZ. We got down to Scottsdale expeditiously — bypassing Las Vegas as we headed south and spent a swell six days in Arizona.

So we leave Arizona and embark on the Las Vegas eats part of the recollection.

TUESDAY March 5th
Out of Arizona.
An IHOP was located conveniently in the parking lot of our hotel. I looked carefully over the menu to try to find something appealing and the right size. IHOP specializes in “way too much.”

2 eggs with bacon and two pancakes with fruit compote. “What kind of compote?” I asked. She told. “Can I substitute just plain fruit?”

“What’s your favorite?”

“Pineapple.”

“We have pineapple chunks.”

“Great.”

I borrowed some browned shredded potatoes from Carol’s breakfast to help with the eggs. We need to drive north on Scottsdale Road and find a gas station.

We soon find ourselves on Rt 74 going west through Joshua Tree National Forest. By now, we’re in a nice highway driving mode. We take a pit stop at a McDonald’s in Wickenberg. 140 miles to Kingman, we can catch lunch there. NOT.

What happens is Rt 93 joins I-40 and you fly by Kingman. Try and think of a fast food chain that’s not at one of the three exits. We got gas on Rt. 93 in Kingman going south, there must be a greasy spoon or mom and pop once we get off the interstate and on to 93. Nope. What we find is no town and no food.

There’s an exit for Bullhead City that promises a Sonic (2 miles). We take it. The next civilization is Boulder Dam, 80 miles away.

Well, it’s more than a couple miles and we pass a couple of mom-and-pops and reach SONIC. You know those Sonic commercials; 2 guys sitting in a car eating a burger and suckin’ on a shake? (I hate those.) So we drive up to Sonic and they have these 1950’s stations where you drive up and order and presumedly a car hop comes out and clamps one of those trays on your window.

Carol went in… no service inside… the idea is you eat in your car. HELL NO.

We went back the road to Caroline’s Cafe. HooBaby, we’re in luck. The special is open face meatloaf sandwich with mashed potatoes and brown gravy. I’ll have some of that! Carol had the Paddy Melt with sweet potato fries. What we have here is down home cookin’! Eat your heart out, Sonic.

Back to the joys of 93 North.
Out of Arizona.
Frankly, I’m glad. I didn’t find Arizona user-friendly. Even in little ol’ Reno, driving downtown I’ll pass a number of restaurants; the ones I’ve sampled are pretty good, almost none are chains. Good luck with that in Phoenix. And the signs along the roadside aren’t particularly informative. They might have cautioned us, “last chance to eat for 80 miles.” And the roads we traveled were string straight and not very pretty.

As far as I got today. Stay tuned… more stuff to come.