Mah 2019/20 trip to the US - fifth leg

Monday was spent on two of mah favorite places in Arizona; indeed in all of these United States: The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and Old Tucson. I took quite a few pics at the Desert Museum, but really few at Old Tucson, since I'd been twice before and we didn't spend all that much time there anyway; we got in late since we spent so much time at the first place.

Some kind of falcon. Or hawk. Or eagle. I know it's not an ostrich.


A sleepy looking barn owl. Most of the animals we saw this day looked sleepy.


Hummingbirds are just regular birds who have forgotten the words to the song.


I suggested the yellow color looked like flower smegma and was told I was disgusting.


Sleepy mountain sheep.


A grey fox snoring his days away. And yes, he's up a tree.


A Mexican wolf. There are about 50 of these left in the wild.


It's good to see that Barry is still remembered fondly in some places.


It's a miracle his jaws still held.


One of entirely too many pics I took of this puttycat.


Awww, look at that face.


Just another kitteh.


Although, that glass is the only reason we are still alive.


Yaaaaaaaawn.


Eight years after... and still a moron.


For reference; same situation in 2012:


This hamburger was almost unedible. The Pony Express Pizza and Grill in Old Tucson is a horrible place in an otherwise great old town.


Sundown over Old Tucson. This place is pretty much as close to the Old West as I'll ever come.


Tuesday, we drove out of Arizona and into California but not before acquiring some memories. This is from a gas station in Eloy, between Tucson and Phoenix, where we saw an honest to fuck banjo player at the gas pumps. We joked nervously about having a purdy mouth, but I was glad to get outta Redneckville.


Finally, this elderly gentleman flipped us the bird somewhere just south of Phoenix. You see, my San Diego crew, who are quite a bit more liberal than yours truly, had a bumper sticker saying "The Democrat 2020" on the back of our car and this twice raised the ire of these orange-worshipping snowflakes. Come to think of it, he had small hands, too.

Mah 2019/20 trip to the US - fourth leg

After the snowy hell that was northern Arizona, we made our way to Tucson and Sunday we drove to Tombstone. Very touristy, but one of those "been there, done that"-places that I guess one has to see and do in a lifetime. Of course, I had already left the town in disgust once, but this time it all went fairly ok. Took a shit ton of pics, at least.

A reenactment of the famous gunfight at the OK Corrall, where Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and Doc Holliday killed several bandits.


The actual site, with moving dolls and a tape telling the story over and over and over again.


You can always count on me to find the shitter.


This is currently my cover photo on Facebook.


The Bird Cage theater is a very interesting building; it is the only one in town that actually dates back to the 1880s.


The bar and the interior is kept as intact as humanly possible.








An old and presumably well used hearse.


Lillie Langtry. I've written before about Roy Bean and his obsession with her.


US Christmas celebrations are so fucking tacky.


After Tombstone we pushed on to Bisbee. I found it to be ok but not worthy of the hype. It does have some nice architecture and some houses in strong colors.


In Bisbee, they tend to build where most cities wouldn't dream of permitting a house to be built...


Bear Claws are my Kryptonite.


Lay's Lemon-flavored chips are also Kryptonite.

Mah 2019/20 trip to the US - third leg

Friday afternoon, I set out for Phoenix with mah San Diego crew. We reached Yuma in the early evening and decided to dine there at a place called Famous Dave's Bar-B-Que of America. Great food and great service; they even let my insane friends taste the various sauces, including one they kept in the kitchen and only brought out on special request.

The tiniest drop of that sauce and I could no longer feel anything on the left side of my face.


Banana pudding they called this. Scrumptious!


Saturday morning, we set out from Phoenix going north towards Payson. Now, our main destination was Tucson and the only reason why we'd come this far north was to try and find the place we'd been to in 2016, when we'd gone through an area with bright sunshine, crisp blue skies and snow. Most of Albie's photos had been on her Ipad and subsequently got lost in the great cloud in the sky. As you can see here, the weather was shifting between moments of great clearness and great fuckedness.

It was raining ice. Why do I let myself get talked into this? Why, lord, WHYYYY?


Here, I joked that this was the wall that protects us from the wildlings. I didn't make the obvious joke about Trump and his wall, as I was afraid of being torn to shreds by a certain rabid Swiss.


I had my own motive for going up here - I wanted to have more food at the wonderful Old Country Inn in Pine, where we'd eaten on our way back from the injuns in 2016. We arrived just as they were opening up and got a nice table outside, under some heating lamps. Right then, it was nice with clear skies and stuff and the Hawaiian pizza (pepperoni & pineapple) I got was abolutely yummy.


Then it was back to the snowy hell again.

I left Norway for THIS?


This was exactly how I felt after HOURS of going through snowy weather in traffic with 'muricans who didn't know shit about winter driving. We stopped for dinner at Chalos Casa de Reynoso in Globe. Good food.

Mah 2019/20 trip to the US - second leg

On Saturday we had brunch and just hung out, and on Sunday we went to see the new (last) Star Wars movie and it was roughly as bad as I'd expected. That franchise is dead as doornail, hopefully. Time to get some new ideas into the genre! Monday I can't really remember us doing much of anything.

Saturday's brunch. Yum.


On the 24th, we took a trip out to Birch Acquarium, a part of the famous Scripps Institute of Oceanograpy. We spent a nice, relaxing hour or so wandering the exhibits and on the way home we drove to La Jolla Cove to take pics of the seals basking in the winter sun.

A sea turtle giving me a stern look.


Seals.


In the evening, Courtland prepared next day's food.


The humongous steak we ate the next day.


Of course, nothing says peace on earth and goodwill to men like two bloody, hard fought rounds of Cards Against Humanity. So that's basically how we spent Christmas afternoon and evening (with assists from other guests).


On Thursday, we began eating all the stuff that was left over from the previous night's feast. We still had enough meat to feed a small African village.


In the evening, I retired to my usual haunts up in El Cajon. Lest you should envy my trip to California, let me inform y'all of my environs. At night they have a couple of guys doing security, checking that cars coming in have a parking permit etc. They did NOT have that when I first started coming here ten years ago. The neighborhood otherwise contains several charming characters, such as hobos, people screaming in rage for no discernible reason and a wide selection of examples of why cousin marriages is a bad idea.

My room was conveniently situated in some sort of triangular courtyard, which did WONDERS for the accoustics of such sounds as dog barks, people having sex, strange women calling out for their father at 3AM and of course the wonderful cleaning personell chatting away in Spanish. Ah, the glorious melting pot.

The weather in SoCal was iffy, with rain pouring down on the 24th and intermittently on other days too. I don't think the temperature has climbed above 20C (68F) once. This is southern California and I want my money back! I am going to take this up with the management, you can be sure of that. In good old American fashion, I might even sue someone!


Finally, mah SD crew's two cats. First off we have Bosch. He's a clingy, cuddly, little fella who'll turn to putty in your hands if you just give him a scratch behind the ears.


And here's the boss of the house, Maine coon Coco. A cat if ever there was one; haughty, aloof, arrogant... and absolutely beautiful. I think she knows it, too.