We took a normal car to Scottsdale for breakfast and had very large but not particularly special pancakes at the Breakfast Club, or perhaps BC Café. I wasn’t sure which name they preferred. Apart from the Venusian temperatures, Phoenix is a normal city and Scottsdale, while not exactly normal, is at least an upscale version of normal. After thousands of miles often with 100 miles separating one living thing (a pronghorn) from the next living thing (a cow) the proximity of so many people was enjoyable because it was familiar, but you can see why neither Soleri nor the many Native Americans we passed in the last two weeks wanted to live there.
We returned the RV, which necessitated me learning how to use Lyft so we could get back to the car. The getting-a-ride part of it seemed suspiciously easy. Easy enough that I fear that, as I once butt-dialled my boss while talking loudly in a bar, I may eventually butt-dial a fleet of Lyfts to a distant destination. Once back at the car, we made a detour to get my boarding pass printed on paper (smart phones may be clever but they do run out of battery at the worst times) and spent the rest of the morning at Phoenix Art Museum, which was very nice but unfortunately marred by the fact that I got suddenly dizzy and had to sit down. It’s not a great art museum. It’s collection seems a bit random, more like a magpie’s nest than a curated assembly. One standout is the room of doll’s house rooms crafted by a woman who obviously had too little to do, as she had put together more than a dozen tiny rooms of different historical periods and nations.
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| Phoenix Art Museum's brochure is a folded piece of typing paper. STB's comment, "Well, I normally just go on the free day each month." |
Since we’re both old and cranky, it can be difficult to find art to satisfy both of us. For instance, STB doesn’t like Chinese art because he can’t stand jade. Or maybe soapstone. Something that’s invariably present, anyway. There was some sort of conference or teacher training going on there, so wherever you might normally expect to find exhibits there was a gaggle of people chattering and eating sandwiches. I treated them as installations and walked round them stroking my chin. Perhaps one of them put a hex on me because I sure caught a bad case of vertigo a few minutes later. We cured that by going to the café and eating lunch.
At the airport, the Global Entry magically worked and I went through without having to remove any of my clothes. I had arrived plenty early; since I didn’t feel particularly well there was no point traipsing around the city and anyway, I hate being in a rush for a plane. With plenty of time to spare, I sat down and tried to put an icon for Lyft on my phone screen. I expected it would be as simple as thumbing a Lyft. It proved to be so difficult that it occupied the entire hour (and even now there isn’t an icon on the screen). At least I didn't have to re-sort my entire baggage - since Global Entry had worked, I could just heave the unopened bag into the overhead compartment.
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| OC Smog layer seen from the plane |
Orange County, as usual, was first visible from the plane as a thick yellow-brown layer of smog blanketing the mountains. People often think of Californians as tree-huggers who just want high-gas-mileage cars and high speed trains because we have some vague unexamined love of the environment. In fact, we're just trying not to choke on the air.
Eventually finding the Lyft App on my phone even without an icon, I confidently signaled for a ride and got possibly the only person in Orange County who does not know where to pick up at John Wayne Airport. I eventually talked him back round the one way system, got in, politely listened to him fretting about the possibly of missing the unbelievably important Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor fight and then…
Home sweet home.
On unpacking my bag, I found the tumbled-together toiletries had leaked into my t-shirts. Contents had shifted in flight.
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