Rustler’s Rooste served cowboy food and a sign on the door said ‘Better come hungry’; so it was a good job that we had Dave and his reliable appetite with us! There was a fabulous menu with an extensive choice of food including rattlesnake as a starter.
For an Englishman a four hundred mile trip seems a very long way to drive for a day out.
If I drove that distance in any direction from my home then I would run out of road and reach the sea. Going east it would take only fifteen minutes. It is a journey like this that makes you realise the immense scale of the USA. Arizona is 115,000 square miles of emptiness and long stretches of never-ending road between towns, the UK is just less than 95,000 square miles and Arizona is bigger than forty of the fifty-one countries in Europe. It is bigger than half the countries in the World.
Posted in Food, Grand Canyon, History, Hotels, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, USA, World Heritage
Tagged Arizona, Arizona Cardinals, Grand Canyon, Life, Phoenix, Photography, Pointless Souvenirs, Travel
Thoughtfully the organizers of the trip thought we might need a day to rest after our long flight so the next day was free of any official engagements and ours to do as we pleased with so Allan decided that we would drive to the two hundred mile journey to the far north of the State to see the Grand Canyon.
This seemed a very good idea but did involve a very early start and less than four hours after crawling into bed and before it even got light we were off and away before I had time to check to see if I had a hangover and even before the breakfast bar was open in the restaurant. Dave wasn’t happy about that.
Posted in Food, Growing up in the 1950s, History, Hotels, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, USA
Tagged Arizona, Arizona Cardinals, Arizona Road Runner Saloon, Grand Canyon, Life, Phoenix, Photography, Travel
Before I moved to Lincolnshire I used to work for a French waste (mis)management company called Onyx UK and I worked at a depot in Maidenhead in Berkshire and managed the Windsor contract.
The company was always losing money and as a result trying to cut costs and one day the Managing Director telephoned me to tell me that he had heard of a new type of refuse collection vehicle with impressive labour saving innovations that offered potentially huge operational efficiencies and that he was interested in finding out more.
He asked me if I would be prepared to visit the factory where they were manufactured and give him my opinion.
To be honest I had very little interest in bincarts and tried to drag up a suitable excuse, but fortunately before I could prematurely decline, he happened to mention that the factory was in Phoenix, Arizona in the United States of America.
Did I want to visit Phoenix to see some dustcarts? You bet I did!
Posted in Food, History, Hotels, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, USA, World Heritage
Tagged Arizona, Arizona Cardinals, Life, Onyx UK, Phoenix, Phoenix Arizona Postcards, Photography, Refuse Collection Vehicles, Travel
Before I moved to Lincolnshire I used to work for a French waste (mis)management company called Onyx UK that had an optimistic business plan to take over refuse collection services in the UK and I worked at a depot in Maidenhead in Berkshire and managed the Windsor contract.
The company was always trying to cut costs and one day in February 1996 the Managing Director, a man called Percy Powell, telephoned me to tell me that he had heard of a new type of refuse collection vehicle with impressive labour saving innovations that offered potentially huge operational efficiencies and that he was interested in finding out more. He asked me if I would be prepared to visit the factory where they were manufactured and give him my opinion.
To be honest I had very little interest in bincarts or how they are made but fortunately, before I could prematurely decline, he quickly happened to mention that the factory was in Phoenix, Arizona in the United States of America and almost instantaneously my lack of interest transformed lack a volcanic eruption, like an accident in a firework factory, like a nuclear explosion experiment, into complete and total enthusiasm.
Did I want to visit Phoenix to see some dustcarts? You bet I did!
Even with poor financial performance the Company kept spending unnecessary money and one day in February 1997 Percy telephoned me to tell me that he had heard of a new type of refuse collection vehicle with impressive labour saving innovations that offered huge operational savings and that he was interested in finding out more.
He asked me if I would be prepared to visit the factory where they were manufactured and give him my opinion. To be honest I had very little interest in refuse lorries or how they are made but fortunately, before I could decline, he happened to mention that the factory was in Phoenix, Arizona in the United States of America and as quick as a flash my lack of interest transformed into complete and total enthusiasm. Did I want to visit Phoenix to see some dustcarts? You bet I did!
Posted in History, Travel, USA
Tagged Arizona, Arizona Cardinals, Grand Canyon, La Rochelle, Onyx UK, Phoenix
After lunch Allan and Ben talked business with Mike and so wandered outside into the sunshine and tried to follow a ball game that was in progress on the field.
Scottsdale Stadium is an eleven thousand seater baseball field that was built in 1992 and although it wasn’t full there were quite a lot of spectators watching the game. Baseball is basically primary school rounders but Americans don’t like to admit this and they have added all sorts of rules to make it completely incomprehesible to anyone who is unfamiliar with the game.
Thankfully there was a later start planned for today so there was no great rush to get up in the morning and after a night on budweiser and gin this was most welcome.
The motel was a middle of the range business class sort of place and it had a buffet breakfast table to make your eyes water. It had everything you could possibly want and the tables groaned under the weight of the food on offer. There were various breads of course, oatmeal, porridge, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, poached eggs or omelette, bacon, ham, sausage, hash browns, biscuits, toast, pancakes, waffles, bagels, French toast, cornbread, muffins, croissants, and doughnuts, fresh fruit, stewed fruit and dried fruit of various types and to drink, coffee, tea, milk and a full range of juices.
We arrived at the entrance, Allan paid the entrance fee and we parked the car in an almost deserted car park and walked the short distance to the rim of the canyon, which has been created over a period of six million years by the erosive action of the Colorado River cutting down through the plateau. The canyon is four hundred and fifty kilometres long, up to thirty kilometres wide and reaches a depth of more than one and half kilometres and is one of the most magnificent natural wonders of the World.
Thoughtfully the organizers of the trip thought we might need a day to rest after our long flight so the next day was free of any official engagements and ours to do as we pleased with so Allan decided that we would drive to the two hundred mile journey to the far north of the State to see the Grand Canyon. This seemed a good idea but involved a very early start before it even got light and we were off and away before I had time to check to see if I had a hangover and even before the breakfast bar was open in the restaurant.
Have Bag, Will Travel 