Finally, I give up...I'm getting up no matter what time it is...the time is 3:30AM.
I sit for awhile at the picnic table...watch the stars...puff on a cigar. I have no coffee, and I don't want to wake up the family I met last night by clanking pans and heating up water. So...I drink a "five Hour Energy"...no teling how long that will last.
No sense wasting time here...I'm packed up and ready to go...so, I go. I've programmed the Garmin to take me to my favorite restaurant in Tucson, El Charro, and it looks like I'll be there in time for an early lunch. I hate driving at night...particularly on an unfamiliar route. Outside the park, there's a gas station open, so I stop to get gas and a coffee. Then on through the desert around the perimeter of Joshua Tree National Park.
Sunrise in the desert is pretty cool...particularly since I'm driving east. Soon, I'm on I-10...and the rest of the drive to Tucson is pretty uneventful. I cross the border into Arizona, skirt around Phoenix, jog south into Tucson.
Shortly after noon, I am seated at one of my favorite restaurants, El Charro. I've eaten here at least five or six times in the past, and every meal has been great. Their specialty is "carne seca"...thin slices of meat marinated with garlic, chiles and lime juice and hung in mesh baskets outside to dry in the hot Tucson sun to a "jerky-like" dryness. They shred this dried beef and put it into tacos, burritos, enchiladas, etc. Because it's dry, it really needs a sauce...so I get carne seca enchiladas...sublimely delicious. A few Modelo Especial beers, preceded by a prickly pear margarita, go well (very well) with this dish.
I had planned to camp here in Tucson in Saguaro National Park...the temperature, however, is about 106 degrees, so I'm thinking hotel. Using the "kayak app" on my cell phone, I book a room at the downtown Days Inn...at $37.00/night, it's a real steal.
When I was a teenager, fifteen or sixteen maybe, Schick introduced something called the "Hot Lather Machine". You plugged it in and inserted a cartridge of shaving cream which was heated to produce the hot lather. I bought one for my father as a Christmas gift. I don't think that he thought much of it...he used it (maybe) for a month or two...then it got packed back in the box and placed in a closet...never to return.
Today, I had my own version of the "Schick Hot Lather Machine". At the Days Inn, I brought in my toiletries bag, showered and prepared to shave. My Edge shaving cream was "hot"...a few hours in a closed vehicle sitting in a 106 degree sun will do that.
A shower, a shave, clean clothes and air conditioning...I'm a new man. I've got Wi-Fi, so I clean up my emails and post to the blog.
Around 5:00PM, I call a cab and head out to the "4th Street" area for some barhopping. My cab driver, John, is a local "institution"...since 1984. He clues me in on a few good spots on 4th Street...O'Malley's, Maloney's, The Hut, The Surly Wench, Che's...and The Buffet.
I hit them all...Che's has "Kolsch-style beer on tap...nice. The Buffet is the oldest bar in Tucson, and the cute bartender and her sister are from Grand Rapids.
By midnight, I'm ready to call it a night. I call John, and he's there to pick me up within five minutes...back to the Days Inn...sleep.
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