Williams & Phoenix

The final leg of our trip was a brief stay in touristy Williams, Arizona, the last town to have its section of Route 66 bypassed. Heading from Grand Canyon Village towards Phoenix, Williams is on the way and worth hitting up, great for hitting a restaurant, some shops, and taking in some Route 66 history.

Williams, AZ

Yeah, I had Melissa pose by a town sign painting. I am so original!

Melissa hangs by two old kerosene pumps at a gas station that was converted to a souvenir shop. Of course, I bought a Route 66 sign.

An old locomotive train from the original Grand Canyon Railroad sits by the Williams depot.

Another train…

The Red Garter Bed & Bakery. Wish we had time to stay here.

The Road To Phoenix

Amazingly, we didn’t hit any traffic at all on the way to Phoenix, or even on the entire trip for that matter! Our Chevy Malibu rental was all smooth sailing for the whole journey.

We didn’t come across any of these, but were warned they were around.

Cactus on the highway.

Hyatt Hotel

The Hyatt in downtown Phoenix was a nice decadent way to end our trip. We watched the Dbacks win at the hotel bar as they played in Chase Field just blocks away. At the end of the game, fireworks erupted outside and we were told they do that once a week.

Melissa poses in our Hyatt Hotel room.

Relaxing on the bed, where we spent five bucks to watch a missed episode of The Office. We also had pancakes and coffee delivered to the room the following morning. Never did that before, but, damn, what a rip-off!

Melissa goes up the Hyatt Hotel elevator. We thought this was funny at the time.

Downtown Phoenix And A Random Dbacks Game

Roaming around Phoenix the next day, the sun was quite intense and the town was dead. Nobody was around, not even near the Arizona State University campus. We ended up cooling off by watching Alice In Wonderland in a theatre and then having some crappy Mexican food. I was surprised by how bad it was, but it was near the campus where expectations aren’t high.

We ended up chatting with this Pedicab (bike rickshaw) dude, named Len. He admitted that, due to the Arizona boycott, Phoenix was not alive with tourists as much as it used to be. We talked about the boycott for a while, and I was in agreement with him as to how goofy it is to boycott an entire U.S. state, all of its businesses, and all of its people just because of Jan Brewer and the new Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act. Len was against the new immigration law, as well as most cops, and Arizona mayors, so why should everyone suffer?

The lack of Arizona support became even more evident when some guy came up to me asking if I wanted two Diamondback tickets for FREE! I thought he was joking and even offered him money, but he was so tired of trying to give them away for free that he just wanted to move on.

So, we decided to give Len some business and he biked us about six blocks to Chase Field. I felt like a total dick sitting in a pedicab, but what the hell. We were on vacation. The seats to the game were along the left field line, and the stadium was quite nice. We only stayed for a few innings, as we had to get to the airport to head back to Philly.

Nice seats…The Dbacks ended up getting destroyed by the Milwaukee Brewers… and Jan Brewer. Hey-oh!! (Couldn’t resist that one.)