First things first: Amanda and I were shown on television yesterday and are currently featured on online television today. It’s very strange, but kind of awesome. Here’s the link:
There are a lot of ads to sit through, so if you don’t want to sit through them, here’s some proof that we were actually featured (thanks Sarah). We’re right over the gay Asian man in the purple v-neck t-shirt’s right (your left) shoulder:
I wanted to count how many times we appeared, but that would take forever, as we were all over the place. Or rather, we were in the same place, but featured a lot in the crowd shots.
Back to the retelling of Road Trip experiences:
Once we left San Diego, basically immediately after the Zoo trip (sorry, Jason), we headed across California and into it’s lovely neighbor, Arizona. We were on a straight course to The Future (initial caps).
Sadly, the future was far away, so we stopped at a crappy hotel and stayed the night. The Future would have to wait until the next day. Crap.
After some crappy hotel breakfast we piled back into the car and were back to The Future. Or whatever.
To paraphrase The Notorious BIG, if you didn’t know before, then I guess I will have to tell you: The Future is in Gila Bend Arizona. We were pretty excited to see what was in store for us twenty or so years from now, so when we pulled into The Parking Lot Of The Future, we were greeted by this:
That, friends, is The Future. It is both a motel and a restaurant, run by the Best Western corporation:
The above is what all signs will look like in The Future, get used to them. We headed into the restaurant expecting some weird décor and lots of stark white and stainless steel. We were disappointed:
A gift shop in a crappy looking diner. Really, very disappointing. If you’re going to bill your restaurant as “Space Age” (rather than “Space Aged”), at least give it a shot. Instead, these folks just threw in some standard diner booths and beige tile flooring. What a waste. Oh, and in case you were wondering…:
…they have terrible, low quality salad bars in The Future. See?
Terrible. The dressing was slop for sure.
Hiding our disappointment, we ordered. I was not optimistic about the quality of the lunch, so I took it easy with a grilled ham and cheese:
It was below good, with orange American cheese and fat filled, processed ham. Sub-par work Space Age Restaurant.
To redeem ourselves and make it up to our taste buds, we headed down the road a quarter of a mile (any further in any direction and Gila Bend disappears) for some delicious soft serve here:
On this trip, we tried to eat places that we had never been to before. Dairy Queen fit that description for me (but not Amanda), as I don’t think I have ever been to one before. Amazing, but probably true. I had also never had one of these before:
Regular vanilla soft serve I’ve eaten before, but not dipped in chocolate. It was super great. 1 for 2 Gila Bend.
After that, we headed to Oracle, Arizona for one more attraction from The Future, but not before taking a bunch of pictures of the boring landscape to put together in Photoshop:
These panoramas look like crap because the weather was crap for days and days. Sigh.
Anyways, back to The Future, again. We arrived in Oracle to a place that I was actually pretty excited to see: Biosphere 2 (Biosphere 1 is the earth. How clever):
It’s that big failed experiment building. Basically, a bunch of nerdy scientists tried to live in that building without any outside contact or supplies. grow the food, eat the food, harvest the sun, etc. They didn’t make it very long, but Biosphere 2 is still kicking as serves as an experimental facility. Most of them have to do with how to deal with lack of water in different climates.
We walked in hoping to get a tour of the place, but sadly, we would have had to wait for a few hours to get said tour. We decided, instead, to just walk around the buildings (which is encouraged) and take it in. We were also allowed in the sea climate place, which was pretty dope:
It’s basically a big aquarium with waves and kelp and fish and all that fun sea stuff. I love huge aquariums, so I was OK with taking a look at it for a few minutes.
The rest of the tour included peeking into the Biosphere 2, walking around where the scientists lived/ate/etc., seeing some exhibits about sediment and conservation and the like, as well as me sneaking into the Biosphere itself to check out the crazy indoor forest:
It was really nice inside of there. The air was, not surprisingly, super clear and lovely. I wanted to to keep sneaking around, but I didn’t really want to be thrown out. Someday we’ll head back there and I will sneak around everywhere, and possibly jump into the fake ocean. Some day…
One more picture of the crazy looking BioPyramid:
After we had our fill of walking around a big building, we hopped back into the car and drove to Tucson. For some food from The Past (and some sleep).
El Charro Cafe is the oldest Mexican restaurant in America. Or at least that what they claim.
It’s basically some Mexican man’s house. Or maybe it just used to be. The dining rooms were double parlor sized and segregated, but filled with old, ugly art, and more importantly, people:
All of the tables were pretty full, and when I see that, I get kind of excited, as full table at a random restaurant in a weird neighborhood in Tucson generally means great food.
First up? Homemade tortilla chips and two kinds of homemade salsa:
They look pretty standard, but they were excellent. Still warm from the oven chips, and chunky, perfectly seasoned dips. A little spicy, but very good. We plowed through two bowls of these before our main course came out:
Refried beans, seasoned white rice, a salad that was a waste of space, and a super duper extra mega uber delicious deep fried burrito filled with marinated beef; also known as a Carne Colorado Chimichanga.
I had never had a Chimichanga before, nor had I ever eaten Carne Colorado. I made one of the best decisions of my life. The beef was tender. The fried tortilla was crispy and chewy. The Colorado marinade was spicy and savory. Even the refried beans and rice were great. This was, easily, one of the best things I have ever eaten. Just delicious.
I finished the entire plate and wanted to order a second one. Sadly, that would have been a waste of money, so I didn’t go for round two. I am such a sissy.
God that thing was delicious. I need a deep fryer and a Mexican fellow to run it.
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and slept. I probably melted the sheets as well…
The next morning? Another famous Tucson restaurant. This time for breakfast.
The name of it was ridiculous…
The look of it was depressing…
The breakfast inside was mediocre at best…
…but nobody goes to Gus Balon’s for any of those things. They go there for these:
Gigantic, fresh from the oven sweet bread (cinnamon roll). The rolls come with steak knives, as they are much too big and dense for puny butter knives.
This comes out before your actual meal, so it renders the eater completely incapable of finishing the actual meal. No matter. The sweet bread, perfectly baked, expertly seasoned and indulgently iced, was worth the trip. It was excellent. And very big, which is always a plus.
After gorging on baked goods and crappy ham steak, we headed out, determined to make it to a large science fair presentation in Alienville, USA:
We made it. read all about it, next time on, Five Weeks of Hot Dogs…
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