Trip Through the States: "Towels are obsolete..."

It's the truth. At least, when you're out in Southern Arizona. And it doesn't matter what time of year either. Granted, winter time won't have your olfactory slowly desensitized to the smell of burning flesh, but you do still get to enjoy your skin's rapid decline into utter dessication. Especially after you just left the blissfully temperate climate of the west coast. No matter though, because I was looking forward to relaxing a little bit and enjoying a trip up to Phoenix with one of my good friends. And that's what we did a couple days after I arrived. We stayed up in Scottsdale, which is apparently one of the more expensive areas even though we found it to be quite reasonable.

As soon as we got up to Phoenix, we decided to go hike Piestewa Peak Park, since we'd read some good things about it. It was a great hike and the views of the entire Phoenix area were incredible. You can see a couple photos below. That night, Ben (my friend) and I decided to see what the local scene was like, so we headed on over to Mill Ave. right near the campus of Arizona State University as that was supposed to be the "place" for nightlife and what not. It was a Thursday night, so it was fairly calm, but we still managed to enjoy ourselves. At the first bar we went into, we happened to meet the owner and bunch of employees and regulars who were all really chill people. It was one of the employees' birthdays and he insisted that Ben and I try these specially made shots, on the house. So we did. It was like drinking 45 ounces of liquefied Big Red gum and the whole point was to freshen your breath, haha. After hoofing it around a bit more, seeing a couple other hangouts and meeting some more people, we called it a night. The next day, we went over to the heart of Phoenix to explore some of downtown. Phoenix is an awesome place. It's incredibly clean, the people are ridiculously nice for the most part, and you don't feel like you might be run over any second. Not to mention the tasty food! Later that night, we hit up the Phoenix Suns vs. Sacramento Kings game before heading back to Tucson.

So Phoenix and Tucson have been awesome. Will have been here for a total of 13 days before leaving this Sunday (least that's the plan right now). Looking forward to heading over into southern NM before getting over to Dallas. So until then... Stay shiny.