The Sahara Hotel and Casino in Vegas is set to close in May, and man I’m going to miss that dump.  Sure, it was old and dingy.  Sure, it was a little off the beaten path.  Sure, I always checked the closet, the shower, and underneath the bed for dead bodies and/or murderers anytime I stayed there.  But, you know what, it was cheap.  And in a city that’s dominated by overpriced billion-dollar resorts, I appreciated Sahara’s value.

You never knew what you'd find when you stayed at Sahara

Perhaps I’m more sentimental about Sahara because it’s where I stayed for my 21st birthday in 2004 (which also happened to be the weekend of the Kentucky Derby).  And again to celebrate New Year’s Eve in 2006.  And still once again over a long Memorial Day weekend last year.  I guess what I’m saying is that Sahara was always there for me when I couldn’t AFFORD to stay anywhere else.  Rooms at the big-name Strip resorts were running more than $400 a night for New Year’s weekend, while I got THREE nights at the Sahara for less than half that total.  And you know what?  I kind of enjoyed making up stories about where each knife slash and stain in the carpet came from. 

These slashes were clearly from a drug deal gone awry...

Ok, so maybe it was annoying that the TV never seemed to work properly, and, yeah, I was always a little scared that the elevator was going to give out at any time, and okay fine, the NASCAR-themed stuff in the lobby wasn’t really for me.  But having $1 blackjack available right downstairs was a treat worth making sacrifices for.  The dealers and the clientele weren’t stuffy like any of the other Strip hotels.  I had some of the most interesting conversations of my life while playing table games at the Sahara.

I'm pretty sure we upgraded to the "Deluxe" tower to get this sweet pad

It wasn’t luxurious, but it was always fun.  And in Vegas, that’s really all I’m looking for.  So it’s with a heavy heart that I bid farewell to my OG Strip hotel.  Thanks for the memories…

After spending several days in New Orleans for New Year’s,  it’s difficult to piece everything together in a coherent and/or chronological manner.  Fortunately the photographic evidence of our visit isn’t incriminating.  Here are some thoughts and pictures from our time in New Orleans…

***

There isn’t much to do in New Orleans beyond the French Quarter.  Okay, that’s not fair, there is stuff — some parks and a zoo — but nothing special enough to risk getting mugged or killed to see (yes, it really is that dangerous).  Since the French Quarter is really the only thing that’s specific and unique to New Orleans, you’ll spend a lot of time there — as we did.

There’s two ways you can go with this: drink your ass off or learn some history.  The drinks will find you.  You have to find the history.  Since people usually go with the route of less work, drinking takes precedence.

But we’re equal opportunists — and multi-taskers! — so we took the booze with us and went searching for the back stories, not a difficult thing to do when every street features a plaque detailing some interesting history. 

Take, for instance, the Le Pretre Mansion, where in 1839, a Turkish man, who was the brother of a sultan, was found dead in ritualistic fashion alongside a bevy of young beautiful women that the Turk apparently stole from the sultan.  Their murders remain an unsolved mystery (though using our detective skills, we’ll venture a guess and say it was the sultan) and some people say you can still hear the screams of the victims on some nights.

Then there’s the LaBranche House, which is considered the most photographed house in all the French Quarter.  Since that’s the case, here’s another to add to the collection.

This is the Le Monnier Mansion, the first “skyscraper” in the French Quarter.  Just look at it scraping the sky four stories high.

Since you can get kind of bogged down with details about unfamiliar historical figures, it’s just fun to walk through the French Quarter and admire the architecture and the ironwork on the balconies without fear of being vomited on (that’s specific to Bourbon Street, which is aesthetically the least attractive, but most fun, street in the French Quarter anyway).

***

People on the East Coast travel to Atlantic City to drink, gamble and party.  West Coasters head to Las Vegas.  Southerners and Mid-westerners go to New Orleans.

But the great thing about New Orleans is that it’s a condensed version of both of those cities.  You don’t have to take a taxi to strip club or wander from bar to bar at the hotels, all your vices are conveniently located on Bourbon Street.  That makes it so much easier, and so much more dangerous.  Because inevitably you’ll wind up smashed — and broke — much faster.

***

We only saw three — count ‘em, THREE — nude breasts on Bourbon Street. That’s one and a half women, or just one three-boobed girl from Total Recall.

Oddly, we saw a lot of nude man-boobs. The tradition of flashing for beads has now been adopted by men. Perhaps it’s to guide women who are confused about how to obtain beads by sacrificing their integrity, or men just like cheap plastic beads as a fashion statement.

***

You can’t walk down Bourbon Street without seeing people drinking a hand grenade.  It’s supposedly the strongest drink available (though we’re pretty sure the smoothies made with Everclear are much more potent), which is why it’s also the most popular.  Plus, any drink that comes in a device that looks like a weapon is good in our book.

But the drink we loved the most is an overlooked little treasure called The Shark Attack.  It’s not just the ingredients that make this drink great, it’s also the production value.  When you order a Shark Attack, the bartender furiously rings a bell, flicks on a siren and alerts everyone to “get out of the water!”  Then he takes a plastic toy shark, fills it with grenadine and jams it into a cup, making it look as if the shark just brutally killed someone.  Something tells us that a real shark attack isn’t this fun.

Another drink that is exclusive to New Orleans is sazerac, a combination of cognac, rye whiskey and absinthe. Yes, it’s just as strong as it sounds. But it’s a much more refined drink you’d find in a classy bar away from Bourbon Street.

***

We don’t know how people eat Cajun and Creole food on a regular basis.  Even more confusing is how they stay alive past 28 years of age.

The food in New Orleans, while delicious, is frighteningly dense.  If it’s not fried, it’s made with five sticks of butter.

Famous charbroiled oyster at Acme Oyster House

We felt disgustingly unhealthy and bogged down after every meal, which included gumbo, jambalaya, pasta, fries with gravy, fried seafood, muffuletta sandwiches and po boy sandwiches.

At one point we needed a break to eat something healthy and combat the ill effects of eating all that dense food.  Finding a restaurant that serves food even remotely healthy was a challenge in and of itself.  We finally came upon a sandwich shop near our hotel that served salads.

So I ordered a tuna salad… which the woman behind the counter made with her bare hands… immediately after washing down a counter with a dirty rag.  We’re positive that there is no such thing as a health standards office in Louisiana.

Beignets at Cafe du Monde

***

You know a city is dangerous when you receive more than one warning from the locals.  For the most part we heard a simple “stay safe” or “be careful.”  But this one lady who saw us walking down St. Charles, a busy thoroughfare by the way, came right up to us and without even introducing herself or saying hi went right into this: “What you need to do is take that camera off your neck and hide it in your sweater, because someone will come up to you and hit you and steal your camera.  And they’ll steal whatever else you got too.  So don’t be looking around like you’ve never seen any of this before.  You keep your eyes forward, act like you know where you is and hide your valuables.”  How comforting.

Honestly, out of all the cities we’ve visited, New Orleans has been the only city where we constantly felt unsafe.  This sign didn’t help any…

***

Speaking of St. Charles, the ride on the street cars is a lot of fun… if you can get on them.  If you don’t get on at the first or last stop, you’re not getting on; tourists remain on the street car for the entire ride up and down St. Charles.  And since nobody gets off, nobody gets on.

***

Voodoo is awesome.  Why put effort into having someone fall in love with you when you can just put a spell on them?  It’s the lazy person’s way of getting what they want.

But now it’s mainly a tourist trap.  The French Quarter is littered with voodoo shops selling potions, spell packets, puppets, masks, candles and other fascinating and bizarre artifacts for people who are curious about voodoo but too scared to mess with the real thing.

On the other hand, people who truly believe in voodoo head to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 to visit the graves of Marie Laveau and her daughter of the same name, both of whom were high priestesses in Louisiana voodoo.  It’s said that if you place an offering and write three X’s on their tomb, your wish will be granted.

Some of the offerings were just silly, like Blockbuster membership cards, a Walmart gift card, empty bottles of beer, dead batteries, beads… but the one offering that really freaked us out was a dead snake.

Everyone knows that when you sacrifice an animal, your wish is always fulfilled.

***

We stayed at this really nice hotel called The Roosevelt, which had beautiful holiday decorations set up in the lobby.

As classy as that was, we couldn’t get over the fact that the tile on the floor looked like boobs.

***

When the New Year’s crowd left, fans of Arkansas and Ohio State took over the city for the Sugar Bowl.  Suddenly the streets were overrun with unfamiliar chants and confusing terminology.  The fans seemed to get along despite rooting for different teams, but we felt completely out of place.

But that didn’t stop us from attending an Arkansas pep rally at the Sugar Bowl Fan Fest.  We’ve never watched an Arkansas football game, let alone even been to the state of Arkansas, but this was such a random opportunity for two people from Southern California that we couldn’t pass it up.  Plus, we got to see the Sugar Bowl trophy, which was of no significance to us, but still impressed us with how important it looked.

***

In all honesty, we stayed way longer in New Orleans than we should have.  Two days is a perfect amount of time to check out the opulent houses in the Garden District, walk the French Quarter, drink the night away on Bourbon Street and recover for half a day before going out one last time in an attempt to accumulate as many beads as possible.  Just make sure to bring a Power Bar to offset all that Cajun cuisine.

The New Year’s experience in New Orleans is exactly what you expect: it’s all about drinking.  That’s really no different than every city around the world.  The only thing that makes the experience in New Orleans unique is drinking with people with Southern accents (an accent which becomes even more amusing when alcohol impairs their speech).  Other than that, there’s nothing particularly special about it.

Sure, it’s cooler to get crazy on Bourbon Street than Main Street in some small town in the middle of nowhere.  But the New Year’s celebration in New Orleans is modest — shocking for a city that abandoned modesty when the first girl flashed her boobs for plastic beads.

It doesn’t have the glitz and glam of celebrations in other major cities.  There weren’t any big name live performances.  There wasn’t a spectacular fireworks show.  And the theatrics never got off the ground… literally.

When we celebrated New Year’s in Berlin, the crowd was so dense that we couldn’t get within a quarter-mile of Brandenburg Gate three hours before midnight.  In London, we had to reserve a spot in front of the London Eye four hours before the turn of the year.  In New Orleans, we were able to stroll right up to a small stage in Jackson Square just 30 minutes before the New Year.

Even more disappointing than the crowd, which was substantial in size but not a raging mass of excited people like we expected, was a show that seemed to lack planning — and a budget.  Everyone stood around curiously, waiting for a countdown announcement since there were no TV screens or clocks to work people into a frenzy as the time approached midnight.

So it was a shock to the crowd when a voice came over the speakers and unexpectedly started counting down “10, 9, 8…”  (Come on, even football has a two minute warning.)

As the countdown continued, everyone looked to the top of the Jax Beer building where a small fleur-de-lis was supposed to drop, similar to the ball in Times Square.  That never happened.  The illuminated fleur-de-lis was already at the bottom.  Either someone forgot to hoist it, or the 90% humidity caused it to slip down the pole hours earlier and no one noticed.

It was an appropriate way to signal the start of an underwhelming fireworks display that got so boring that after a few minutes, the crowd dispersed and moved to the bars to get their drink on.

We left after the finale, already covered in an unflattering sheen of sweat from the damp air, and were easily able to maneuver our way through the crowd on Bourbon Street and get into Tropical Isle, a popular bar serving up one of New Orleans’ most popular — and potent — drinks, the hand grenade.

We happened to run into two guys we had met the night before — which goes to show just how small the crowd really was — and had a great time drinking the night away with them.

When things started to slow down around 3 a.m., we went our separate ways and stumbled over empty cups, mounds of trash and unclaimed beads that covered Bourbon Street on our way to the hotel.  At this time, Vegas would still be going strong.

That’s why we’re baffled that New Orleans trumped not only Las Vegas but a bunch of other major international cities that routinely make the list of best places to celebrate New Year’s.  We guess it’s because the people who voted for New Orleans couldn’t remember how it was after a night of drinking.  Though that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

After our road trip to Sedona and Tucson, the plan was to drive home as quick as possible.  No breaks, no rest stops, just get there.

Everything was going according to plan… for about an hour.  Then we saw this sign:

“Feed the ostriches”

Ostriches?  Those goofy looking things!  We had never seen an ostrich outside of cartoons when we were kids, so we immediately pulled off highway.

The signs got better and better.  “Feed the deer.”  “Feed the lorikeets.”  “Feed the donkeys.”

The Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch in Picacho, Arizona sounded like paradise!  And it was… until we met the ostriches.

Ostriches are officially the a-holes of the animal kingdom.  Not that we blame them.  If we looked like a giraffe-turkey hybrid, we’d be pissed at the world too.

They’re not graceful at all.  There’s no delicacy in anything they do.  You know how small birds peck at food?  Well, imagine a 7-foot tall bird doing that.  Then suddenly those pecks go from cute to terrifying.

Here’s an example…

Cute:

Terrifying:

See!?

They don’t kindly and carefully take the food out of your hand.  They lunge at it.  And they pretty much miss every time.  So you have this big, powerful beak attached to a long, gawky neck that towers over you, and it’s pecking at you without any firm direction or regard for your safety.

It’s pretty cool to say we’ve actually fed an ostrich — how many people can say that they did that and didn’t lose a finger? — but it was a freakishly jarring experience.

The other animals were way more our style.

We fed the deer.

And the donkeys.

And the goats.

Notice how calm, cooperative and non-bitey they are?

However, the highlight was definitely the rainbow lorikeets.

We would totally go out of our way to visit this place again, especially to go on their monster truck tour.  But next time, the closest we get to the ostrich… is the ostrich jerky.

How well do you really know your neighbors?  Beyond the cursory “hellos”, you probably don’t know them THAT well.  But it’s always a safe idea to get to know your neighbors and stay on their good side.  That’s why we decided to go on a road trip to Arizona.

We’ve already visited two of California’s neighbors: Oregon, on our road trip to the Winter Olympics, and Nevada too many times to be considered healthy.  But for some reason we’ve overlooked Arizona.  It’s always the quiet, unassuming ones you’ve gotta watch out for.  So we embarked on a five-day mission to find out what Arizona is all about.  Here’s the official report…

***

We kept our schedule loose and flexible.  In fact, we didn’t do much research before we got into the car.  We were at the whim of any road signs that directed us to things that sounded important or interesting.

It only took few hours of driving before we came upon a sign that led us to our first detour: Montezuma Castle National Monument.

We’ve heard the name Montezuma before, but it’s always followed by the word “revenge,” which isn’t comforting when you’re driving miles out of your way to visit a place that could potentially strike you down with an explosive case of traveler’s diarrhea.

Fortunately, Montezuma Castle had nothing do with Montezuma’s revenge.  Actually, it didn’t have anything to do with the Aztec emperor Montezuma at all.  But it was kinda castle-ish.

Montezuma Castle is actually a cliff-dwelling built by the indigenous Sinagua people in the 8th century.  When European Americans stumbled upon it in the 1860s, they mistakenly attributed the cliff-dwelling to Montezuma, even though he never made it that far north.  But we don’t blame them for their mistake; it’s not like they were very good at geography.  Just stumbling upon this cliff-dwelling proves they were lost… it’s in the middle of nowhere.

Even though Montezuma Castle doesn’t look that big, it contains 20 rooms and used to house 50 people, kind of like an ancient college dorm but without Cheetohs and an XBox 360.  Must have been a miserable time.

***

When you’re driving, some highways offer picturesque views.  Most in Arizona don’t.

But every now and again you come upon a sight so unusual that it makes up for the boring drive.

This particular sight was on the I-17, about 30 minutes north of Phoenix.

We’re driving along, whizzing by big, bushy Juniper trees lodged in the median, when up ahead we see something peculiar.

There’s glimmering white strands and shimmering red orbs and a mess of shapes and colors about six feet high.

And as we get closer to it, we realize that it’s… a Juniper tree decorated like a Christmas tree.

None of the others had decorations.  Just this one random tree.

There are no towns close by, so someone had to go far out of their way to decorate this tree.  What’s really strange is that this particular tree has been decorated every November for the last 20 years, and no one knows who’s doing it, according to roadsideamerica.com.  We want answers.  This is too strange not to have a purpose.

***

It was sundown by the time we arrived at the Sedona Rouge Hotel & Spa, and since Sedona is only famous for two things, red rocks (which can’t be seen at night) and vortexes (which can’t be seen… ever), there was nothing else to do but eat dinner and hit the sack early.

The next morning we tested our motion sickness limits with an off-roading adventure by Pink Jeep Tours.  Sure, it kinda goes against what Sedona is known for — relaxation — but we made up for it by spending the rest of the day driving around, admiring the scenery and going on hikes.

We saw a church built into the rocks…

…walked around Bell Rock…

…spent a few quiet moments with nature inside a little canyon we stumbled across…

…and enjoyed a stroll on the rocks along Oak Creek.

But the coolest and most daring thing we did was hike up a steep climb to Overlook Point.

There were about 8 trails to the top.  We happened to the pick the most difficult.

But we didn’t realize that until later.

We saw an older, heftier couple making their way up the hill, and decided to take their route.  Lesson learned: it’s wrong to assume that just because people look physically incapable of climbing doesn’t mean they take the easiest path.

At one point, the trail narrowed, with steep drops on either side.  But we forged ahead.  Slowly.

Then a tree got in the way.  The only thing to do was to grip onto this pesky, flimsy little tree blocking the path and hope we don’t rip it out of the mountain and hurtle to our deaths.

When we finally made it to the other side of the tree, it looked like we hit a dead end.

We couldn’t go right because there was a drop.  We couldn’t go straight because there was a wall of rock.  And it didn’t look like we could go left because there was a sharp slope and clusters of unstable rock.

We had to make a life and death decision, and the verdict was… we had come too far.  We weren’t going to turn around now.

So we sprawled out, put our hands and feet on the rocks, and did our best Spider-man impression as we made our way across the slope.

It was all worth it for the spectacular view at the top.  We got to the pinnacle right as the sun dipped below the red rocks and the coyotes began to howl at the moon.

We spent an abnormally long time at Overlook Point coming up with a plan for how we would descend this thing, firmly believing that we might be stranded there until help arrived in the morning.

Then a family of seven showed up, making the climb look questionably simple.  They snapped a few photos, took in the vista and began to descend the mountain.  We immediately tagged along.

This route didn’t have any life or death moments.  No sharp drops.  No narrow passages.  No problematically placed trees.  It was an easy descent.

Next time we’ll read the placard at the base of the hill that lists the difficulty of the trails.

***

On the drive back to the hotel, we saw a deer dart out of the trees and bounce across four lanes of traffic, narrowly missing cars before it disappeared into the bushes.

About 50 yards later, we saw a deer crossing sign.

That would have been useful earlier.

***

We considered making our way east, through the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, then doubling back and hitting the Grand Canyon, but on our last night in Sedona, the weather report forecasted major rainfall in that area so on a whim we decided to head south to Tucson.

On the way down to Tucson, another sign pulled us off the road: Casa Grande Ruins National Monument.

“Casa” means house.  “Grande” means big.  Big house?  Let’s check this prison out!

When we arrived, we realized it wasn’t the ruins of a prison, rather the remains of a 4-story adobe structure constructed by the ancient Hohokam people.

It’s a pretty impressive structure considering the resources they had… and the fact that it’s in the middle of nowhere.

***

Games are a great way to make the drive less boring.  So we brought along an electronic 20 Questions game.

If you’ve never played 20 Questions, it works like this: you think of something, like a bird, and the game asks you a series of questions in an attempt to guess what you’re thinking.  If it guesses the correct answer within 20 questions, it wins.  If not, you win.

That’s great and all… except the game is a cheating jerk.

Question #1 is really multiple questions.  “Is it a vegetable?  Mineral?  Animal?”

That’s three questions!  You can’t bend the rules like that.

Now, between every set of five questions, the game gets all cocky and mocks the user, saying degrading things like “I know what you’re thinking!”, “I’m going to win!” and  “That’s easy.”

Oh, really?  If it’s so easy, how come you couldn’t get my answer after 20 questions?  It had to ask FIVE more.  The game is called 20 Questions, not 20 Questions Or However Many Questions I Need To Get The Correct Answer.

Since it took 25 questions to figure out that we were thinking of “cloud,” we started coming up with things that the game would never guess, just to screw with it.  Things like “string theory” and “contempt.”

After making the game look like an idiot, we can safely say that artificial intelligence won’t be enslaving humanity any time soon.

***

We really didn’t know anything about Tucson until we arrived at our hotel and asked what there was to do.  The clerk suggested we take a scenic drive through Gates Pass and watch the sunset from a lookout.

***

Anytime we go to a city where Man Vs. Food has been, I have to try something.  Like the maple bacon doughnut in Portland.  Or the mission style burritos in San Francisco.  Or the chicken and waffles in Vegas.

This time we had to try a Tucson staple: the Sonoran hot dog.

It’s a bacon-wrapped hot dog shoved into a thick bun with warm pinto beans, chopped tomatoes and onions, shredded cheese, salsa, mustard and mayo.

Sounds kinda freaky, but it’s so good that it could lead to addiction.

***

We heard a lot of good things about this obscure store called Tucson Mineral And Gem World.  So we drove out to the desert to see what made this place so special.

Yeah, it has minerals and gems as advertised.  But that’s not what makes this place so fascinating.

Imagine walking into Indiana Jones’ house.  That’s what this place is like.

We couldn’t believe that some of these amazing artifacts were in a store instead of a museum.

Mummy wrappings.  30,000-year-old animal fossils.  Trinkets from ancient Egypt.  Dinosaur teeth, bones and petrified eggs.

But the coolest thing was when the owner came over and showed us the skull of a Mayan emperor named King Shield Jaguar III.

***

We’re fascinated by aircraft.  So when we found out that Tucson was home to one of the largest aerospace museums in the world, we had to check it out.

The Pima Air & Space Museum features about 300 aircraft spread over four hangars and acres of desert.

The most famous attraction is an SR-71 Blackbird.  This is one of the fastest planes ever.  The Blackbird still holds speed records, flying from New York to London in 1 hour and 54 minutes.  Wouldn’t it be nice if flights were always that fast?

***

If there’s anything we learned on this trip, it’s that Arizona is a pretty cool neighbor to have.  Hopefully they’ll invite us over more often.  Heck, even if they don’t, we’re coming back for Sonoran hotdog anyway.

Jackie says: "We love Arizona!"

Sedona, Arizona is famous for its stunning red rock formations.  But if you’re not an experienced outdoors-person, or you’ve recently watched 127 Hours and decided never to go hiking, the best way to get up close and personal with the rocks is through Pink Jeep Tours.

We heard a lot about them long before we visited Sedona last weekend.  They’re famous for being the first Jeep tour in the city, established in 1960, and they still have exclusive rights to some of the most scenic trails.  Plus, how often can you say you’ve ridden in a pink Jeep?  So we had to give it a shot.

They offer a range of tours, some aimed more at history, others more at scenery.  The closest we’ve ever been to off-roading is the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland, so we decided to go on their most adventurous tour: Broken Arrow.

This 2-hour tour is by far their most popular.  After traversing bumpy dirt roads, navigating turns and rappelling steep rocks, we can see why: the Broken Arrow trail is nature’s rollercoaster.

Luckily we had Reé as our driver.  She was the perfect guide: informative, playful, had that fun sarcastic Jersey attitude going on, and kept everyone feeling safe and secure, even when it seemed like we were going to play “Roll over Jeep, good Jeep!”  She knew when to hit the gas to raise everyone’s heart rate and when to slow down to take in the natural beauty of Sedona.

Like a good movie, the Broken Arrow tour starts with stunning views and ends with a thrilling climax.  After kicking up some mud and winding through cactus and trees, we stopped at Submarine Rock for a breathtaking panorama of Sedona.  Even on a cold and cloudy day, the landscape is still majestic.

Then the action picked up.  The trail gets more rugged and the hills get steeper on the way to Chicken Point.  When the Jeep suddenly tips forward and slowly makes its way down a rock at a 45 degree angle, you’ll understand why it’s called Chicken Point.

But that’s just a set-up for the big moment at the end of the tour when we descend the ominously titled “Road Of No Return,” a jagged and jarring trail that slopes so severely that the view outside the front window is completely dominated by red rocks and black skidmarks.

It’s an exciting conclusion to an adventurous tour that offers some of the beautiful vistas in Sedona.  So if you’re looking for a fun and unique way to explore Red Rock Country, give Pink Jeep Tours a shot.  You’ll be glad you did!

Pink Jeep Tours
204 North Highway 89A
Sedona, Arizona 86336
Reservations: 928.282.5000
Toll Free: 800.873.3662

Sedona, Arizona is famous for being a couples retreat and a great destination for hiking and off-roading.  But we didn’t go there for any of those reasons.  We just wanted to escape the storms that were pounding Southern California.

So we traded Mother Nature’s fury for Mother Nature’s beauty with a two-night stay at the Sedona Rouge Hotel and Spa.

This was a perfect choice for us because we wanted to stay somewhere that was close to the urban center — just a few minutes drive from the Tlaquepaque Arts & Crafts Village and Gallery Row — but far enough that we could enjoy the beautiful vistas of Red Rock country in peace and quiet.

One of the things we really liked about Sedona Rouge is that the design perfectly reflects the city.  It’s a small, intimate, peaceful place, with 77 rooms and suites, and spa rooms that borrow the deep red color of Sedona’s landscape to accentuate the hotel’s Spanish Mediterranian architecture.

We stayed in a room on the third floor that had vaulted ceilings and two giant windows, one overlooking the pool, jacuzzi and fitness center, the other dominated by Thunder Mountain, which is supposedly the inspiration for the ride of the same name at Disneyland.

Even though the room was equipped with a 32″ flat screen television, it was far more relaxing to crawl under the goose down duvet, spread out on the pillow top bed and admire the scenery.  When night fell, the hotel looked even more majestic.

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, we discovered that the spacious walk-in shower had two shower heads, one of which was a rainfall shower (yes, we realize the irony in running away from a rain storm only to deeply enjoy a rainfall shower).  The bathroom was stocked with fragrant soaps handmade in Sedona and soft Turkish towels.

When hunger finally pulled us out of the room, we went downstairs to Sedona Rouge’s bistro, Reds, which serves contemporary gourmet and comfort food.  We got there at the tail end of happy hour and savored a diverse range of delicious food — a mac and cheese skillet, barbeque chicken sandwich and ahi tuna — and two glasses of wine.

The only thing we didn’t get to check out was the spa, but Sedona Rouge has 4.5 stars out of 256 customer reviews on TripAdvisor and it’s been awarded AAA’s Four Diamond rating for the last four years, so you know it’s one of the very best in North America.

The facilities include facial rooms, a wellness room, a manicure/pedicure room and two couples treatment rooms, one with a private outdoor shower, the other with a sunken tub.  For those that desire additional pampering, there are even spa guest rooms that feature a soaking tub in the living quarters.

So if you’re looking for a romantic getaway or just want to stay in a cozy hotel with a spectacular view, the Sedona Rouge Hotel and Spa has you covered — even your pets (yes, it’s a pet-friendly hotel to boot).  We really can’t say enough good things about this place, so check ‘em out if you’re planning a trip to Sedona.

Sedona Rouge Hotel & Spa

2250 W State Route 89A
Sedona, AZ 86336
(928) 203-4111

Traffic jams suck.  Paying bills sucks.  Job interviews suck.  But they are a part of life.

We deal with traffic to get to the job interview.  We deal with job interviews to get a job that pays the bills.  We deal with paying the bill for the car that gets stuck in traffic on the way to work.

And we do it all because it’s a means to an end.

So is airport security.  We don’t like it.  We don’t want to go through it.  We certainly wouldn’t do it just for the fun of it.  But we deal with it because we don’t want to get blown up on an airplane.

And the TSA is there to make sure that doesn’t happen.

That’s why we’re annoyed that the TSA has recently been facing more criticism than an American Idol contestant.  The National Opt-Out Day will make it even worse.

If you haven’t heard about it yet, the National Opt-Out Day is a call for travelers to opt-out of X-ray scans on November 24th in favor of a pat-down to draw attention to airport security measures.

That’s a stupid idea.  Here’s why…

#1.  Airport security is meant to protect us.

This may come as a shock, but terrorists don’t tend to advertise themselves as terrorists.  ANYBODY can be a terrorist.   That makes the job of the TSA very difficult.

And that’s why they don’t trust you.  We don’t trust you either.  We don’t know you.  We don’t know if that lump on your chest is a bomb or the fetus of your unborn twin or if you just have one breast as the result of an unfortunate gardening accident.  We don’t know if some person’s prosthetic leg has a knife concealed inside.  We don’t know if that woman’s tampon is really a bomb trigger.

Since “eeny meeny miny moe” was never an effective system for catching terrorists, the TSA had to come up with a better way of finding the people who are jealous of freedom and want to kill Americans.  So they instituted full-body X-ray scanners and pat-downs.

When travelers submits to these reasonable security measures, they effectively gain the trust of the TSA and their fellow passengers.  That means when we’re sitting on a plane next to each other, you know I don’t have a bomb, and I know you don’t have a bomb.

That gives us more time to be worried about things we really should be worried about instead: will our airline meal give us food poisoning?  Will our flight have a baby that cries non-stop?  Will the kid who kicks the seats sit behind me?  Will the fat guy spill into my seat?  Will the movie selections not suck?  Will someone unleash silent but deadly farts the whole flight?  Is there something on the wing… some… thing?

#2.  X-Ray scanners deter terrorists.

If you’ve ever been to a doctor or watched that movie The Man With The X-Ray Eyes, you know that X-Rays reveal things unseen to the human eye.  This works great for finding hidden weapons.  That might explain why 81% of travelers support full-body scanners.  The other 19% have small penises.

Just kidding.  The other 19% oppose X-ray scans because they think it reveals too much.  In actuality, a wire-frame rendering of a computer generated character in a video game has more graphic detail.

That gun distracts me from looking at your junk.

Airport X-ray scans are the most unsexy images.  You needn’t worry that the TSA agent in charge of reviewing your scan is some pervert storing your faceless image on his iPhone — he could easily look up free porn instead.  Besides, he can’t even match your face to the X-ray image because he’s in another room.  You look like a ghost to him.

An even smaller percentage of people who oppose X-ray scanners claim they give you cancer.  But the fact is, you are more likely to die from a terrorist attack than get cancer from an airport scanner.

#3.  People hate pat-downs more than X-ray scanners.

Since TSA agents have to physically run their hands down your body during a pat-down, some travelers consider it “groping” or “sexual harassment.”

We say: don’t you go through worse at the doctor’s?  You get poked, prodded and felt up by your physician — while naked — but you don’t accuse them of “groping” or “sexual harassment” because they have a PhD.  What your doctor’s job boils down to is keeping you safe.

Well, that’s the job of the TSA too.  Doctor perform an invasive search of your body to make sure you’re healthy.  TSA agents perform a cursory search of your body above the clothes to make sure you don’t have a bomb strapped to your back.  Same intent, different method, both appropriate.

Look on the bright side, even if you’re not packing heat, maybe the pat-down will find something you thought you lost hiding in your back pocket, or maybe even discover a “kick me” sign attached to your back.

The pat-down is an effective security measure, but it’s not as complete as the X-ray scanner… and it invades your personal bubble… and it takes longer.  So it doesn’t make sense that National Opt-Out Day wants you to opt out of a perfectly efficient security measure that most Americans support in favor of the one they don’t.

#4.  It’s rude to other passengers.

November 24th is already one of the busiest travel days of the year.  Those who participate in National Opt-Out Day are only opting out of being courteous and respectful to other travelers.

X-ray scans take 30 seconds.  Pat-downs take 2 minutes.  Opting out of an X-ray scan can increase the wait time at security four fold.

That’s NOT COOL on a day when the wait time can exceed two hours without rude people adding to the mess.

#5.  TSA agents are just doing their jobs.

TSA agents are like telemarketers: everybody hates them.  But the difference between TSA agents and telemarketers is that you can’t hang up on them.

So don’t vent your frustrations on them.  They’re just following orders.  They’re just doing their job.  And their job is keeping you safe.

They don’t want to pat you down just as much as you don’t want to be pat-down.  It’s uncomfortable for both sides, especially since you didn’t go out for dinner and movie beforehand.

They don’t want to be the one who let a suicide bomber through the cracks either.  Imagine the guilt and remorse they would suffer.  Each person they scan, pat-down or question could be the one that changes the world for the worse.  That’s some heavy stuff.  So even though their job isn’t difficult, they’re under a lot of pressure all day, everyday.  Exercise empathy, not ego.

***

If you’re going to blame anyone for these security measures, blame the terrorists.  They ruined it for everyone.

The TSA is just taking precautions so terrorists don’t strike again.  The National Opt-Out Day is a misguided protest against those precautions.

We deal with stricter security because of the 9/11 hijackers.  We take off our shoes at the security check because of The Shoe Bomber.  We get scanned and pat-down because of The Underwear Bomber.  We’re limited in the amount of liquids we can take on board because of the the liquid bomb plot.

With each threat, the TSA has responded by implementing new procedures to protect us.

If that doesn’t work for you, don’t take it out on other passengers by making their holiday travel even more miserable.  Write to the TSA or to your local congressman and suggest new methods.  And don’t just ask for change without recommending some solutions.  That’ll just make you just sound whiny.

Be courteous.  Be patient.  Be safe.  And in the words of Bill and Ted, “be cool to each other.”

Since we reserved an entire day for the rally — waking up at 5:30 A.M. to get a spot by 7 — we didn’t have as much time as we would have liked to check out the gajillion free museums and attractions in D.C., but we managed to squeeze in some cool stuff… if your idea of looking at old white buildings is cool (and it is to us).

We went on a guided tour of the Capitol the first day, and while other tours were stacked with kids on a field trip who were too young and bored to appreciate the scope of the building, we had a group that must have been training for an appearance on Jeopardy! or something because they asked more questions than an FBI agent in an interrogation room.  But that actually made the tour really fulfilling.

The most impressive feature of the Capitol was the 9 million-pound, 180-foot tall dome. Had my high school American history teacher mentioned how bad ass the interior of the Capitol was, perhaps I would have paid more attention.

Later that same day, we went on a night tour of monuments and landmarks in D.C.  Usually we shun these tours since they shuffle you from one place to the next and basically read the wiki page of each site out loud, but this tour was actually worth it.

Our tour guide was really cool — he figured we already knew enough about American history to skip over the basics and go right into fun and interesting facts — and we got to save time time by seeing a lot of monuments that we wouldn’t have wanted to spend more than a couple minutes at to begin with. 

Places like the Lincoln Memorial, which is really dramatic at night…

…the Jefferson Memorial…

…and the White House…

The coolest part of the tour wasn’t even planned. When we were at the Lincoln Memorial, we saw Marine One land at the White House. Even though we didn’t get to see President Obama, it was still really exciting, kind of like that giddy sensation you get when you spot a celebrity in person, but more intimidating since this celebrity has the power to nuke you.

Wherever we went, the Washington Monument could always be seen.  Suddenly, I came to the realization there’s nothing more fitting than a giant white phallus to represent Washington D.C.  Doesn’t that say it all?  This country was founded by powerful white dudes with big egos who probably engaged in penis measuring competitions just to prove how powerful they were. So it makes sense that they would build a monument to something they’re so proud of.  Obviously, it’s a gross exaggeration, but it gets the point across.

Oh, and speaking of the Washington Monument, we have this theory that the Washington Monument is a Decepticon in waiting.  At night, there are two red lights at the top of the monument that light up and look like red eyes.  One day that thing is going to sprout legs and morph into a killing machine.  A white phallus killing machine.

After the tour, we had to replenish those calories we burned with new calories, so we went to Ben’s Chili Bowl for a chili dog and sat at the same table that Obama sat at when he visited the restaurant after becoming the president.

Tourists cleared out of the city the day after the rally, which worked out well for us because we got to check out some places that ordinarily would have been packed.

We went to the National Museum of American History just to check out the original Star Spangled Banner Flag.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t take a picture since the 30 x 34-foot flag is encased in a darkened, climate-controlled room to preserve it.

We also couldn’t take pictures of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, which are housed in the National Archives.

But if there’s anything we can say about those documents, it’s this: the thing we appreciate the most about the three most important documents in American history, besides the freedom and all that, is the penmanship. Seriously, it’s impressive. You just don’t see text that elegant anymore.

That’s why we find it hard to believe that men actually penned those documents because everyone knows men have terrible writing. It’s usually messy and illegible and full of misspellings. But not these documents.

Which brings up the question: where are the rough drafts? You know these guys didn’t nail it the first time. There has to be a handful of rough drafts out there somewhere, full of tea stains and typos and probably even doodles. If you can find one of them, Nic Cage might be interested in buying it.

That night we went to a bar called Brickskeller. It’s famous for having the largest selection of beer in the world — over 1,000 varieties!

We don’t hide the fact that we’re not the biggest fans of beer, even though we’re still trying, so we ordered beverages that were beer…ish. I got a Guinness mixed with alcoholic cider and Jackie ordered a Guinness mixed with champagne, both of which were surprisingly good despite the odd-sounding combination.

Our favorite food find was a sports bar called Stoney’s. I read that they had the best grilled cheese in Washington D.C., which turned out to be a completely accurate statement, because it was the best (albeit only) grilled cheese we had in D.C.  But what we found even better was their pizza and mac ‘n cheese served with warn corn bread.

This place was freakin’ delicious.

***

Check out more photos of Washington, D.C., and the Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear on our Flickr page.

We spent our weekend in D.C. at the Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear.  But the only time fear came into play was on the flight to the rally. 

Perhaps you can sympathsize with the prophetic creepiness of it all…

It was one of those situations where if something bad had happened, we would have said “in hindsight, that was a pretty blatant sign.”

But since nothing happened, we’ll just chalk it up to paranoia.  Here’s what happened…

We were on a Virgin America flight from LAX to D.C. and the great thing about Virgin is that every seat comes with live TV.

So I’m flipping through the stations in an effort to zone out and make the time go faster when I come across a disconcerting sight:

It was a breaking news story about a foiled D.C. subway bomb plot.  Not cool considering we were planning on taking the subway during a time when the city was expecting record ridership for the rally.  But it’s not like that’s gonna detract us from going there.

So I shrug it off and briefly contemplate the idea of just taking taxis the whole trip.  Fine.

But when I change the channel, I come across ANOTHER frightening story.  Now, this is one story you DON’T want to hear about when you’re ON a plane. (And keep in mind, this was BEFORE all the Yemeni bomb stories broke the next day.)

It was another breaking news story, this one about a bomb threat at the Salt Lake City Airport that forced a passenger plane to evacuate.

Okay, that’s TWO stories involving bombs within a few minutes.  Now I’ve gone from annoyed to concerned, so I decide that I’m going to avoid the news all together.

I change the channel again, looking for something mindless and terrorist-free, and the FIRST thing I see is the opening sequence to some Daniel Craig movie where he’s following a TERRORIST in an AIRPORT TERMINAL.

Now that’s a warning.  But because we’ve already taken off, there’s nothing we can do now.  Either the universe has terrible timing or a sick sense of humor, but at that point I pretty much figured that three consecutive stories about terrorism was a sign that this was the end.

So every time the plane hit a bump or someone stood up, I jolted in my seat.  I’m pretty sure the woman who was trying to sleep next to me thought I was fidgety crack addict.

By the end of that flight, I was exhausted, not from the flying, but from the anticipation of impending doom.  I probably should have used that time more constructively and texted my will to my family.

Now, here’s what’s especially worrisome: this ISN’T the first time this has happened.

A few years back, we were on a JetBlue flight, which also had free live TV, and the same frightening omen presented itself in a similar fashion.

The first thing I saw was some author talking about his book… about 9/11.  Then I came across that movie The Edge, which is about a plane crash.  And then to top it off, Conan O’Brien was interviewing Ethan Hawke and for some random reason he showed a clip from Alive.

Seriously, how fudged up is that!?

First it was an omen that we’re gonna crash.  Then years later we get another omen suggesting that we’re gonna blow up.  Why can’t we get an omen about winning a fortune?

Also, we’re not sure if we’re bad luck or what, but before this D.C. trip, the last time we were on an airplane was when we went to Germany over Christmas.  And while we were in Germany, the infamous “underwear bomber” tried to blow up a plane with PETN.  Now, the very next time we take a plane somewhere, almost a year later, Yemeni mail packages with PETN bombs are discovered in Dubai and the U.K. 

So, are we being overly paranoid?  Or is the universe really trying to tell us to avoid planes and stick to trains and automobiles?