Lunch was brought in by the vendor today, we had Jason's Deli, apparently regarded as a pretty good place to eat lunch around here. I had a club sandwich, it was pretty decent, but the meat was all stacked in the middle and it had FAR too much mayo and mustard. My boss had a salad and only ate like half of it, saying that it wasn't very good.
After training, I dropped my boss off at the hotel, and then headed out to the desert. I drove the loop below, just scoping things out and taking some pictures:
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I drove around this mountain in Troon, it was really neat. I noticed several things on the way out there, some of it very neat (lots of dirt roads! Wish I had my bike!) and some very weird, unusual and even sort of disappointing. The election for mayor of Phoenix is apparently soon, and I don't think I've ever seen such politically aligned signs for an office on that level before. Things like "THE conservative choice" or "The Republican candidate". Found it sort of weird. I saw a plot of land that had a ton of signs that said "No Dumping" "No Trespassing" "I love my Country" "Keep off my land" and some large signs that I couldn't make out but something like "I've fought for the last 6 years." Not sure what they were about, but I just got this vibe. It's just weird, because there is definitely an air here that reinforces some of the political decisions that have been made in Arizona in the last few years, but everyone I've met is so kind, so it's hard to balance it all in my head. It's just bizarre to see so many gated roads (that have public road signs on them 20 feet before the gate), so much political tension, so much of this feeling that many people are afraid that they are fighting against everyone to keep what they have. It's even weirder to think that the people doing so much to keep so many people out have had roots in this area for significantly less than the people that they've been trying to keep out. There seems to be this "We won the war" mentality. Just weird. Lots of walls everywhere too.
I ran into this one bizarre gate. I first passed a sign that pointed out where a town was at in two miles, but then maybe .5 miles later, the road enjoyed at a gated community. The road definitely went on, and according to Google Maps had at least three connectors back out to major roads, just seemed so strange. It feels like people are gating public roads. Maybe it's just the area I'm in???
Anyway, enough ranting. Out in the desert, there are a bunch of communities around the Scottsdale area. It was really neat to see this seemingly thriving artists communities out in what appeared to be not much of anything. Lots of real estate North of Scottsdale is for sale, so I hard a hard time determining what was manmade and what was natural, but I think that's good, makes the man made stuff seem more natural than the heavily groomed areas I'm used to from the East.
I got back to the hotel, and my boss texted me saying she was hungry. We'd heard that this Mexican place, Los Olivos, was quite good, so we headed there. I had the Combo #1, which was a Taco, Enchilada and Tamale with rice and beans. It was pretty tasty, but to be honest, I expected something different than what we have at home. It was different, but not a ton different. I liked it fine enough.
Click HERE to see the photo album from today.
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