Flying the Dangerous Skies...

The last day of our trip wasn't supposed to be eventful...But it was....

As you've seen by the blogs you've religiously read about our trip, we had an awesome, awesome time with tons of crazy stories to share. We thought we were done making stories....

It was the last day. All we had to do was go to the airport and fly home. We had driven 1,400 miles in our rental. We were tired. We were broke. We were just ready to go back to Jersey to see our beautiful cat. ....and then we experienced the Phoenix Sky International Airport.

I've travelled out of Newark Airport on numerous occassions and know the ins and outs of it like the back of my hand. You would think that security would be extremely tight at Newark because of obvious reasons -- because the Devils are set to open their arena there next year, right? But getting through Newark Airport a week prior was a piece of cake when you compared our experience at PHX.

When we arrived at the Continental counter at PHX, we were told that our 10:40 a.m. flight was cancelled and they were moving us onto a U.S. Airways flight. The Continental counter person told us that we'd have to switch flights and shouldn't worry that our ticket said the flight was leaving at 9 a.m. -- even though it was 8:30 at the time. So, I wasn't worried...Apparently PHX security was as well.

After we trucked it over to a different terminal, we attempted to check in and were promptly forced to get on yet another long line to check in. The second line we joined was full of pissed off Jerseyans who were in the same position that we were in. We finally reached the front of the line. I thought it was interesting when I looked at our boarding pass and saw an "SSSSSS" on it.

We got on yet another long security line and were told by the security screeners that we were being randomly chosen for extra screening. Turns out there wasn't anything random at all about it, as everyone who was in the second line with us who were also headed to New Jersey was also selected for extra screening. Talk about random...People in line with us said out loud, "It's not like we're terrorists at all." To me, that's as dumb as saying 10 years ago on a line that you had a bomb. It's the new taboo..

And apparently now, they're targeting Italian terrorists from Jersey. We waited in line for literally 10 minutes and then had to go through a high tech GE machine that puffed air at our faces to supposedly blow micro particles off of us into a collection machine. I'm sure the molecules they blew off me contained alcohol and XBox 360 manual dust.

After the high tech test, we waited as a screener swabbed every single item in our carry on bags. Thank God the Swedish penis enlarger was concealed in a false bottom of my bag. "How did that get in there? Honestly."

I hate airport security. I really do. I had the entire rigamarole they make you go through from taking off your shoes to emptying your pockets to making you take your laptop out of it's case. Our trip through Phoenix Sky International Airport made the experience so much worse.

Day 7: Phoenix is a Horrendous City

It's a well known fact that on Randy Johnson's first day in Pinstripes that he was greeted on a New York City street by a cameraman who wanted to film him. Randy prompted told the man to get of his face and knocked the guy's camera to the ground. Now that I've been to Phoenix - a town that Randy played in for years and plays in now for the second time in his career - I know why he did that.....It's because he had never seen a camera in his life before...because people who visit Phoenix don't bring cameras because they do not want to capture the horror that is this horrendous City.

We made our way from Sedona down Route 17 on the last full day of our trip and stopped at the Cliff Castle Casino for a little hold em. I played poker for approximately 30 minutes or so against people that were clearly townies that frequented the small Indian casino on a daily basis. I ended up losing $10, but really think I could have won a substantial sum if we had stayed there longer since everyone played every single hand.
Near mid-day we reached Phoenix and it was it's typical over 100 degree summer day. We drove around the City and were surprised by the lack of people in the City during the day. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was because everyone already knew what we knew. That Phoenix sucks. There was NOTHING at all to do there. So after driving around for a little while and getting lost in Phoenix's ghetto - yes, they have a ghetto - we decided to go to Scottsdale to check out the Botanical Garden.

Thank god we made that decision, because it literally made our day a whole lot better. We walked through the Garden and saw over 50 different type of species of Catci. I had originally thought that there was only one type, so I was intrigued by seeing the different types. While we were there we visited Indian huts, saw a range of animals, grounded up some beans and nearly died from heat exhaustion - another common theme on our trip.

I wish I had more to detail the last full day of our wonderful Arizona trip, but Day 7 - the Botanical Garden not included - sucked snake balls....ya know, if snakes have balls.

Tune in tomorrow for the story on how the Italian Stallion was nearly detained and sent to Guanantamo to serve as the base of a naked terrorist pyramid.

Day 6: Standing on the Corner with Some Indian Rock Art

After having a world wind 5 days in Arizona, the last two were by far the least exciting. We woke up early on Day 6 - to my chagrine, a common trend during the trip - had breakfast and visited Canyon de Chelly. After seeing the Grand Canyon and the Red Rocks, Canyon de Chelly wasn't very impressive by comparison. The coolest part of Canyon de Chelly was we had the opportunity to speak with a local Indian artist who was selling his...how do I put this....rock art.

From the beginning of our vacation, my wife had looked for authentic Indian art to bring back to New Jersey. Everytime we looked through shops, she would check where it was made for and immediately put it down when it said it was made in Mexico or Taiwan, etc. etc.

So, we were excited when we had to chance to speak with an authentic Indian artist who painted flat rocks while we watched. He offered us a deal to buy one piece for $60 and get another one for free. I knew my wife wanted one, so I used my the bartering skills that I had picked up from some intense Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion gaming and told him, we'd buy one for $40. He eagerly accepted and we now have a nice 1 of a kind painted rock in our New Jersey living room.

After visiting Canyon de Chelly, we travelled south and drove on Interstate Route 40. A large majority of this Interstate goes along the old Route 66, which was once known as the mother road. It's interesting, but all it really is is an old dirt road. Might be interesting to those who deal with asphalt - you know who you are Smelmooo - but I was less than enthralled with this part of the trip.

During this part of the trip, we stopped at the Petrified Forest and saw petrified trees - actually logs laying on their sides - that had turned into rocks. As I said in an earlier blog, it wasn't nearly as impressive as I thought it was going to be. My wife and I were really disappointed with it.

Another stop that I wasn't all too impressed with was when we stopped on the Corner of Winslow, AZ, made famous by the Eagles old song Take it Easy. It's a corner. That's it...

That night we stopped again in Sedona and had quite an awesome dinner and the friggin hottest -to the taste- fajitas I have ever had. I love hot food and put Tabasco sauce on everything I eat...But I was sweating eating these fajitas. God, they were hot.

That's all for now. Tune in soon for the last day of our trip....otherwise known as Day 7: The Reason Why Randy Johnson is such an asshole; because Phoenix (where the Diamondbacks play) sucks snake balls...do snakes have balls?

It's a Happy Day

Today is my wife and mine 2 year wedding anniversary. Seems like yesterday that we met...and it seems like tomorrow that we got married...uh, what...where am I? honey, please put down the chloroform and take that knife away from my throat.

Don't Threaten Me With a Good Time

We now interrupt the recap of our Arizona Road Trip to bring to you a review of the best show on TV today. For those of you who don't get the reference I give in the headline, I'm talking about VH1's Rock of Love.

Rock of Love is a Bachelor/Flavor of Love knockoff that has Poison lead singer Bret Michaels as the Bachelor looking for the perfect bimbo that he can cheat on while he's touring the world with his hair band. The difference between the Bachelor and Rock of Love is simply the fact that instead of roses, Brett Michaels gives women who move to the next round Backstage Passes. Another big difference between Rock of Love and The Bachelor is the fact that when Bret decides to keep a girl around for another week, instead of telling her how much he liked her because she was smart or pretty, etc. etc., he instead tells her how horny the girl makes him or how "wonderful her breasts are."

In this past week's episode, they attached a blood monitoring device to Bret's member to measure the blood flow while each girl talked dirty phone sex to him. It was both disgusting and "I can't look away from a 200 car train crash" at the same time.

It's simply a fabulous show that mixes a rocker, 20 or so bimbo girls - a large majority of them with really, really fake boobs -- current or former strippers and copious amounts of alcohol. It's a mix that makes for a killer show. The show has been on for 2 weeks thus far and it's tremendous about of debauchery has made it simply my favorite show on TV today. I can't even put into words how ridiculous are the comments that come out of these girls' mouths and Bret's mouth. I can't even capture it in this blog.

So intead, I implore you - no, I beg you - to watch this show. ...

I'm back tomorrow with the story of Day 6 of our trip when we stood on the corner of Winslow, AZ without Bret Michaels and his 20 bimbo babes....

Day 5: Contaminated NJ Gravel Piles or the Painted Desert?

We started out our drive from Cameron to Monument Valley early the next morning and a few things occurred to us during our trip on the way there.

1) A large majority of the roads in Arizona are single lane with very few solid yellow lines separating each lane. While you're driving, there's a good chance that any type of car will pass you at anytime no matter if there's a decent line of sight or not. There's no speed limit for large sections of road, so if you're not going at least 85, you're guaranteed to get passed by another car or truck.

2) During this section of the trip, I would be driving (and not able to write) and I would tell my wife "Write that down" (for the blog). The first time I said this to her she immediately said "No" and it pretty much became a religious quote on our trip. You had to be there. There's a good chance that my loyal readers are missing out on "That's Gold Jerry!" thoughts because my wife refused to be my secretary on the trip.

3) The Painted Desert and Petrified Forest are not as impressive as you might think. When I was young, we learned about both locations. Of course, I didn't retained any of either lesson, but I remember that I always wanted to go there. So I was excited when we got the chance. Needless to say, my excitement didn't last very long.

I'll get to the Pertified Forest in a future blog, but we definitely were not impressed like we thought we would be with the Painted Desert. Depending on the time of day that you pass through the desert, you are likely to have either a great experience or sucky one. We passed through part of the Painted Desert on our Day 4 trek near sunset and it was decent. I neglected to mention in the last blog that this trek took place after the 6 mile Grand Canyon hike when we decided to drive 25 miles to eat at the nearest McDonalds in TUBA CITY. My wife loves that city.

On Day 5 when we passed through a large part of the Painted Desert we just thought it was blah. It looked to me like they were just big gravel piles that could be confused by some people as gravel piles that you see while driving up the NJ Turnpike.

After a long trip of seeing nothing but nothing, we reached Monument Valley. We stopped for a Oscar Meyer Processed Bologna and Provolone sandwich - Only the best for me and my wife - and then made our way to a horse stable on the grounds that we heard about from my wife's parents.

When we arrived, we were greeted - in a mumbling fashion - by a Navajo indian boy who took care of the horses at the stables. We stood there for 10 minutes before the kid told us that the horses had to finish eating before we took them out with a guide. When my wife asked him what he did all day at the stable, his response was "I just fucking sit here and watch them eat."


After the horses were done fucking eating, other people who owned the stable showed up and we got the opportunity to go on a horse ride throughout the park with an authentic Navajo Indian tour guide; who was wearing an Emmitt Smith Arizona Cardinals Jersey. The tour was definitely exciting as we got to ride beginner horses who pretty much followed all of our commands. We got to trot and gallop on the horses and it was an excellent experience. When we got off the horses though, it was a different experience altogether. I'll leave it at that....


Overall, the horse ride through Monument Valley was definitely a Top 3 Experience on our trip and I'm happy that we were able to experience it.


Tune in tomorrow (or whenever I get the chance to write the next blog...get off my back already loyal readers) for the chance to experience what's it's like to actually stand on the corner of Winslow, Arizona.

Day 4 - Hello God? It's Me Tony

Day 4 started out bright and early - approximately at 5 a.m. in the morning. We wanted to get an early start out this day because it was the day of our big hike into the depths of the Grand Canyon. Little did I know, it would nearly be my last day on this earth.

All over the Park there were signs warning people not to hike to the bottom of the Canyon (near the Colorado River) and back to the top during the same day because of extreme exhaustion. While we didn't hike down and back on the same day, let's just say they sure got the extreme exhaustion part right.

We hiked that day on The Bright Angel Trail, which is the most popular trail on the South Rim of the Canyon. During the hike, we saw freaks and geeks in high heels and jeans (not together) and various other types of apparel that didn't seem appropriate for hikers. The hike down was breathtaking - because of the awesome views and the fact that we had to take small sips of breath in between holding our noses from the mass amount of stinky mule poo on the trail.

On the way down, I took 20 or so photos, drank 3 bottles of water and felt good. My legs and feet hurt a little so the wife and I decided to valiantly bypass the 1.5 mile resthouse to make our way for the 3 mile house. Wasn't our plan at the start of the trip, but what the hell. When were we ever going to be at the Grand Canyon again? Plus, it was early in the day and we figured that we'd be able to make it down and back without much effort and stress.

Along the way, we saw a woman who had been bucked off her mule and had to be airlifted out of the Canyon at 3 mile house. It was definitely upsetting. Hopefully that woman is okay.


After the 1 1/2 hour or so walk, we reached the 3 mile house. At the time, I felt it was quite an accomplishment to make it to that point. I'm used to walking a couple miles once or twice a week at or near sealevel on the flat sidewalk, so it was quite a different aerobic experience for me and the wife.

It sure makes a big difference though when the temp. is 95 degrees in the shade and you're at 6,000 feet or so. We rested at the 3 mile house for a half hour, ate some trail mix, filled up our water bottles and began our long trek up the canyon trail....As you could expect it was a lot more difficult going up the steep trail than it was coming down it. MUCH, MUCH more difficult. ...so much so that I had visions of suicide.

So far, I've told everyone that the best highlight from our trip was the hike down into the Grand Canyon. The scenic views were one of a kind. The weather was beautiful. It was Shangra-la crossed with the 1996 World Series.

I tell those same people that the worst part of the trip and maybe the worst part of my life ever - including the Yankees collapse in the 2004 ALCS - was the trek up from the 3 mile house. I cannot express in 1 million words how horrible it was.


As I said before, on the way down, I had three bottles of water. On the way up, I drank or poured on myself 8-9 bottles of water. We stopped literally every 5 minutes to rest. We stopped anywhere there was shade. We might have stopped 20 times. I don't know. My wife, who is in much better shape than the formerly beer swilling Paperboy, dealt with it much better than I did. At one point, I remember telling her that I would rather throw myself off the Grand Canyon than climb one more step. I was serious. Jesus, it was horrible.

After 2+ hours of climbing 3 miles up on a 45 degree incline in 100 degree heat, we mercilessly reached the top. I nearly collapsed. You can see from the picture that while I'm smiling, I'm really not in a happy mood. I'm smiling because I was happy that the whole experience was over. And because of the fact that I started the 6 mile round-trip trek with a beer belly and emerged at the end with a flat washboard stomach...

It was probably one of my Top 1o accomplishments of all time and I'm wicked proud that the wife and I did it. But I'll never forget how horrible the trek up the Bright Angel Trail was...

Tune in tomorrow for the story of the Painted Desert and our trip to John Wayne's old stomping ground...