Monday (Part I)

So this is coming to you from my flight to Chicago on Monday morning. This is my fifth day on the road...which is maybe one too many. Great evening with 1 and 1.1 last night, but I'm thinking that a late-afternoon flight yesterday may have been the ticket. My good karma was in low-supply once I headed to my hotel after my lunch with 1.1 at "Che-Hooters."

First and foremost, congrats to 1 and 1.1 on their successful completion of the Phoenix Rock 'n Roll Marathon. They both had great results, including 1's PR. The race was well-organized, well-supported, and we all came away with a favorable feeling for the event. A repeat-performance could be in the future.

I felt fortunate to see 1 at four spots on the route...6, 13, 20 and 23 miles. All as scheduled. And I saw 1.1 at the 13-mile marker. (Actually, HE saw me first.). The streets of Phoenix are pretty much in a standard grid, and the course was laid-out in a manner that allowed me to stay outside the course when driving and get to those designated spots. Plus, one segment was an out-and-back stretch that allowed me to just stay at one place and see her twice. Spotting her was easy as there really weren't a ton of marathoners, and the half-marathon (which did have big numbers), was run on other streets.

Some general observations about the weekend:

1. The Dodge Grand Caravan may be a Soccer Mom's vehicle, but it works for snowbird golfers too. It was half the asking price of the Tahoe and had plenty of space for our bags and clubs.
2. The cheaper golf course that we played on Saturday (for economic reasons) was a reminder of the old axiom that you usually get what you pay for. I think we'll be less-likely to go the budget-route next year. I mean, it was OK, but very so-so in comparison to the courses that we played on Thursday and Friday.
3. Three straight days of golf in January are plenty for the LtPC. Heck, the same is true in June!
4. Don't know if I have ever been in a city that has so much going on in such a compact period of time as now in PHX. Multiple car shows (including the big Barrett Jackson one like at Reno), the Phoenix Open golf tournament (with a Tiger appearance this year), and the Super Bowl. (OK. I give NYC a nod here. They have stuff going on ALL the time.)
5. TSA pre-approved check-in makes any trip a little easier to navigate.
6. That Safeway club-card is a no-brainer. We only had one trip there (on Wednesday night to stock-up the condo), and we bought only 6 bottles of top-shelf wine, but the card savings were over $100. I wonder what the annual revenue is for Safeway for non-club-card sales?
7. You can't always trust the Internet. Shocking. The Google Maps click-on address for my Sunday night hotel reservation on my Yahoo email notification was "West" instead of "East". Whoops.
8. It's very cool to stay connected with the fam via Twitter while on the road. The sisters following the marathoners from across the country was neat. (1 said that she had friends back in Minny following her on an app. They knew when 1.1 finished before she did!)
9. I do much better getting from here to there (regardless of where here and there are!), with 2 in the co-pilot's seat. I pretty much need a guide.
10. Another good performance by Hertz. Painless pick-up and drop-off. Paper receipt at the drop-off. Emailed receipt received while on the shuttle from the rental car center to the terminal.

The golf part of the trip was certainly successful, but it was a little off perfect since our pal Roy was unable to join us this year (rotator cuff issues). There wasn't a natural 4th from home to take Roy's spot, so we were three. As a result, we had an assistant pro play with us the first day, and then had "singles" join us the second and third rounds. While these guys filled out the foursomes, it was a glass only half-full in one key respect: the over-ride saying about the boys' golf trip is that, "it's not about the golf". I'm not saying that the trip was too much about the golf, but the symmetry of the 19th Hole and the evening events was just a little "off" for me this time.

Our Friday course was the Monument course at Troon North, a place we've played before, a higher-end, but non an "exclusive" facility. If you have the cashola, come play. Troon North is a big company with multiple courses and probably separate divisions for course ownership, course management, products, training and agronomy. I was really impressed with the turf at this course. Not only the tees, fairways and greens, but the practice areas and other green spaces around the clubhouse were impeccable. Thick, full, and very healthy looking. They absolutely have figured out how to grow and maintain their grasses in the desert. Not every club can say that. But refer to Item 2 in the list above.

Finally, I'm sure I mentioned it on Twitter, but we failed in our attempt to dis-arm the security system at the condo upon our arrival Wednesday night. For what ever reason, we had not had to deal with the issue in our prior visits. So when we punched in the security code for the garage, it was a miss, and the sirens and bells went off throughout the place. We punched every combination of buttons on the keypad, turns out, calling the cops, fire department and the EMT's.

Cal finally saw a phone number on the keypad and we called in to give ourselves up. Turns out that the lady across the street who watches the place for Ron's sister had already been contacted and she called off the gendarmes. They walked us through the disarming protocol which required us to leave the unit for at least 10 minutes to allow the sensors to reset. A glass of Jordan Cabernet for each of us later, and all was well.

All for now. Part II later.

BCOT




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