I'd feared that having missed my lunchtime flight I would
go hungry, but in fact a meal was served.

The lunch choices were green salad topped with shrimp and
ranch dressing or a chicken burrito. I said I didn't care
but liked the ancho chipotle sauce that comes with the
burrito. Perhaps I could have had a special order of
shrimp salad with a couple packets of that sauce, but that
is retrospect talking. The burrito was actually okay, sort
of a chicken pot pie in a wheat tortilla. The chicken, which
actually had small bits of fat and gristle as if to prove
its animal origin, tasted like food. Some strange tough
green bits, some of which were peppers and some of which
weren't - perhaps bits of overage scallion or something,
perhaps a nod from yesterweek honoring St. Paddy's day?

The meals came with cream of mushroom soup, barely lukewarm,
not as good as Campbell's, with similar tough green bits.

A white chocolate chip orange raisin craisin cookie for
afters. The kid, who had politely refused lunch, got two
of these, and the FA offered me the same. I thought she
was joking, but when I looked up she had one in hand, poised
to give it to me. I asked for more Courvoisier instead.

My buddy from olden days Swisher was there to pick me up,
and the plan was to take him to the promisingly named Hap's
BBQ not far from the airport. Okay, I'd recently had lunch,
but why not - we weren't going to be in the neighborhood for
a while. It's an ordinary fast food looking joint (its motto
is something like Slow Food Served Fast), but the smells are
reassuringly good.

I asked for a half pound of fatty brisket, which came as a
pile of chopped with enough fat to make it interesting, but
also dragged through the lube pit, as I call it. The meat
was tender and tasty in a pot-roasty way, mildly smoked. I
forced Swisher to down an ounce or two of it; he pronounced
it good.

His pulled pork was a little on the lean side, nothing
special, but juicy and unobjectionable.

I asked if they sold ribs by the each; answer "of course,"
so we had one each - very good, lightly brined before
being given a good smoke. I thought that they were not
properly trimmed, so there was a big blob of lean loin
meat atop each. The part you expect in a rib was perfect,
though - just the right ratio of lean to fat and just the
right toothiness (none of this falling-off-the-bone
silliness - I hate getting ribs that are like meat porridge
with sauce). The loin meat was excusable - it was just a bit
of free Canadian bacon on top, after all.

The famous house barbecue sauce would have been better if it
had been ketchup mixed with liquid smoke.

No booze, so Swisher had iced tea, and I had a pint of the
heavily caffeinated Dr. Pepper.

Our castle a few miles down the road - the Days Inn and
Suites Tempe on W. Elliot; I had initially thought I'd
booked the one in downtown Tempe, but luckily this one found
me in its computer. We got an actually kind of okay suite
with two regular double beds and one pullout double sofabed
in the TV room. Slightly dark, remediable by opening a
curtain, giving us a great view of people using the stairs.
and they of us. So we didn't use the window much.

The beds were just a little lumpy but eminently sleepable.