After the game we piled into Swisher's car and drove out to
TW1's, way out in the boonies where you have to park when
you arrive way late. Transferred my bags and bade Swisher
safe travels as he drove back westward.

It was an hour back through appalling traffic, and as we
inched along we suggested various reasons, including this
being the result of all the west side ballgames letting out
at once. Presently the reason became clear - we merged left
and saw an upside-down (luckily mostly intact) silver
compact being cleared from one of the center lanes. Yuck.

There had been no stadium booze good enough for TW1, so he
showed me to the Last Drop at the Hermosa Inn in Paradise
Valley, where he's friends with Travis the bartender. I
looked at the draft list - it was happy hour, and local
micros were on special - and chose the Sonoran Smooth Rebel
double IPA. TW1 ordered what appeared on the bill as "Trust
Cocktail" - you trust the bartender and get what you get.
Of course, you describe what you want to drink and maybe
suggest a favored ingredient to give him some basis to work
from. The IPA was not really so double, in fact its modest
bitterness was almost undone by a syrupy sweetness. Still
not a bad glass, but I resolved to put Travis in charge of
my second. Which I did, suggesting orange flower water, gin,
and almond: not unsurprisingly he came up with a maitailike
thing but not red and not sweet. It was pretty good. TW1
kept testing Travis. Most of the results were good as well.

There's this happy hour special where if you order 3 snacks
(normally 8-15 each) you get the lot for $15. We did that
plus two pork belly tacos with pickled onions and cilantro
crema at $3 each. The tacos were excellent, as TW1 said they
would be. Our snacks:

truffled ricotta croquettes with romesco sauce - I read this
as "risotto" so ordered them happily. They turned out to be
made out of this dry ricotta salata, and I scrambled for the
lactase pills. The coating was impeccable, the filling not
too fake truffley, which made me do a dissection that
revealed some shreds of truffle peel that must have helped
out the truffle oil, the result actually being rather good;

duck empanadas with "mole sauce" and pickled onions I found
pretty average, with duck that could have been guinea pig
meat for all I could tell, the mole a bland chocolate peanut
goo that was less than average;

Berkshire chorizo empanadas and chipotle ketchup were
totally ordinary but good pigs in blankets with a spicy
ketchup that, sadly, wasn't housemade but a commercial brand
with powdered peppers stirred in.

I should have ordered 5 more pork belly tacos instead of all
these frou-frou things. I'd have gotten at least 2 more, but
TW1 had a plane to catch but had lost track of time chatting
with Travis and his wife Cheyenne who showed up at some
point during the proceedings. I had to remind him to get his
butt out of there and on the road.

The original plan was for him to run in and check a bag,
then drive me to my motel, then drop off the car at the
rental car facility, then return to the airport, a plan
that would have been fine but for the last cocktail or two,
so I proposed to call the hotel shuttle and leave him to
his own devices, which is what happened. He must have made
his flight, as I didn't hear otherwise later.

I called the Econo Lodge PHX Airport for a shuttle and was
told that I should wait for a van labeled Sky Harbor Airport
Parking. Apparently they subcontract.

There was a pretty sizable crowd when the van showed up; it
just sat there for a while, enraging some of the customers.
Turns out the van has a spot where it's supposed to be, and
that spot was occupied for a while, so the driver really
couldn't do anything.

The vehicle soon filled up; several people couldn't fit on.
The driver promised them that another van would soon be by
to accommodate them. To give him credit, he did call his
dispatcher and describe the situation.

Of course, the parkers had priority, and so I was last off
the bus. I could have walked to the hotel from the airport,
twice, in this amount of time, oh, well.

Efficient checkin by a young fellow who is clearly cut out
for better things. My room was halfway down on the right.
It was fairly big, the bed fairly comfy. The toilet and
shower room smelled a bit mildewy, though.

I'd planned on eating at the Knock-Kneed Crab a couple
blocks away but had had enough food, plus it was dark
(not that bad of a neighborhood, but I might fall into a
pothole or something), so just went to the Circle K on the
next corner for salty snacks and a couple beers.

[Aside: I'd told TW1 of this plan but had forgotten the name
of the joint and referred to it as "something like the One-
Clawed Lobster." TW1 said, "you mean the Knock-Kneed Crab?"
"Yes, that's it." He just laughed evilly. I didn't take that
as a good sign.]


Word to the wise: Jamaican-style jerk Slim Jims have nothing
in common with Jamaica; Beck's Sapphire has nothing in
common with Beck's.

I tried to set the alarm, but the radio didn't work. Told
the guy at the front desk, who said that there was no reason
to equip the rooms with good clock radios, because the
guests would just steal them; that's how classy this place
is. So they buy truckloads of cheap pro forma appliances and
don't care if they work or not or if they walk or not.

The bed was comfy, and for me beer is a good sleep aid.

More importantly, the wake-up call I ordered as consolation
actually happened and actually woke me up.

UA1206 PHX IAH 0500 0925 738 3B

The desk guy hadn't let me reserve onto the 0400 shuttle,
not enough time, he thought, so I had to take the 0300,
with an 0200 wakeup call. It seems that the 0400 would have
worked okay, as security took mere seconds, even despite
this gem from the TSA person working the belt, who made me
take my computer and liquids out - "You're PreCheck, but
your bags aren't."

A yummy breakfast sandwich, to wit, a both soggy and tough
English muffin that tasted like moldy fruit housing an
egg puck topped with chopped and formed cured pork product
(but not too salty) topped with melted pasteurized process
cheese food. Given my lactose issues, it is a tribute to the
quality of the bread that I scraped the cheese off it - and
ate the cheese.

On the side your standard fruit cup and a tub of some sort
of yogurt.

UA 435 IAH BOS 1020 1459 320 7C Ch9^^

I was buried down in the double digits on the upgrade list
despite my lifetime platinum and annual 1K status. No big
worries, I just slept through the flight anyway, but this
time for a change lunch actually smelled good. Oh, well.

Again, Channel 9 was advertised and delivered.