Arizona day 4

Grandpa needed a day of down time, so we got out of their hair. Hit the wagon wheel trail for breakfast burritos and a hike before the sun was hot enough to ignite our hats.

Help

Walked around downtown at lunch, looking around in the little shops and spending an embarrassing amount of money on yarn.

The Rickety Cricket is a local brewery that used the wood from great-grandma’s demolished barn to build the second floor. We ordered a flight of ales and porters, and I tried a prickly pear beer that was very delicious.

All that dark wood is from the family barn. It lives!

“You have to go see Gran in the window,” everyone told us. This is word salad. Gran is dead. I wondered if they had put a window in her coffin. “No, it’s at the old hotel. There’s a mannequin operating a switchboard, and that was her job, so they named it after her.” Well, okay.

The old hotel is next to the train tracks. My uncle kept the truck running while I ran up and took a couple quick pictures. Out of nowhere, a leathery-faced man with stiff legs came lurching toward me, and my uncle jumped out to intercept him while I ran back to the truck. Quest ACHIEVED.

Uncle in reflection, rounding the truck to save me from being murdered by a walking beef stick

I’m going to be thinking about Gran trapped as a mannequin in an abandoned hotel for the rest of my life

Uncle assembled the barbecue and I made the mistake of listening to my mom when she suggested we might grill some fish. Fish does not grow in the desert, I thought, but I like making people happy through cooking, so I bought the freshest piece of salmon at the mega grocery, brought it back to marinate, and immediately filled the camper with the stench of rank fishy fish. The smell stained my hands. And my pants. And the fridge. Then I went and dropped it into the fire anyway. Disagreeable desert salmon. Good thing there were hamburgers.

Still messing up the sketchbook.