Setting Up for a State Completion

 All Over Arizona

When you roll out of van, make coffee, and go look at birds...

Arizona Road Trip

For the past two days we have been road tripping Arizona.  We had about an 8 hour drive to complete all but 1 county so we stuck a night camping in the middle and made it a really nice 2 day drive.  We saw tons of great birds including Vermilion Flycatchers, Phainopeplas, a lone Crissal Thrasher, and Gambol's Quail to name a few.  The weather was pretty perfect for camping.  High of about 75 and low of about 45.  The drive was really pretty too so it was a win all around.

Our site was pretty awesome and we didn't have ALL of our stuff with us.

They even had a dog park

with a swing

The sky was beautiful just before sunset the first day.

Fire pits for The Insta!

Part of the beautiful drive

We saw a lot of cotton bales.

On the drive back we stopped by Barrio Brewing Co for lunch.  It's the oldest craft brewery in Arizona.

The beers were solid and it was Taco Tuesday.

One more tiny county on the border of Mexico left.  We will get this one when we do a day trip to Nogales MX next month.

Our travel mapping shows some good miles.  The lower loop on the right was this most recent road trip.

We also blew past Missouri in miles.  We will pass Montana and maybe Idaho before this leg of our trip is over.

That's it for today.  If you missed A Pinball Tournament in a Furniture Store, check it out.

A Pinball Tournament in a Furniture Store

 Mesa, AZ

Atomic Age Modern

Tonight I went to Atomic Age Modern, with my brother in law, and played in a pinball tournament.  Atomic Age Modern is a Vintage Modern Furniture Store and pinball parlor.  During the day you can play pinball while furniture shopping and at night, twice a month, you can play in a pinball tournament. It was a unique place to play and we both had a lot of fun.  

The machines were well taken care of and they had a nice mix of new and old.

There was also cool stuff to look at between rounds.

It was Josh's first tournament and he played well and had a good time.

I played with a 5 year old.  He had been playing for a couple of years and knew what he was doing.

One of the guys I was playing with got a great score on Taxi and took a photo to prove it.  I took a photo to prove that he took a photo.

The front window display was Christmas Story themed

Major Award and all.

The tournament was a unique one because the prizes weren't cash

They were knick knacks from the store.

The prizes made this tournament unique for players as well.  People weren't there to win money, they were there to have fun.  Anyone who is driven by cash prizes isn't playing in this tournament so the players playing here were playing for the love of the game, and knick knacks.

This tournament was my 15th tournament.  Only 5 more until I have my real "world ranking".  My first 3 rounds were great with a 2nd, 2nd, and 1st but then the wheels fell off the cart and I took 3rd, 4th and 4th.  That put me right at or just below the middle of the field in the end.  It was still good practice for me and I got to play a few machines I have never played before.

That's it for today.  If you missed 12 Hours of Pinball, you can check it out.  I played in a giant tournament.

12 Hours of Pinball

 Tempe, AZ

The Electric Bat 5 Year Anniversary Pinball Weekend.

This weekend I played pinball for 2 days.  One of those days was 12 hours.  On Friday night I played in the warmup for the Electric Bat 5 Year Anniversary IFPA Certified Event.  It lasted about 3 hours and I came in 65th out of 87 people.  Not the best performance but there were many machines I hadn't played on, ever so I was treating this as practice.  It was a lot of fun and my sister and brother in law hung out to watch the action and take photos.

There is even a Tiki Bar in the arcade

People that weren't in the tournament had their choice of 5 machines to play on.  We got to play on the other 50 machines.

Here are some photos Sophie took of me while playing.

The main tournament was on Saturday.  It started at 10am and we finished up just after 10pm.  We played 20 rounds so between the machines I played in the tournament and the machines I played between rounds I was able to play almost every machine there.  It was really tiring but very fun.  My goal for this tournament was middle of the field and I just about did that by getting 62nd out of 100.  Just a couple of improved rounds would have gotten me that 50th I was after.  It was a great learning experience for me.

#notfonzie

Mid day I got a tiki drink to mark the bar off on my tiki list.

During practice rounds I got my ball stuck.  I thought it was funny that the drop targets say BS.

I also had a headlamp sighting.  A small number of people use some sort of lighting to help see the playfields better.  Headlamps being by far the most nerdy.

It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot about how to play new machines to me as well as what goes on in giant tournaments.  I am looking forward to playing in more tournaments while I am here in Phoenix.  I should be able to get to 20 total tournaments so I can have my official placement in the "world" rankings.  Right now I am just above 5000th with only 14 tournaments played.  The ranking uses your top 20 tournaments.

That's it for today.  If you missed We have Arrived in Phoenix, you can check it out.

We Have Arrived in Phoenix

 Phoenix, AZ

Francis is enjoying the warm weather here

But First, The Pinball Meet Up

On our last night in ABQ, I went to the pinball meet up at Sister Bar.  They do it every Tuesday when there isn't a show and I skipped the others but should have gone.  It was really fun.  They had a couple machines on free play, a bunch of people I met in the tournament were there, and the #1 player in New Mexico did a glass off tutorial of Iron Maiden.  He walked us through all of the Multiball and modes.  It was really educational.  I really think Nick Schademann and The New Mexico Pinball group is doing a great job promoting pinball and making it accessible to new players.

After the tutorial we all got to put our newly learned information into practice against each other.  

 

ABQ > Gallup > Flagstaff > Phoenix

Today we checked out of Albuquerque a day early because had have tonight double booked.  We could stay in Albuquerque or in Phoenix tonight and we chose Phoenix.  This wasn't a mistake, this was a money saving decision. Albuquerque has an added tax on short term rentals, which is fine.  We noticed that when we booked 31 days was cheaper than 30 days because 1-30 days in Albuquerque get a short term rental tax added on and 31 days + does not so we saved like $300 by booking an extra night.  Interesting hu?  Anyway, we decided to take the all interstate route to Phoenix so we took I-40 out of New Mexico all the way to Flagstaff and then cut south in Flagstaff on I-17 all the way to Phoenix.  We have now completed I-40 in Arizona and are like 97% done with I-17.  It will be pretty easy to finish I-17 on one of our trips to Tempe for pinball.

On the way out we stopped at ABQ Doughnuts to pick up doughnuts, a breakfast burrito, and a breakfast sandwich to keep us going for our 8 hour drive.  Donna was able to get a shot of the few hot air balloons we saw on our way out.

After blasting through Gallup the landscape started to change.  We made it to Cars Land!

We stopped at the Arizona Welcome Center to pick up a highway map and it was permanently closed.  There was a list of other places we could go to be welcomed.  We were surprised they have abandoned this welcome center because we saw at least 25 different state license plates on our drive on I-40,

I always like signs like this.  I posted this on Facebook and said it made the rest stop even more restful.  I got al sorts of great comments including a fun fact from a friend that has a long history with reptiles, "Venomous snakes not poisonous.  Poison is ingested, venom is injected."  Sue B

When we arrived we unloaded the van and got settled.  While prepping dinner, we noticed that some of the dishes were pretty dirty so we decided to put everything in the dishwasher and run it on sanitize but there was one issue, there was no dishwasher.  Donna scratched her head, and said, "I must have missed that, I check for a lot of things but it never crossed my mind to check that they have a dishwasher."  For our sanity I checked the listing and found this!

Donna didn't miss it!  It was lies!

I contacted the host and nicely said something like, you said there was a dishwasher but there isn't.  This is important info to long term renters.  He apologized and fixed it.  It appears to be an innocent mistake.  Donna and I thought it was weird that there were no reviews talking about the missing dishwasher so maybe it was accidentally added at some point.  These things happen.  It's all a part of the adventure.  

Anyway, we were here for the rest of the year.  We wanted to spend the holidays with my sister and brother in law and see what there is to see here.  There are tons of pinball tournaments to play in so I will be very busy.  There are also a few museums we haven't been to and a few surrounding counties we need to visit.  

That's it for today.  If you missed The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, check it out.