Winslow in the rear view mirror

Friday was our last day in the clinic at Winslow. The experience there was incredible and I learned a ton. I've said this before, but the staff at the clinic were incredibly nice. For our last day, the decided to make us "Navajo tacos" for lunch. To make them, you have to start with a wonderful base of 'Fry Bread', which reminds me of elephant ears (minus the sweetness). On top of the fry bread, you pour a mixture of beans and ground beef. This is topped with tomatoes, lettuce, cheese and hot sauce. The result is amazingly good. I had tacos and was completely stuffed! After lunch, we finished up work in the clinic and said our goodbyes.


Saturday, we packed up the truck and headed onward toward Denver. Our path was a little out of the way, but afforded us the opportunity to visit Antelope canyon near Page AZ. Antelope is a slot canyon that is about 1/4 mile in length, at one point nearly 90 feet deep, and often less than 3 feet wide. The views from the canyon floor are amazing and are often photographed.
Sunday saw us complete the drive to Denver. I'm fortunate enough to be staying with a good friend Seth who been in town for quite a while. Thankfully, Seth is a foodie who knows all the good spots to eat in town and we'll be hitting as many of them as possible. Sunday night, we started it off right at Sushi Den. It's one of my all-time favorite restaurants on the planet and didn't disappoint.
This rotation is shaping up to be much more intense than the last. I anticipate it will also be a very good learning environment. The GPR here at the Denver hospital is unique in that the residents get a great deal of practice with procedures that are tradionally left to specialists. It is a good way to help carve out a niche for yourself. I'm really looking forward to getting more hands on experience and learning all I can.

Last Week in Winslow

This week is my last in Winslow, AZ. I've learned a ton at the clinic, eaten some good food, and met some good people. Our last week here started off with the usual Bingo game on Tuesday night.
The dental assistants Josephine, Julie, and Stephanie had dinner with us at Casa Blanca, which is a relatively odd name for a southwest/mexican restaurant. They did have good food, though. We all then went to the bingo hall for the tuesday night fun. Bingo is an interesting game. You assume it doesn't take much skill, and it doesn't, but it's easy to miss a number or two. I came close to winning several times but still managed to not win a dime all night. Actually none of our party won. It must be a conspiracy!
As I've said many times, the assistants here are great. Most have been doing this job far longer than I've even been considering dentistry. They are willing to go out of their way to halp and love to joke around. It certainly makes the day go by quickly!
Tonight, Mike and I met Marissa (one of the new residents) in Flagstaff for dinner at Bigfoot BBQ. Considering we were in a small town in NE Arizona, my expectations for good pulled pork BBQ weren't very high. Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. Bigfoot BBQ was excellent. The pulled pork was smoked well and was given a generous helping of vinegar based sauce! My dinner was a sampler of their pork, brisket and ribs.
In this last 4 weeks of travels I've become something of a brisket snob. While the brisket at Bigfoot was good and sauced properly, it wasn't the best I've had. Those folks in Texas/Oklahoma know how to do brisket right. My goal when I get back to NC is to acquire a smoker and learn how to cook a brisket properly.
As our week draws to a close, I'm both looking forward to Denver and a little sad to leave Winslow. I'm sure the road ahead will be fun and full of BBQ adventure, but I'm certainly going to miss many things about Arizona.

Out with the old, in with the new.

Friday after work, I decided to take the ailing Explorer into Flagstaff to test drive a few vehicles. I really hadn't planned to buy a new car, but the government is offering a pretty sweet incentive (from the economic stimulus plan) to trade in your old gas guzzler for a more fuel efficient vehicle.

I wanted to stay with a truck similar to the Explorer, so I checked out the Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4, Ford Escape, and Mazda Tribute. For the most part, the 4 were in the same price range and had similar features. After driving all of them I narrowed it down to either the Escape or the Tribute (which are the same vehicle).

The Ford dealership in Winslow and Flagstaff only had a few Escapes that were overpriced and had too much unnecessary crap. On the off chance, I looked up the Flagstaff Mazda dealership on the web and emailed them about one particular vehicle they had on the lot. They were prompt in getting back to me and welcomed me in to take a test drive. As I mentioned earlier, the Escape and Tribute are the same vehicle (minus a few minor details such as paint colors and trim packages). The Tribute was about $2000 less, included a rebate and was subject to good financing terms.

So I ended up buying my first new car! It's a black 2009 Mazda Tribute (like the picture above). The truck gets, on average, nearly 10MPG more than the Explorer and has almost the same cargo space. It's been fun getting used to a new vehicle. Once I get home I'm sure I'll do the requisite wash/wax/repeat stuff that most folks do with new cars. By then it'll have 3000 miles on it from the drive back and will probably need some cleaning!

Edited to add two things:
1. I'm now back with Mazda vehicles after a year and a half absence. In the past 10 years, I've owned 3-4 Mazda Miatas. Mazda makes a good, reliable, reasonably priced car...which is why Ford bought them and now have them make their smaller vehicles.
2. RIP, 1997 Ford Explorer. Sadly, one of the stipulations of the CARS stimulus package is that the traded in vehicle is crushed and recycled. Hopefully the Explorer is reincarnated as something fun and/or useful!

1997 Exploder for sale, cheap...

Well, the old Explorer pretty much kicked the bucket on the ride back from Vegas this weekend. I think it started with the 3 hour creep through 5 miles of traffic approaching the Hoover Dam. The transmission never really recovered from that. Luckily, we were able to limp back to Winslow with minimal problems.

This morning, we were off due to an 'administrative' day in the clinic. It gave me a good opportunity to take the truck in for a check up at the local Ford dealership. As it turns out, my transmission was deemed, "hosed." That's layman's terms for $4500 to repair one part on a car that's worth less than $2500.

So now I'm scrambling trying to figure out the vehicle situation. I don't trust the Explorer to make it to Denver (which would be the best case situation), but I'm having a difficult time dealing with the local Winslow Ford Dealership who obviously think they have a sucker in-hand. Any advice would be well appreciated.

In other news, tonight was Bingo night! Mike, Jo, Julie, and I spent a few hours down at the bingo hall having fun and eating cake. Mmmmmm...cake. I still didn't win in bingo, but came much closer. Maybe by next week I'll finally win something! I guess it all evens out for the good luck I had in Vegas.

Vegas

In a last minute move, Mike and I decided to head out of Winslow for the weekend. Las Vegas is a short 4.5 hour drive through the desert and easily doable for a long weekend. The drive runs west through Flagstaff and eventually North into Nevada. Our path took us towards the Hoover Dam, which in theory was an interesting stop-off point. In practice, however, we spent 3 hours in stop and go traffic just getting to the Dam. The views of the Colorado River from the dam were breathtaking.

We ended up staying in the California Hotel & Casino which is in the Downtown / Fremont Street district of Vegas. The area is less crowded and you tend to get more value for your money there. Indeed, our room at the California was quite nice for <$100 a night. There are quite a few other Casinos in the district as well as a cool outdoor walking 'experience'.

Friday night, we elected to head down to the Strip to walk through the casinos and people watch. So much has changed since my last visit in 1999. As always, the people watching was spectacular. From what I can remember, we walked through Treasure Island, the Venetian, Bally's, Ceasar's Palace, and the Bellagio. Several drinks and 6 hours later, we decided to call it a night and headed back downtown. I enjoy the strip, but the sensory overload is insane. There are millions of sights, sounds and smells hitting you in the face as you walk by.

Saturday was more low key. We hung out on Fremont Street, had an excellent buffet dinner and watched the fireworks. Many of the casinos in town had their own fireworks displays. We ended up going to the top of the California parking deck to watch. Literally dozens of displays were going on throughout the city. Since Vegas is relatively flat and open, you could see fireworks going off from miles away. I've never seen so many firework displays going at once!

We also decided to try our luck at gambling. I played some slots and video poker which didn't really hold my attention. I'm not sure how people can play those games for more than a few minutes at a time. I did manage a pretty good run of luck in BlackJack and raked in a whopping $45 in winnings. Not too bad considering we played on low minimum bid tables. I look at gambling as more of an entertainment sport than anything else. If I win, that's just a bonus.

All in all, it turned out to be an incredibly fun weekend and got us out of Winslow for a few days. The only negative was that my truck started having problems in the 3 hour delay at Hoover Dam. Looks like the transmission has really started to give up the ghost. In fact, we couldn't put it in Reverse to leave the hotel. Mike had to get out and push so that we could leave! We'll see what the damage is after I take it to the mechanic this week.

Out on the town

Tuesday afternoon, a few of the dental assistants at the clinic offered to take Mike and me 'out on the town'. Skeptical about what that really entailed, we bugged the hell out of them until they gave us details. Tuesday night is BINGO night in Winslow. Since neither of us had actually played BINGO before and were starting to get a little stir-crazy, we decided to make a night of it.

The rules of BINGO are quite a bit more complex than I initially imagined. In addition to the straight line BINGOs that win, there are additional patterns that win. The regular games paid out $80 each game and the 'special' games paid out $125.

Our friends from the dental clinic, Josephine and Julie, helped us with the rules and let us borrow their dabbers so that we wouldn't look completely incompetent! While we played, Julie won a special game and Mike won 1/3 share of a regular game. Unfortunately, Jo and I didn't fare quite as well.

All in all, it was a fun way to spend a Tuesday night without spending a ton of money. Plus we got a chance to get to know two of the assistants who work with us on a daily basis. Both Jo and Julie are really nice and have gone out of their way to make us feel at home. Given that we're pretty transitional folks around here (the clinic gets quite a few students during the year), that says a lot about how nice people are in this part of the country and in Winslow in particular.