Tucson, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe

I arrived in Tucson, AZ and checked out the casino. I played some poker before heading back to the hotel and going to bed.

I spent a day in Tucson, AZ. I did a 30 mile bike ride around downtown and headed up the Catalina foothills. The landscape is a lot different. There are a lot of cactus in Tucson. These desert cities are unique in that everything is in a neat grid and the streets go for a long way. These perfectly flat streets are great in that I can pick up the draft from the cars. I can sustain 35 mph in the draft of a line of cars.

In the afternoon, I went to see Biosphere 2. It's an amazing facility that attempts to mimic the Earth's environment on a large scale. Then we headed to Phoenix and stayed 2 nights in Tempe.

Phoenix is a huge city in terms of area. It's much like Dallas in that there are all these large suburbs that surround the city like Scottsdale, Tempe, and Mesa. Mike and I went to Tempe's Mill Ave to check out the college scene (ASU students). Next day, we went to South Mountain Park and spent the afternoon there driving up the mountain and checking out all the overlooks and TV towers. In the evening, we spent the night in Scottsdale's entertainment district.

Scottsdale is one of the areas of Phoenix with a lot of money. It's too bad that I lost most of my Phoenix pictures due to user error. :( What I remember most about Scottsdale is Saddle Ranch. There is a mechanical bull in that bar. I rode the bull 4 times! I tore up my hand pretty good and my groin and wrists are pretty sore! I got pretty good at it as well as I could stay on longer than just about everyone there except for this guy that was actually a rodeo bull rider.

There were so many beautiful women in Scottsdale. But you could tell many of them were fake and there was a lot of plastic. They were just too perfect (face, hair, body, etc.) and it was obvious that there was a lot of surgury going on. Sure, it looks good, but it's just not real either. Many of the girls there looked like they came out of a Barbie factory. There were a lot of blonde bombshells. Sure, it's my type, but it's too exagerated. We talked to the bartender at this Dive Bar and she told us that you had to have plastic surgery in order to work there. I definitly recommend checking out the Scottsdale neighborhood. It's very upscale and must be one of the nicer parts of town.

We left Phoenix the next morning and started a 6 hour drive to San Diego. It was interesting to see how the geography changes. We saw farmlands, deserts, sand dunes, wind farm generators, and went over rock mountains going into San Diego. These mountains are interesting because they seperate the desert from the coastal climents.

San Diego is a beautiful city. We spent the morning in La Jolla. This is a beautiful area of town and it seems every piece of property is over a million dollars. Then we headed to "Old Town" which has a bunch of old shops. We picked up a trolly tour and saw the cruise ship terminal, downtown, and Coronado. These are some really beautiful places. California certainly has a certain style that is unqiue to it. Every property in Coronado is supposdly worth a million dollars.