Tuesday, August 12, 2008

South by West - Part Two



It isn't a mystery to anyone who glances at this blog that I have more or less given up running in favor of endless bouts of leisure and relaxation, punctuated only by air and sea travel. But with the Seattle Marathon on the horizon (Thanksgiving weekend) it's time to get back on the road and build up some miles.

Today I scouted out several good routes around our current location in Sedona, Arizona. A nice 5 miler tomorrow morning ought to get me back on the road in style.

On my scouting walk today I learned some things.

1. The only people who live in Sedona are very restless retirees from northern cities and totally fried hippies who aren't even really sure they live here. It's a scary combination, especially on the roads. I also encountered one resident who was a deadly combination of burned out hippie AND northern city retiree. She stared at me from behind the wheel of her Jetta with the sort of fixation that either said "I think I remember you from a past life" or "you seem threatening to me and I might run you down." I casually stepped into the gutter to avoid whatever was going to happen next.

2. If you cover your doublewide with Stucco you can turn white trash into desert white trash. Adding a wagon wheel or cow skull to the fence is the finishing touch.

3. No one really wants to live here. They think they do, but they wish they had made another choice. It's in the eyes. Everyone here looks like they are begging to be adopted and taken to a better life with less heat and fewer poisonous animals and plants.

4. The staff at the Wyndham Sedona is wildly incompetent. Luckily they are also rude.

5. Whoever designed the above mentioned resort had no training in traffic flow or pedestrian tendencies. No sidewalks connect to anything, and all of the natural flow of the place goes right through plantings and rockeries, almost all of which have signs that say "Please don't climb on Red Rock." Well, assholes, people climb on the rocks because it is the shortest path to your pool.

6. I also found the brewery. But that's my little secret.

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