Matt and I had our first adventure on Spirit Airlines heading to Phoenix on a Friday morning. While they don’t have Precheck, they charge for carry-on bags (we checked a shared bag for cheaper), and there is indeed no leg room, we decided it was worth it for a really cheap flight. I just wouldn’t use them for anything over three hours or so.

We landed in Phoenix around noon, picked up our bags, and Matt’s parents arrived to pick us up shortly thereafter.

The in-laws had been there for a while, having rented their friend’s condo in Scottsdale for the entire month of January. Neither Matt nor I had spent any time in Arizona – we’d both only crossed the border at the Hoover Dam – so we were looking forward to seeing more of the state. Also, Minnesota was horrendous and cold, and this was the weather in Scottsdale:

We went to the condo, unpacked, and hung out. My mother-in-law mentioned that the condo had fruit trees, where we could pick our own grapefruit, lemons, and oranges. I love that.

There were a ton of shops and restaurants near the condo, so we walked over to a place called Blanco’s to get some food and beers. (The in-laws kept calling it Blank-ohs, so we didn’t get it til we arrived.) We sat outside in the glorious weather, and were joined by a couple of Matt’s parents friends from South Dakota. (All the snowbirds tend to congregate in one place, after all.) We had guacamole and tacos, and were pretty impressed with the food there.

We hung out at the condo for a while, discussing our plans for the next day. We were headed to the Grand Canyon, and Matt’s dad wanted us to book the hotel we’d picked out in Tusayan, so we didn’t have to make the drive there and back in one day. We looked it up on Hotels.com and saw that it was totally booked, which seemed strange in January. I expanded the search, and found that that was the case with almost everything there – Tusayan was almost full. We finally decided on a hotel that looked pretty motel-ish but had good reviews and was cheap, so I booked two rooms and we were set.

Around dinner time, we headed down to Old Town Scottsdale. It was about three miles down the road from where they were staying. It was 6pm, and they wanted us to see a legitimate cowboy bar, the Rusty Spur.

‘Legitimate’ was no joke… there was a guy on stage playing country music, and people wearing unironic cowboy hats hanging out. The in-laws did some dancing, and we had a beer.

Then it was dinner time, so Matt and I did some quick online research about which places might have vegetarian food. A few blocks away, we found Tommy V’s Urban Kitchen and Bar. Matt’s dad had been paired with one of their servers when he was out golfing earlier in the week, so we were seated in his section.

The food was really good, though the place was busy and super-slow. After dinner, we decided to walk over to The Mission for a cocktail before heading back. On the way, Matt’s mom stopped into a shop for souvenirs, and I took crappy pictures of Old Town at night. It’s really cute!

The Mission was insanely crowded, but they managed to find us a table out on the heated patio. We had a margarita there before heading back to the condo.

Back home, the in-laws headed to bed and Matt and I went to sit in the hot tub for a hour or so before heading to bed. I’ve mentioned before that a hot tub in the desert is the greatest thing ever, and I stand by that assertion.

The next morning, I got up and Matt’s mom and I took a walk around the condos to pick fruit. I took pictures of cacti, because I seriously love cacti.

They had orange, grapefruit and lemon trees.

Seriously, how nice is it to be able to pick your own citru? I can’t wait to live somewhere warm.

I hung out on the patio soaking up the sun, and then we piled in the car and drove to Talking Stick casino. The in-laws said they had amazing bloody marys. We had beers, since that’s not really our thing.

The casino and resort were really nice, and obviously fairly new. I was excited to read that they had craps there, but couldn’t find the actual table. I realized it was actually one of those craps machines with the giant Boggle-style dice popper in the center of the table, but that was alright since it seemed to work exactly the same as the normal game. Matt, his dad, and I sat down to play for a long time, and we all did pretty well.

Afterward, we headed into Old Town to do some more shopping. We covered a lot of ground, and I had to resist buying everything at the shop that had everything southwestern-and-Mexican that you could ever want. (Especially since we were sharing one checked bag.)

Since we were right by the Rusty Spur, we decided to stop in for a beer again.

Matt’s parents were tired of walking, so they took the car and headed back while Matt and I did more shopping. And by ‘shopping’, I mean we mostly went to the tiki bar. Hula’s was great.

Since we had dinner reservations that evening, we decided to take the bus back to the condo so we could change into nicer clothes. It dropped us off right across the street from the condo, and we went in to hang out for a while before leaving again.

Our dinner plans were at Culinary Dropout, which was halfway back to Old Town in the Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall. (It was this gigantic hulking fake-downtown looking thing, the kind that always makes me uncomfortable. We’d ridden through there a couple times, since the trolley stops there.)

It was colder outside than previous nights, and I was wearing my winter jacket. It was funny to see people in a vast array of covered-up; there were ladies in clubwear, and people wearing full-on winter gear. It’s basically exactly how Minnesota is when it starts getting into the 40s in spring.

The restaurant was great. It was noisy and the in-laws didn’t entirely get the menu concept, but their food and cocktails were excellent.

Matt and I had considered going out again after dinner, but decided to just ride back and hang out with his parents instead, since it was our last night. We played some cards again, and then hit up the hot tub for one last time after they went to bed.

I got up Tuesday morning and went out to the patio to knit. It was a little bit chilly in the 50s, but I was determined to soak up as much sun as possible.

When Matt got up, we went to say bye to our good pal, the hot tub.

Then we packed up our stuff and headed to lunch. We’d seen Diego Pops on the way there from the airport, and knew we had to stop in for a visit sometime. Especially since they had vegetarian tacos, which were great. (Not to mention prickly pear margaritas.)

Then we drove down to another spot I’d wanted to visit since I learned of it on the first day of our trip: Sphinx Date Ranch. They sold locally-grown dates, and a bunch of other food gifts. We bought a bunch of awesome things there, and had to figure out how to get it into our luggage. (I ate a date a day for two weeks after that.)

And then it was time to head to the airport. Matt’s parents dropped us off, and we headed to our flight. We took off right around sunset, and the view over the mountains was great.

It was so insanely cold when we got back to Minneapolis that we opted to take a cab to our parking spot rather than have to walk the two blocks from the train. Living in the frozen northland isn’t that great, in case you were wondering. That’s why we’re so glad to escape!