Phoenix road trip: Well, Surprise...

We hit the road on Friday afternoon. I hadn’t been by the Hoover dam in a while, I couldn’t believe the height of the bypass bridge. It will be very nice when it is finally complete.





The drive to Phoenix is gorgeous. It was neat seeing the Saguaro cacti and driving through the Joshua Tree Forest. Many wildflowers were in bloom, too. Weather was nice; we drove with the T-tops off the whole way. We made good time and got into Surprise, where Frank’s friend Shane lives, about 7 o’clock. We unloaded the car, and then headed to Fuddruckers for dinner. It was tasty as always, afterwards we went back to Shane’s house. We got settled, drank some beer and played PS3. They got a good laugh at my terrible gaming skills. I fell asleep on the couch and later moved to the guestroom. Frank and Shane played on.

Saturday:

We had breakfast at Brenda’s Kitchen, a little mom & pop place with good food and great prices. Shortly after we got back to Shane’s, his friend, Scott arrived. We piled into Scott’s truck and set out for our day filled with off-roading and shooting.

Prepping the fire-arms and loading the clips



Me shooting a 9mm Glock



Me shooting a Ruger .45



Video of Frank shooting a clay with a magnum shot gun shell



We had a great time shooting, it was my first time handling anything beside a rifle. I was nervous at first, but by the end I relaxed and actually started to manage nice groupings.

We didn’t do much off-roading because Scott was driving his new truck; needless to say he wasn’t very ballsy.

We returned to Shane’s, Scott went home and I showered while the guys played PS3. We grabbed dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. It was my first time there, it was pretty tasty. I liked that their “hot” is actually hot.

After dinner we went to Speedworld to race the Trans Am. When we first pulled in a car spun outside of the track. We later found out a Neon raced a Trans Am, the Neon used the first turn out, he took it too fast and side swiped the Trans Am and crashed through the barricade. Frank ran a couple races while Shane and I watched on. He won one and lost another to a supped up Mustang.

Video of the winning race



As Frank made his way back, the owner of a TA (the one the Neon hit) asked Frank if he had a donut. Frank helped the guy out, it took a while, but Shane and I kept occupied watching other races. When Frank finished, I ran two races with him. Both of which he won. We ran one more, and then we went back to Shane’s. We drank beer, shot the shit and watched videos on YouTube. I crashed around 2am, but they continued to play PS3 for a couple more hours.