The good, the bad, but no ugly.....

 7:14 am - Thursday - January 15th - St. Michael Hotel, Prescott, AZ - 37° F, humidity 35%, cloud cover 6%, wind 2 mph out of the south.....clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 65° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE took this sunset picture with her iPhone....

.....from the pier at the Tiki Bar at Low Key Hideaway, Cedar Key, FL.

Tuesday night was one of the warmer nights we've had lately, and by that I mean it didn't get under 35° F.  The Newell interior remained in the low 50's, which is balmy this time of year.  We were up a little after 7 am getting ready for our trip to Prescott, AZ for a couple of days.  Just like when we are at LPG&RVR in the summertime, we like do a getaway for a couple of days once, or twice for a change of pace.  Last year we tried a new hotel in Prescott called Hotel St. Michael  located at the intersection of Gurley and Montezuma on what is affectionately called 'Whiskey Row'.  And that is exactly what you may think it would mean.  Back during the 'Wild West' days  of the 1860's there were dozens of saloons and dive bars on Montezuma and Gurley, and there still are to this day.  It can get quite noisy at night in the summer.  Click on the link above for a little history of the hotel....

Whiskey Row, New Years Eve, 2025

....we were on the road by 10 am to make the 2 hour drive east on I-40 to Arizona 69 south to Prescott.  For this drive we used our 2001 VW Beetle, which hit 200,000 miles on its odometer about 500 miles ago.  The Explorer we use to drive into Seligman does not have cruise control (well, it did originally, but it does not work now), and no working radio, so the choice, for me, was easy.  Since the main north/south arterial was scraped about 10 days before we were able to average between 25 and 30 mph out to US-66.  Usually our average in the VW is in the 10-15 mph range.

The last time I had my coif adjusted was about a month ago, so upon entering Prescott we stopped at the local Sports Clips to get my ears lowered.  We were in and out in less than 30 minutes, and on our way to 'Whiskey Row' to have lunch at the Barley Hound, where we had lunch last year, but alas they were closed until January 21st....their sign read "We're hibernating"....doh!  Just around the corner there are several restaurants, and without doing any Yelp searches we chose Doc's BBQ & Whiskey....

.....what a major unforced error!  The place was very busy for a Wednesday, and usually that means it is a good place, especially since there were a lot of open eateries from which to choose.  We weren't that hungry, so we ordered their 'Smoked & Sweet Pork Belly Burnt Ends' and their 'Smoked Texaz Twinkies' (smoked jumbo bacon wrapped jalapenos stuffed with smoked brisket and cream cheese) from the 'Starters' list, and a Caesar salad for moi.  The ambiance, and service were great, and the food came out quickly, but that was the end of it.  The burnt ends were terrible, the stuffed giant jalapenos were just okay, and the Caesar salad didn't have enough Caesar dressing to justify its name, even after I ordered extra.  I'll let it go at that.

Last August when we were in Klamath Falls on a similar two day retreat we visited a local jeweler to have batteries in two of my Nixon watches replaced, as the battery had died in one, and the other was over a year sold, so I proactively had the battery changed.  One of those Nixon's is the 'Rolling Stones' commemorative watch, the one that was still running.  The lady successfully changed out the one Nixon battery that was dead, but came back to me saying the 'Rolling Stones Nixon would not run....wait, what?  She tried several batteries and claimed it would not run....how disappointing, right?  Well, fast forward to Wednesday.  I was determined to get that watch fixed, so we found a local Jeweler which also did watch repair.  I was expecting to have to come back Thursday, or Friday, but they were not that busy, so the watch guy got to work on it immediately.  Within a few minutes he had installed a new battery, and the watch began to work, and keep perfect time.  That small victory partially erased my complete disappointment with our lunch.....

.....from there we visited COSTCO, and Walmart to buy a few staples, and then headed over to the Hotel St. Michael to 'check in' at 3 pm.  Within minutes we were in our room, and unpacking for our two night stay.  So, that was the good, and the bad for our Wednesday.  Thankfully, there was no 'bad'.

Thanks for stopping by!