Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Grumpy Bulldog Does America Day 42: Old Town Errand Boy

I think I left off on Saturday.  Nothing really happened Sunday.  I did my laundry and walked across the street to get a pizza from Pizza Hut.  The bacon stuffed crust is OK.  I'm just saying.

Monday was dedicated to the car.  It was probably wasteful to spend $360 to fix the cracked center console.  When I was in Salt Lake City I noticed this big crack had opened up on the console, between the cupholder and emergency brake.  I'm not sure how it got there.  It really wasn't essential to the car's functioning, but I'm just kind of paranoid and worried it would keep getting bigger and the whole console would get fucked up.

I went to one Ford dealer but they just seemed to have a tiny oil change, not like a real service department.  So I went to another Ford dealer and there's was bigger.  I had to wait 3 hours, mostly for the part to show up.  I could have left and come back, but I figured if I was sitting there looking impatient and annoyed they'd get tired of seeing my ugly mug and thus work faster. #motivation  I might have left the car and walked except there's nothing surrounding there except more car dealers.  Seriously there was Hyundai, Kia, Honda, Ford, Chevy, etc dealers all in a row.  It was crazy.

Plus they had a pretty good waiting room setup.  There were chairs with little swiveling desktop thingies I could use to put my netbook on and write.  And they had a couple of fridges stocked with free bottles of water.  I did spend $1 on a 3 Musketeers bar about noon.  I was getting kind of antsy by 1pm but not long after they were done.  It would have been cheaper if I could have just gone to a junkyard or something and popped out a console myself, but since I don't have any tools or expertise that woulda been hard.

Afterwards I went to Applebee's nearby for lunch.  I got some Oriental Chicken Roll-Ups that were pretty good but at the end where the tortilla is rolled up was a little too chewy.  It'd probably be better if they'd cooked them a little more or something.

I realized too late I should have had the car dealer do an oil change while I was waiting.  That way I could have killed 2 birds with one stone.  But I forgot so I went to a Jiffy Lube.  You have to get out of the car, which I guess makes sense in Arizona since who wants to sit in your car in 90 degree heat?  This lady's little kid was being a total brat, which made waiting kind of annoying.  But in the end the car got its oil changed and like a new fuel filter or whatever other bullshit.

That was pretty much it for Monday except later I went to Fry's to get an egg salad sandwich and some soup.

Tuesday I went to CVS to get some prescriptions refilled because some were getting low and my health insurance expires this month, so I should stock up now.  It was relatively easy to get them transferred from Michigan thanks to all the newfangled computers and stuff.  The lady said it'd take about two hours, so I went to a Starbucks across from my motel and did some writing.

When I got back to CVS the store in Michigan hadn't transferred two of the prescriptions, so they had to call and wait until some ass in Michigan would actually pick up the phone.  So I had to wait like another half-hour for that to get settled.  So now I'm good on drugs for a little while.

After that I went to Old Town Scottsdale, which I thought of as an upscale Wall Drug.  Though really Old Town Albuquerque is kind of the same too.  It's where you get a bunch of little shops and a few restaurants in Old West/Spanish-style buildings.  I was looking for somewhere to eat that didn't seem horribly expensive and/or crappy.  I went into this one burger joint but either they hadn't opened yet or the employees were just goofing off somewhere, so after a couple of minutes without being served I left.  Eventually I went to some tiny bar & grill.  I got a Patty Melt that since they put it on a hamburger bun was really just a hamburger.  They offered to change it, but I let it stand.  I mean what difference does it really make?  Anyway, it was good and the fries were pretty plentiful, plus the dude kept my Diet Pepsi refilled, so that was great.

Later I went to Wal-Mart and was disappointed I couldn't find any egg salad.  I've been on an egg salad kick lately.  Instead I got hot dogs that probably barely qualify as food.  But they're cheap, which is good.  I bought the latest X-Men movie on DVD too.  It was weird they didn't have it by the doors;  I had to actually go to the entertainment section to find it.  In Rapid City when I bought Captain America 2 it was right by the checkouts so I could just go in the door, snag it, and go.

Other than getting my ATM card, which should be tomorrow, I've pretty much done all the errands I was planning on doing while here.  So that's always good.  I haven't figured out where to go yet.  Maybe I should just go south into Mexico and see how long my money lasts there--or how long until I get robbed and killed and end up vulture food.  I don't think any book I've ever read involving Mexico has ever painted it in a very good light.  I'm just saying.

Here are some pictures:













































































7 comments:

Yzerbear said...

Poor #Five. She has had quite the workout and properly needed a little pampering.

Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader said...

Looks like you're having lots of opportunities to take pictures!

Maurice Mitchell said...

Old Town Scottsdale mainly caters to tourists, but looked afteit's fun in spots. I'm glad you got your car r, but it sucks about the dash. Happy tails Man.

Nigel G Mitchell said...

Been to Old Town Scottsdale many times. Never bought anything there. Its Beverly Hills Drive with a Western theme

Cindy said...

I like the style of the town.

Briane said...

I like the giant cowboy boot.

I was curious as to how "old" "Old Town" could possibly be. According to Wikipedia the city was settled in the 1890s, so it's kind of old, but not terribly old even by American standards. I mean, Milwaukee goes back to before 1818.

I suspect that "Old Town" was one of those urban revival things that come and go in fads.

Anyway, if you go into Mexico, read "The Ruins" first and then don't take any weird tours to any pyramids. Isn't that where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid died, too?

No, I checked. It was Bolivia. Huh. So you should be fine as long as you avoid Bolivia.

Andrew Leon said...

Is it just me or is it weird that they have so many fake people sitting around?

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