Drinks at a desert dive

After a long flight, we wanted to work in some sightseeing during our layover. The suns’ heat was so intense that we ended up just ducking into the first place we found that was open. It turned out to be this dimly lit, somewhat sketchy bar. It was packed full of pilots and travelers, drinking or smoking hookah pipes. They even had live music, which seemed odd at midday.

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It was gritty, but actually not too bad for a dive bar in the middle of the desert. The drink menu included local favorites like the Desert Bloom and the Meltdown. I ordered a vegan Juri Juice, which came in a cool collectible jar. Phillip stuck with Blue Milk. I later found out some pretty intense fights had broken out there in the past. But that was a long time ago, and we didn’t have any problems.

One Yelp review called the cantina “a wretched hive of scum and villainy,” which just goes to show, you shouldn’t believe everything you read.

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PS For more out-of-this world cocktail ideas, check out this post on Getting Hammered in a Galaxy Far, Far Away.

Disclosure: We did not receive any compensation from the Mos Eisley Cantina for this review. In fact, I can’t even confirm that we ever left our home planet. While April 1st is the only day you’ll hear about our layover on Tatooine, we are actually
headed to Star Wars Celebration in a couple weeks, and we’ll be sure to tell you all about that.

Open to creativity

About a dozen people of all ages showed up for my workshop at Southwest Maker Fest Saturday.

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I talked a little about making minimalist travel journals that you can start during your trip. Then I gave everyone an envelope with odds and ends to represent what you might pick up on your travels — attraction flyers, paper scraps, coffee sleeves, Travelcraft Journal stickers, etc. Then I set them loose to create something that told the story of their day.

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Because the room I was assigned to was in a children’s museum, some of the parents assumed it was a “kid thing” and were surprised when I handed them an envelope to create one too. Also, the open-endedness of the project freaked a few people out a bit at first.

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But, by the end, everyone — kids and adults — really got creative and made some fabulous things. They journaled, they drew, some of them went outside the booklet format and got architectural, building things with their materials.

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I love seeing people open up to creativity.

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Microblog Mondays

Wildflower hunt

Phillip and I went out looking for wildflowers. We found lots along the roadside and just a few sprinkled beyond that.

We also found the Picket Post trailhead.

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We spotted some cactus wrens, some beat up old Saguaros, and the Silly Mountain Botanical Walk. Yes, there’s a Silly Mountain. With its own botanical walk. My state has some of the most ridiculous place names. (Why, Arizona)

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Anyway, it was a nice little path with some wildflowers and blooming prickly pear cactus.

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It wasn’t what we’d expected, but I’d still call it a success.

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PS The latest edition of the newsletter went out today. If you didn’t get it, let me know.

The Return of Southwest Maker Fest

It’s almost time for the second annual Southwest Maker Fest, a free celebration of creativity and collaboration, hacking and tinkering. Once again, there will be lots of workshops, interactive maker booths, and music.

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I’ll be presenting “Make Art Travel Journals Anywhere!” I’ve built on last year’s workshop to make it more hands-on.

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Southwest Maker Fest will be held this Saturday, March 28 from noon to 8pm in downtown Mesa, Arizona. My workshop is at 12:30pm in the i.d.e.a. Museum HUB Classroom (150 W Pepper Place).

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I’m also relaunching my newsletter with the next issue coming out this week! If you haven’t signed up previously, get on the list!

Microblog Mondays

Amenity anxiety

Hotel view

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I was surprised to see the phone light blinking when I got back to my room. Thinking I had a message, I pushed the button for the front desk and wondered who would’ve tried to reach me at the Hilton in San Jose instead of on my cell.

Finding the answer required what seemed like an inordinate amount of keyboard clicking on the other end of the line – like maybe employees have to type out the text of Hamlet before accessing guest information.

“Ah. You have an amenity. Would you like us to send it up to you?”

It was my turn for a long pause.

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To me, “amenities” are offerings, like wifi or a fitness room. No one was sending me the fitness room. And the wifi was already there.

“I didn’t, um, order anything. What is it?”

“I’m not sure. It just says ‘amenity.’ We can send it up to your room if you’d like.” he reiterated.

Since I had no idea what would be showing up at my door, I decided it would be safer to stop by the front desk later on and sort it out there.

He politely said, “Of course,” but I got the feeling he was thinking, “you’re making this harder than it needs to be.”

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When I stopped by the front desk later, the clerk still acted like the fact I hadn’t requested anything was irrelevant to the fact that something was waiting for me. He retyped Hamlet to find my information again.

Staring into the glowing monitor, he could see there was a DND on my room, which means I had unintentionally set something on my door to “Do Not Disturb.” He also could see that the DND was the reason the amenity wasn’t delivered to my room earlier. But he still couldn’t see what the mysterious amenity was. He wrote something down on a sheet of paper and sent a younger guy off to retrieve it, while I waited in suspense.

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My amenity came in 2 perfect little red boxes. Each contained a neatly packed cupcake that said “Lentils” on top with a little maple leaf symbol. So someone sent me cupcakes? Possibly made out of lentils? And maple leaves? There was no note and not even an ingredient list. I mulled this over as I rode the elevator back up to my room.

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I also contemplated the fact that if someone wanted me dead, they could probably just send me poisoned cupcakes, and it’d be all over.

Finally, I remembered that BlogHer Conference sponsors sometimes send swag to attendees’ rooms. I checked the sponsor list and found Canadian Lentils. Bingo.

No one poisons sponsored cupcakes. Especially not Canadian ones.

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Back in my room, I enjoyed an Amenity Cupcake. I still don’t know what was in it. But it was delicious and definitely not poisoned.

I found the DND switch on my door and turned it off. If any other amenities were sent my way, I was ready.