Arthur and Into Nevada to go to Arizona

So this blog as it progresses has interposed very recent photos and happenings as the backtrack of  travel log and notable scenes continues.  We last left off at the first Fashion’s Night out this inter-generational bus baby sitter worked his way through and now we find our self driving past the set of “Arthur” the remake starring Russell Brand as the titular drunk.

Buses passed the famous bull Arturo di Modica redone in double in paper mache by the movie production team as Luis Guzman and Brand as Arthur and his chauffeur dressed in Batman and Robin driving a bat mobile crashed into the grand sculptural bovine and handed it a giant severance package.

A short time later before leaving for the West this inexplicably behind schedule blogger was able to check off eating at the Bee and Thistle bed and breakfast in Old Lyme , Connecticut so close off of 1-95 on his frequent journeys to the motel 6 in Niantic that this establishment being in one of the famed haunts of the Connecticut Impressionists such as Childe Hassam and Theodore Robinson that he just had to stop  He remembers having the wasabi tuna from this menu http://beeandthistleinn.com/our-sample-grille-menu but it was so long as far as tasting and remembrance go ago he remembers little else except for the huge array of art in the abound and the somewhat snooty staff.

Then finally after a long year of travel consuming frequent flier miles and long talks of the west from others doubling the refracted light which appeared on his search engine term results in the form of Boynton Canyon in Sedona which is said to have a vortex he just had to venture forth.

The easiest thing to do was to fly into Las Vegas and to travel south from there and so he did leaving JFK after seeing a raft of backpackers and skiers.  In Vegas he saw that on the electronic call board in the airport casino-hotels were no longer represented by push square illuminated buttons of white light and so he called motel 6.  It was about forty dollars on East Tropicana just where he had to drive down to get the road passing out of Vegas towards going south past the Hoover Dam and into Arizona.  So he booked the room and took the shuttle bus to the all in one place every brand of rental car pick up terminal and was given a Mustang convertible  (whose roof he would be afraid to reopen for the entirety of the trip- lest his belongings blow away).

So after driving over and checking into to his believe it or not deluxe room he began to walk the Vegas strip.  He went first over now in the nighttime to the MGM Grand where CSI the experience was already closed wander around and then walked until where he could find a decently priced drink,  Finally he settled into a loud music included outdoor venue which he seems to think hosted several midget Elvis impersonators and then crossed a sky-bridge over Las Vegas Boulevard to check out the Cosmopolitan hotel and the rest of the new Atria hotel shopping complex with ad infinitum glass installation by Dale Chihuly (how unexpected?).

So the next morning after coffee he drove out and didn’t start taking pictures until Hoover Dam where driving the bridge over had him almost ———-.    He had to take the tour of the wonder so often seen in the movies and he received a call from his mothers office asking where he was and he said “way more than six feet under”.  Anyway later he got back in his car after learning all about Elwood Mead and the accidentally man-made lake named after him when the Colorado River was damned and kept going south until he reached the turnoff for Sedona.

Then going into town on the winding drop he was again ——– as cars beckoned him to move as they moved around him and honked as he made it to the first fringe of forest and stopped and walked by beautiful red rock formations and thick pines not to mentioned abandoned structures which were like outpost bungalows before driving all the way to slip rock state park watching all having fun on the water before booking a night at riverside lodge under the stars.  It was the Briar Patch inn right there under the stars with a DVD library and a jacuzzi hot tub in the room and a great desk staff.  So all this way for a bit of healing and the first dream he had was about work..

…..It started off with Matthew Broderick on a tour bus getting dropped off and promising the tourists that he would return when the dim witted dispatcher Patel appeared telling the bus it had to go but what did he know from Matthew Broderick whom we were waiting for and then  who appeared but the big tour guide boss who started yelling at him but the dreamer dreamed so hard she depixilated dispersed and disappeared.  Later though Patel reappeared as a queenly Thai general in uniform in some quadrant of Bangkok bitching.  Previous to going to sleep though I found a great Mexican restaurant next to the rocks lit but the sun which must have made Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning dream so hard when they were residents in this town.

But that was recalled the morning after waking the first night at the lodge of two and on the second day the first of two at the lodge.. The first order of business on the second day was to venture out to Boynton Canyon of course. After finding parking he walked the long walk of course into the canyon through first just the desert floor then woods the first part against fencing including a resort then he climbed up a hill and when some people came up that hill they seemed like they were in bad bad mood so he asked “why ?” and they said .. “we are from Antwerp and we are loosing the diamond cutting market to Dubai” (I still use this snippet on my NYC tours today especially by 47th street).

Later driving back I saw a art movie theater for the Sedona Film Festival and what were they showing the Banksy Movie “Please Exit through he Gift Shop” and for that day only. A brilliant piece introducing the world to the madcap Mr. Brainwash with a cameo by the painter Ron English, one of the great American artistic wits.

I found a great Mexican restaurant in Sedona ovelooking the Red Rocks and sunset and of course I was driving and therefore had to limit my margarita intake to one.

Meanwhile during his time in the parks, this I-Phone taker took what seems to be his greatest nature photo to date- as close to Ansel Adams as he is apt to come (though the surroundings were of a great help themselves to the cause of course)
(tree and clouds Sedona, Arizona 2011 by Lee Klein all rights reserved)

Soon it was time to leave Sedona and on the way out of the town this very late to press blogger visited the famous Cathedral of the Rocks, the view is breathtaking..

On the way of Sedona then to Tuscon where he was headed to see his old friend Jennifer from Greenpeace days gone by, this driver stopped to see one of the cliff dwellings of the Native Americans who resided un these parts in days also gone by. Specifically the “Sinagua cliff dwelling” (Montezuma Castle) Here this driver also made a big Exxon gas up stop and checked out the cliff castle casino was on two terraced levels that is two sets of building the main casino and rooms on the base and lines of rooms above. He would not stay here this time but intrigued he would be back.

Then through Phoenix it was straight down to see Jennifer in Tuscon. Jennifer gave me the address to meet her at her office on the campus of the University of Arizona and I did the gps and put the Mustang in a nearby parking lot. We talked a little while in her work place and then made it to the institute of higher learning’s art museum which we only had a couple of hours to browse.

All this time later I cannot remember if we went to the Englsih pub first and now recall that we did and then a restaurant but I will have to send a fb message to think back to what it was then we went over and perused works of art, yeah that’s it.

The pub was Frog & Firkin and here I showed Jennifer lots of I-phone photos now lost and she told me of hfe in this desert city. So we had the drinks, and saw the art and then we went to her home to meet her husband Darren a super tall guy of German heritage. Latert they took me to the hotel where John Dillinger was apprehended in 1930 (though he would later escape again before being gunned down in Chicago.

Jennifer and I out front at the Hotel Conress where John Dillinger waa apprehended in Tuscon, Arizona in 1930

We ate dinner here but I did not overnight there as the rates were a bit high. Next we went into downtown Tuscon the three of us and caught a fire breathing act and some dessert in the desert, it must have been a another dessert city, who knew lmaotm (laughing my ass of to myself).

I stayed in a motel near there house with a University of Arizonathemed name but which overcharged and after a whole roundabout it was corrected. They had made booked it through them booking through a third party who made a msitake something like that but soon it was of to sleep and off to Biosphere in the morning.

Long had Biosphere been an inspiration gone into the ideas behind my shopping mall poem and now here it would be albeit years down the road ater the experiment in contained living in an indoor convergence megatransect of ecosytems had ended but now I could check this place this remote corner of the continent off of my list as well.

Leaving Tuson I traveled a busy thoroughfare straigh as a shot into the cdesert where on the way this driver saw his first ever in the wild witnessed coyote (makes up for missing the moose on the via rail in Alberta and British COlumbiaone would suppose).

It was a long drive in and now it was long time coming, a lot of time passed, a long time gone and Biosphere the place the experimental wonderland that was an experiment belonged to the University of Arizona

Biosphere is now part of the University of Arizona

On the way in one passes large chunks of minerals and landscape elementas such as a large chunk of Malachite and Azurite.