Snerkology

I mentioned last week that Bill and I had experienced a lovely, adventurous weekend. Now I’m going to womanfully carve out some time in my schedule today to write about the first part of it. Otherwise I simply will NOT find the time.

So. We had a Jeep, provided to us by the rental place that works in conjunction with our car dealership. We dropped off our truck for repairs on Friday night (this was back on 1/7, for those of you keeping track at home). Once in possession of the Jeep, we immediately started pondering about what kind of mayhem we could commit in it. See, Bill used to own a Jeep (ask him why he had to sell it – g’wan, ask him!), and I’ve always wanted a Jeep, so we took this as a good opportunity to test one out and see if we really wanted to buy one at this point in our lives (spoiler alert: we do).

Bill wanted to check out J&G Sales and perchance buy some cheap ammo to use for target practice, so we chose Prescott as our inaugural Jeep destination. We got up at a reasonable hour (8:00-ish) on Saturday morning and were on the road by 9:30. Sans breakfast, because we wanted to be “good and hungry” (Bill’s words) by the time we got into Historic Downtown Prescott at lunchtime (spoiler alert: WE WERE).

Edited 1/24/11: See more after the jump, this thing is making front-page loading STUPID long.

It took just about two hours to arrive in Prescott, through varying degrees of Saturday traffic. Once we made the turn off of I-17 onto AZ-69, the scenery got decidedly more interesting. Following is a series of out-the-window, straight out of the camera, on-the-road traffic shots for your entertainment:

We pulled into a parking space right beside the Town Square, took a quick glance around (during which I proclaimed, “I LOVE IT HERE.”), eyed some likely establishments, then crossed the street and entered The Palace.

You should read about their history; the upshot is that this place has been in business since the late 1800′s, and is the oldest frontier saloon in Arizona. To me, it had the immediate feel of The Irma in Cody, Wyoming – we had breakfast there during our epic road trip (here’s a photo of the Irma’s street front). Must’ve been the tin ceiling that put me in mind of it. Or all of the western memorabilia everywhere. Or the 1800′s Brunswick Bar, which patrons CARRIED OUT INTO THE TOWN SQUARE during the fire of 1900 that burned down Whiskey Row – then stood around it with their drinks and watched the buildings burn. Clearly a town with their priorities straight. I must move there immediately.

We were shown to a booth, where we immediately placed our beverage orders (local brew FTW!). Then I wandered around taking pictures. It’s what I do.

I sat back down just before our food arrived – Bill ordered the bacon cheeseburger and I ordered the open faced meatloaf sandwich. We What About Bob’d our way through the entire meal, exchanging bites and basically making pigs of ourselves. We had the best waiter ever (ask for Alan!), who was upbeat and attentive and funny.

I spoke with the manager for a few minutes (wanted his permission to post pictures on UpTake), then we moo’ed our way back outside. We walked the length of Whiskey Row, then crossed the street and strolled along the Town Square.

Once we’d had our fill of the sights (and paused at a shop, in which I purchased a necklace and a calendar), we decided to grab a quick drink at The Bird Cage. I ordered Jack on the rocks… hey, I was sitting ON Whiskey Row, so I’m pretty sure I was required by law to have a whiskey while I was there. Bill had another local brew – an excellent milk stout that of COURSE we won’t be able to find in the valley. Huff. The patroness (I believe her name was Mary Ann) was well versed on the sights and history of Prescott, and was interested in the photos I’d taken thus far. She asked to “see”, then took the camera from my hands and scrolled through all the pictures. A couple of times she wandered down to either end of the bar, serving drinks and accepting payment, all the while carrying my camera around. It made me kind of anxious. I mean, that camera is my BABY. Heh. But no harm came to the camera (and therefore, to Mary Ann), and we spent a pleasant hour in conversation.

We crossed the street and hopped back in the Jeep again, then drove off in search of J&G. Along the way I noted other places that I’d like to visit the next time we head back up that way. We found J&G easily enough, and Bill spent a happy half-hour procuring ammo. We had a stuck moment in their parking lot and were WAY too geeked to be able to put it into 4WD and push through, then headed back toward Downtown. We parked again, browsed through an art gallery, and stopped in at the Prescott Brewing Company.

Finally, we wrapped it up, got back in the Jeep, and started the two hour drive back home. It was lovely to be able to recline the seat and take a nap, while allowing Bill to handle the logistics of getting back. We left with firm plans to make a weekend of it in the very near future, and perhaps even brave the annual 4th of July Rodeo some year. It gets PACKED with a capital PACKED for the event, so advanced planning (and expecting to park once and not leave for the entire time) is required.

Whew, this turned out to be photo-heavy, didn’t it? Next up, the four-wheel, off-road adventure we had the following day! The Jeep Weekend continues soon!

(As an aside, I wrote an Uptake article about our trip to Prescott as well.)