We didn't sleep very well in the desert heat once the sun came up. It was hot and sweaty, but we had a nice view. We kept the rain guard on just to keep the direct sunlight off of us, but it was keeping the heat in also.
This was our camping spot. You can't see that there was a parking lot five feet in the other direction. When we got up there were people there selling Native American jewelry next to the sign that says you can't sell anything. There were a few people checking out the view. We didn't even care about being camped out in the open at this point.
We took a little detour to the Hoover Dam. We were going to do a tour, but it cost more than we wanted to spend. We parked in the lot and walked up to the overlook bridge. This was a cool view. As huge as it is, it looked strangely smaller than I had imagined. It was also a little strange seeing something so iconic in person.
The bridge crosses the border between Nevada and Arizona so we were straddling the line. After we had looked down enough we headed back to the car
The drive to Phoenix was long, and when we got there Joanna dropped me off at North Mountain Brews so I could sample while she went to the store. I was the only one in there and the samples were free so that was cool with me. I tried all of the beers on tap, including the Soiled Dove Dirty Blonde which I really liked, and the 3 Strings Porter, another really tasty one. They had two guest brews on, The Lips of Faith by New Belgium, which was pretty good, and the Vernal Minthe Stout by Ska Brewing that was amazing. I wish I could have gotten a bottle of that. We went over to Papago Brewing next, where I only tried a flight of four. The ones I really liked were the Coconut Joe Coffee Stout and the Vanilla Mandarin Wheat Ale.
We went to Green for dinner. The menu looked pretty awesome and I ended up getting the Big WAC burger. It was so messy and hard to eat, but it was pretty good. The food was good, but the Tsoynami milkshake was amaaaaaaazing. I got one with butterfinger-like peanut butter pieces in it and I inhaled it as we checked out the vegan t-shirt store in the same plaza. There was some cool stuff, but the best part was talking to the clerk about Kevin Smith movies.
We made it to Fountain Lakes DGC as the sun was getting ready to dip behind the mountains. It plays around a lake with a fountain in the middle and uses the water frequently as a hazard. A disc or two were almost lost. It is a gorgeous park, with well-manicured grass, a nice walkway, and easy to read tee signs.
The fountain shoots off every fifteen minutes or so into a huge spout of water that is probably fifty feet high. The course was fun and sunset was beautiful, but somehow I lost a disc in an open area of the grass toward the end. It was dusk and harder to see, but we looked around for a long time. The only thing I could think was it rolled down the embankment and into the water. There is no other good explanation.
We headed back out of Phoenix toward the Grand Canyon and found ourselves a nice spot off a dirt road in the Kaibab National Forest. It's great knowing that we can camp anywhere in a National Forest for free unless it's marked.
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