The Phoenician

The Phoenician was where, in the year of 1997, two years before I was born, my parents shared their honeymoon. They ate great food, golfed, relaxed at the pool, and drove around the town that the Phoenician is in, called Scottsdale, incidentally right where we were on the morning of the 24th of FEB. Dad told us early in the morning we would be going to where they had spent their honeymoon. I was really excited, for in a sense it was another piece to the puzzle of the lives of my parents and their predecessor, where they had been, what they had done, what they had enjoyed. It had been fun to go to Tucson to learn more about my grandparents and to relive memories and experience new ones, and it would be great to find out what this Phoenician was like. I had only known the term Phoenician by a theme park ride in Epcot at Disney World in Florida, where on a ride through the inventions of history it talked about the Phoenicians inventing the alphabet. In fifth grade one of my classmates annoyed me by doing the same sentence over again (he had also been on the ride, not with me though) "Thank the Phoenicians, they made the ABC's!" So annoying!

I had also known the term Phoenicians from the epic poem by Homer, called The Odyssey that you have probably heard of. They helped Odysseus when he came up on the shore alone with only a small boat, and he participated in the games as they gave him a big ship. He did some of the Olypmics there, but I don't think it was the swimming and skiing and baseball we do today. Javelin throwing, wrestling, archery, that kind of stuff. But the point is, I had known about the Phoenicians, just not this hotel resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, by Phoenix and Chandler. I got to thinking it was probably derived from people living in Phoenix, which was named after the fire bird of the Greek Myths. I'm not actually sure. But it doesn't matter. Let's start the blog post now.

Rebecca and I walked the dogs down to that ditch, where you could only open a door on the left side by using a key. As the dogs shook with about to peeing, she tried to unlock it,and do it independently without my help. Well, didn't that take a while. She put it in, twisted, and it still wouldn't pull. I held the dogs, asking her if she wanted help. Nope. She took it out and tried to do it again. Still no process. Again. Nope. I pleaded her to let me try. She said only if I let her open the door, after a lot of reluctance. On the first try I opened the door. :) She was kind of mad at that.

Well, inside was two sides, in cup formation, and there was weeds and a rock wall. There was a bridge that we had passed to get there, and there was a sewer hole underneath. There was a dirt part with a small fence and poop bags.We walked the dogs a long way and they went to the restroom, and Rebecca went down a long forest trail. It was weird the dog park was in the sewer. Kind of scary, too. She wanted to go into the sewer because she just wanted to say she had done it. I was a boy, so of course I had done it with water rushing and other boys, but now is not the time for a story. It was dry. Well, done with the dogs we went back home and picked up some oranges from all the trees around, to eat them. Rebecca through mine. She is just a goof ball and so weird...oh well. Anyways, we went back home.

Getting dressed after showers, we got on shirts and jackets, not very nice ones, actually, and that was because Dad wanted to pass by the Phoenician, and we didn't know exactly what we were going to do that day; we might drive into the town of Phoenix, or we might go to the aquarium or zoo that Phoenix so proudly boasted of. It was the first super big town that we had seen since Texas, which was a few states ago, so it wasn't exactly a frequent site to see, all the skyscrapers. Tucson had had a few, but not many in comparison to all these suburbs and small towns that were in Phoenix's county. We came to Scottsdale, which was a suburb, a flashy collection of upper class homes, of adobe rock lawns, wonderful green glass with sprinklers and trees, and an elaborate door with crystal shining, and different rocks and garages, mostly all families homes, where kids would come on the bus of all these neighborhoods, rich ones most. 

It was like Roswell, in a sense, but on the other hand most of this was just residential houses with nothing else to support it. I tried to ask Mom and Dad about their trip and how the Phoenician was like, but between the music and bad memories, I didn't exactly get very far with that....maybe later.

There was a little motel on our right with a few cabins, one floor with a drive up. Mom and Dad remembered that that was where Barbara and Uncle Dean had spent when they had come to The Phoenician, not on the honeymoon but at a different time.   


It was cool to see places they had been before, I noted, as we came upon the property of the Phoenician. Mom and Dad to began telling us familiar sites of The Phoenician and for them to see it, and we were about to then go into the hotel and perhaps eat lunch.  We saw some nice trees and a bright green lawn up there. A wonderful twisty drive up the property revealed up on the hill the beautiful hotel which was situated on top, plus wooden arches and olive vines that went around and around the cut down trees like duck-duck goose. There was a golf course with residents of the hotel jogging in shorts and tees. The hotel was long, Spanish, with two floors and balconies along the whole way, horizontally going the length of the area. It was sandstone like, and very beautiful as it reflected across the midday sun. A beautiful hotel indeed.

Wow, some of that rock with the green grass and flowers all around, with a turn around area and nice olive trees! Beautiful flowers of red and blue and yellow, all different tones and shapes, smelling of real life outside the confines of the car, the window is turned down, and we take in the fragrance like a long lost friend! The green is too good to be true, is this gently hoed, pleasantly grown bright perfect green grass? My long lost friend from the early days of my youth, who's sight I had lost in Texas and the Southwest, where desert and barrenness is supreme? 


So perfect, greener than all the beautiful grass this country has to offer, if I can make so bold a statement! How welcoming, after months of desert and only faded dirty grass to replace the lushness that my eyes saw at that moment! You look at perfect grass all the time in Roswell or Britain or Rhode Island or wherever my readers are coming from, but when you do not lay eyes on good grass for a long time, what a wonderful joy it is! Well, I'll stop talking about grass for the time being, but let me just say that I could not contain my excitement at seeing the most beautiful flowers and such soft and pleasant grass that day! Ah Korea!

We went down the slanted hole into Self Parking anyway. Parking at an entrance from a dark tunnel where a man was working on the ceiling on a ladder, we got out and I took my video camera, not knowing what I might see or not see. I tried to contain my little white tee shirt and jeans, knowing I wasn't properly dressed for so elaborate a hotel. Oh well, I said as I put my blue fleece jacket over it. I was excited to see what this place was like, and to see the places that my parents had stepped when they were recently married, as new husband and wife.

I darted a few questions after Dad reparked and he talked to the man on the ladder. Mom told me that Pop had come here and that it was a great place to relax, golf, and just chill. It also had a nice area and desert twist to the mix, with wildlife and beauty and some stuff you could do, driving around and all. She told me also of their entrance and booking their huge room, as Dad said they had a top floor looking at others when they faced each other, not on the front or back of the complex but in the middle. Dad said they had a lot of towels delivered every morning, and a wonderful big bed. 


We walked up a marble polished area where an elevator was, and then we came up to the lobby floor. There was a crystal chandelier like in an old Victorian Household, and the most glistening marble floor of them all. There was a lot of guests walking about, families in trucks and with sunglasses, towels, and sunscreen, but at the same time there were business people with ties and sports coats. We felt right at home with all the casual-clothed lodgers of the Phoenician.

There were two long information and registration counters with flashing hotel employees, lipstick and down hair and grey long pants with suits and all. There was a little desk facing it in the middle of the room where some ottomans were and a staircase down to a little living room, fire and couches included. We asked the concierge, who was an old faded blonde haired short lady who vaguely reminded me of Barbara Walters, where we might want to eat for lunch, with Mom telling about her and Dad having their honeymoon and wanting to show us the property, and eating a good meal. 


She said a burger joint was good to eat if you wanted to have really good burgers, but there was also a place called Relish, a name I had heard of for a restaurant in Roswell across the square. It burned out however and is no longer a restaurant. Mom thought Relish sounded good, and Clare (for that was her very proper and prim name, this lady was) showed Mom to go down escalators to our left where a high ceiling area had a restroom. Mom had asked for that in addition to Relish. For Relish, we would go down a restaurant the same direction and down that one to a little threshold before a door that went into the pool. Then we'd walk more that way and see the door Relish, and go into a building and go upstairs where the restaurant was. We would get great service there.

So luxurious was this area, as I timidly went down the escalators (I'm afraid of the dang things) with the compass on the ceiling in tinted brown and reflecting the pale light the lights had was beautiful marble. This was more luxurious than The Titanic, The Peabody (a hotel in Tennessee) and many others. 

We went back up and went down those glass stairs, that sparkled even though our dirty shoes entered it's stronghold. An Indian family also went down and Mom kindly took their picture by weird art sculptures, all as a family. What will it be like when we go to Hawaii after the trip?

We asked a bellboy in full red and white uniform how to get across to the Relish restaurant was, and he kindly actually took us past the pool to a path. He led us through a gate, as we looked at tan and pale girls alike in bikinis with sunscreen or sunglasses on, reading such favorites as "The Lucky One" and "The Help", and boys with a Dad without shirts on splashing in the water, or a middle aged man swimming around in the deep blue water affected by chlorine. It was a peaceful but fun and loud scene, girls relaxing and boys raising Cain, as boys do. I looked around, as we walked along the square and clear pool, the designs on the sides of it, all the water moving about, and I looked upon the residents with envy. Why couldn't we go back home and come to the pool, or better yet assign a room for a night or two to escape the R.V. park in Phoenix, and spend all eternity in this awesome resort with the pool, luxurious rooms, lush flowers, and green grass! Or better yet, move all of Roswell right next to the hotel, and then live at the hotel every other weekend and buy it with the money saved up from the royalties from the blog, and then invite all our friends to stay here! Maybe I'm getting a little carried away with my fantasies. The point is, I felt like I never wanted to leave.

I was Odysseus like in the book Homer wrote where the Phoenicians were mentioned, and this was the island of Calypso, who was so beautiful and enticing!

"Just go down this path, and then turn left a little where a 'hallway', if you will, is between the two rows of hotel rooms. Go down a road and then you see Relish, with a cool sign. Hope you enjoy your stay."

We thanked the kind young gentleman and then looked at the beautiful place where we were. We were at the top of a small hill where a zig-zag path went down over a river and then you walk on. We had delicate flowers, roses, tulips, daisies, all kinds of different flowers that were as pretty as their names sounded lining the way. Rebecca lead down the stone steps as we went over a small wooden bridge, over round stones in a flushing brook. A waterfall turned clear water snow white as the foam all rushed down, and the water slushed around, each one trying to get the best of the other H20 ounce. We walked farther with the pool on our side, and Rebecca and I implored our parents to take us into the pool, go home and get suits or pay money to kids our size to where their swimming suits. Nope, they said. We did talk about the beauty as Mom and Dad said they took walks in the morning and did swim in the pool a tiny bit, and read and just asked questions about each other they didn't know over dinner. It was something out of a Nicholas Sparks novel, Mom said, a nice fun romance in the wonderful desert resort of The Phoenician. I now, upon seeing the property, wanted to come back here some day with either my new wife or when I was 16 or something. It was that impressive and glorious!

We came to that "hallway" the guy had talked about, Will or something was his name. Some red shirted guys on a golf cart passed by, and funnily they must of thought Dad was an employee because they stared at him. He had a red collared shirt on too!

We saw the sign on the side of a building, and went up a staircase to a nice large place with many tables and seating, nice designs on the wall and airy environment. We waited as some people went out on the patio. Clare had told us the golf course with the desert in the background was beautiful on the balcony, but stupidly one guy took a spot of four metal chairs, which wasn't nice or fair. We were led to a large room with the bathrooms behind it and nice wooden chairs and an old table, as some black shirted waitresses served people. An older couple talked to us and we told them all about the trip as they saw an open table and we told them to go ahead. I wished we had sat out there but I guess it's okay. Putting my video camera around the chair I placed my book in the middle as we looked at golf coverage of St. Andrews or something. We saw a bar to our left, and Tracy who was our blonde haired girl waitress, gave us some water and menus. I looked at the glossy greatly photographed program, and then I picked a nice looking black bleu burger. I asked Mom and Dad more about their stay as we waited. They said that they did a lot of golf in the hot sun, drinking beer on golf carts and loving the sun, and relaxing. They drove around the desert and Phoenix. Dad told me that The Phoenician was owned by a guy who stole all this money, and then some other people took it from him. I also read and we looked at a bunch of guys in collared shirts coming in, by a rectangular table facing the windows. We would talk to them later and see it was one guys b day.

Our great food and big burgers with messy and greasy features came out. It was soooo good! After eating we talked some more and I had the good tater tots that went along with the meal. I then went to the restroom, wiped off, and went down the long hall accompanying Rebecca. I, not resisting the temptation, pulled one out from the bottom and saw many come down on the right side... the towels. Yes, I am a dirty and evil child, I know. I'm ashamed your even reading the words that such a malicious person like me is writing! But I had to do it, it was killing me minutely. I'm sorry I did it and caused the employees trouble.

Well, long story short, we paid the bill and left. It was great wonderful food. I got up, and put my jacket on as it moved against my video camera bag. We left it swinging on the edge of the chair.

We went down a concrete outdoor stairwell. Back across the pool area, I saw kids going up a path to the very far left and then coming down a green tunneled slide, and I wished I could go down and experience the awesome sensation of rushing water on my bottom or back and then splash down into the clear water, making it white and putting water onto anyone around. But we couldn't. I watched with itching as we continued left, up a trail where a water fountain spurted out water and rushed down terraces and made wonderful flowing PH7, like waving hair of a girl or the wind... so eloquent.

We made our way up some more to where a first floor patio was, with large metal cylinder heaters and little holes for the heat to escape out of. This was the restaurant that Clare had also suggested, the Burger Place. We walked in another door, sort of meandering inside, not going the same way in as we did out. Mom and Dad also told me some other things about The Phoenician, and their visit, as we made our way into some halls with jewelry stores and clothing outlets, little shops in the hotel walkway, after we had come up from a beautiful and quiet threshold where weird statues were and then came up into the beautiful lobby. Dad looked at a few of them, and we finally stopped in a gift shop where some enticing trinkets lay for us. I got a black leather fake Arizona Dagger which I still play with from time to time, cutting the bad guys' heads off with tremendous speed and agility. It was a small store. An elevator was to the left of it which we went down to the level of our car, and then we walked a while among little living areas with brown chairs and Victorian style apartments, before the concrete and dim lighting. At the same time, a waitress picked up a Sony camera bag with a shaken head.

At home we had a cookout, with the fire crackling as the dim shadows of night took their place on the campground. Rebecca set up on the table in the empty lot where a rock wall was behind her Barbie Camp, complete with ball caps for ships and beanbag chairs, with very small tables and a purple chair. A black crayon box turned over with a beanbag head for a guy on the top and a blanket for a short old rescue hero on the bottom, with a nurse leaning over on them and helping them out. It was a metal table so she NEEDED a lot of blankets, except for the two "Roughin' It" girls and horses of them. A lot of blankets. It was really cute so Rebecca took Mom's phone and started taking some pictures of it. I played with her as a few boys went out to get the food, by some big bushes on a mound by the R.V. Bob, who was a psycho from Rehab who had joined the trip, jumped on them and appeared out of the bushes when they were up in there. A huge fight emerged between the water bottles who were trying to secure the rescue heroes for the reality TV show....it's a complicated game. We won, but with great cost as they got up on an outlet with their ships and Bob was thrown all the way to the table, dying.

Matt the medic fixed him up by leaving him on the electrical outlet and then leaving, as lightning struck. It saved his life and Matt said there was hope for this insane man!

But I'm done talking about that.

The fire crackled and after we had played and put the toys up, Dad broke the news as we sat around the fire. A linen circle appeared in the sky, with a beige basket underneath. Dad told us, as the sunset colors broke in the horizon and trimmed to the ground, as the fire crackled quietly against the fading night, as our dogs barked endlessly to the neighbors that passed by with their pets, as a truck, red but looking black in the fading light, passed by with fingers out the window embracing the wind, that we were going on a Hot Air Balloon Ride tomorrow!

But I fell in love with the Phoenician and loved that day of seeing the beautiful property and eating a great meal. I fell in love with it as my parents had like close to 15 years ago, on their honeymoon, at the Phoenician.

Goodbye for now.

Guard: I'm sorry sir. You are too casual and dirty to dine at the Phoenician.

Man: But I'm the hotel owner!,

Andrew.

Before the fall....