A Weekend in Arizona

If anyone knows our family, they know our love for travel, probably our biggest consistent priority. While others focus on having a new car or the newest appliances, our goal is generally: THE NEXT TRIP. We've been lucky enough to travel to Europe (just before the pandemic, you can see the posts in this blog), but instead of settling our appetite, it only made us hungrier. Just next month, we'll be taking an anniversary trip to Amsterdam for a week, just Lola and I. And in March of next year, Billie's birthday will be celebrated in Paris with us and my in-laws. We've discussed traveling to Japan, Brazil, and Spain. So many places to see, just a single lifetime to do it all.

In an effort to make those trips easier, we decided to sign up for the Global Entry program offered by DHS. The program is available to people with squeaky clean records (thankfully we fit the bill), but allows for way quicker trips through TSA, Customs, etc.  Here's the quote from the site:

"Global Entry is a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) program that allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers upon arrival in the United States. Members enter the United States through automatic kiosks at select airports.

At airports, program members proceed to Global Entry kiosks, present their machine-readable passport or U.S. permanent resident card, place their fingerprints on the scanner for fingerprint verification and complete a customs declaration. The kiosk issues the traveler a transaction receipt and directs the traveler to baggage claim and the exit."

So it just made sense, that for $100, we should definitely hop into this program (it also gets you TSA pre-check, thank the gods!). So we applied, paid the fee, and submitted our background checks. After pre-approval, we had to book an in-person visit at a port of entry. El Paso, sadly, wasn't an option, apparently because of how busy it is. So we chose Nogales, Arizona. Nogales is sort of in the middle of nowhere, but Tucson is a quick hour drive north, so we booked a hotel there and scheduled our interview for early afternoon Friday (15th).

Arriving for the interview, we were struck at the number of DHS/Customs people not wearing masks. The sign on the door certainly said it was required to entry and every guest had one on. But the people in blue were wandering around with masks and it was infuriating for us. We joked that we wouldn't say anything because we needed to get approved for this program, but there's a pandemic going on, do it right, people. The interview process was basically just an information check, scan of our fingerprints, and copying our passports. Took maybe 10 minutes. Once complete, we headed north.

Driving through southern Arizona is a lot prettier than you might think. Not a ton of trees, but lots of waving fields of tall grass, set in front of some massive mountains. I can't speak to how it is during the heat of the summer, but right now, in October, it's beautiful. The drive was super quick and easy and we arrived at our hotel in Tucson.

We've stayed in this hotel once before but I cannot more highly recommend a hotel than the Hotel McCoy. It's an absolute gem of a hotel. It's set up as a motor lodge style, with a single story style block of rooms that stretches around a horseshoe shape. The hotel is 3 years under the current management and is decorated throughout with murals, interesting art, and a hipster style that is incredibly appealing to our family. Continental breakfast is included, which features an oatmeal bar that is FANTASTIC. When you check in you're given a couple of poker chips which get you a free drink from the bar. There's a saltwater pool and space for lounging or playing cornhole. It's the highlight of any trip to Tucson and if you find yourself in southern Arizona, make a stop here.

We checked in and discovered that mistakenly, I had booked a single queen-sized bed. Insert eyeroll emoji. Not good. When I asked if we could upgrade the room, I was informed they were fully booked because this weekend the hotel was celebrating its anniversary and would have food trucks, djs, and all sorts of festivities. So, I came back to the room with the bad news. To make up for my stupidity, I took Billie to the pool and allowed Lola to chill in the room. We had driven 6 hours over the course of the day and she was tuckered out.

Billie and I swam for close to 2 hours, because if you're a kid on a trip without a bunch of sightseeing, swimming is like the most exciting thing ever. The pool is super clean and we had a blast. I'm a terrible swimming, but so is Billie so we just splashed around and had fun. After we got back to the hotel we rinsed off and got ready for dinner. We had looked at some options but decided to pick LaCo Tucson, which had great ratings online and advertised outside eating. It's located in a really neat looking part of downtown Tucson, featuring some buildings that are definitely the oldest in the city. The parking was a little complicated till a local pointed out there was no meter fees after 5p. Might want to post that, people.

Once in the restaurant, there was a slight wait, as the place was full. There was some sort of bluegrass group playing music and everyone was having a good time. We were finally seated and we ordered food. Chips and salsa were good, but not great. Chips were fantastic, salsa was too tomato based. When our mains showed, eh, we were less than thrilled. Lola's pasta desperately needed salt, which wasn't on any of the tables. My smothered Chimichanga was full of SQUASH. I will let that sit there for a minute. The hell? Anyway, Billie's burger was too her liking, so at least someone was happy. Once finished, we got the bill for $83. Woah. Anyway, we tipped $17 and left $100, because the server didn't suck, just the food. No pictures of the food on this one, because we were crying too much (joking). 

When we arrived back at our hotel, the party was in full swing and loud music was coming from the pool area. A couple of food trucks were parked around and we had promised Billie we would grab a desert for her. One of the trucks was called The Sweet Coqui which featured Puerto Rican deserts. Billie got a massive ice cream that made Lola and I both interested. I had several Quesitos, a simple pastry, while Lola had Arepitas Dulces drizzled in chocolate. Really delicious food.

This morning we got up after an interesting night of loud music (maybe not perfect, but they were celebrating), Billie kicking the heck out of me in bed, and rough sleep in general. We wandered over to the breakfast bar and grabbed some fruit, poptarts, coffee, and oatmeal. Billie and I plan to take a dip in the pool before leaving. Drive back planned for today, if anything wild happens, I'll come back and update.