Ka’ahele, the god of travel and arena booking smiled twice on The Hardest Working Crew in Television™. His first benevolent act; the show the day after Wrestlemania – Monday Night RAW, also affectionately known as ‘Go Fuck Yourself Monday’ is booked in downtown Phoenix, a scant twenty-seven miles from Wrestlemania’s University of Phoenix arena. This is good for two reasons. First, it means The Crew™ will be able to attend the Wrestlemania after-party instead of jumping on a bus and riding through the night to Monday’s show. Second and more importantly, the Phoenix arena is conveniently close to the Phoenix airport, meaning I’ll be able to stash Rain Cloud Follows at the airport again for a Wednesday pickup.

The second benevolent act of Ka’ahele is arguably even better. Smackdown on Tuesday, affectionately known as ‘And The Horse You Rode In On Tuesday’ is booked in none other than Las Vegas! I can think of no better place to end a week of insanity than in an insane city. Rather than trying to ride three hundred miles in the dark from Phoenix to Sin City on Monday night, I opt for the safety, comfort, and conveniently stashed bottle of Macallan on the bus.

After the show on ATHYRIO Tuesday, I sneak away to the Hard Rock Casino, for some well deserved slot machine therapy. This time I don’t mess with the paltry nickel slots, I go straight to the dollar machines. Sometimes you just have to go for it.

Pretty soon I am up. Way up.

Pretty soon I’m out. Sometimes you just have to take the money and run.

Wednesday is also affectionately known as ‘The Best Day Ever’ because it is the day that The Crew™ gets to go home, to finally separate from the constant drone of close quarters Crew contact, to go and do anything but another day of television production. On Wednesday, I fly back to Phoenix, meet Fiona, grab Rain Cloud Follows and start the Long Ride Home.

While I’ve been working to make sure all the fantastic sounds of wrestling are appreciated by the masses, Fiona’s been busy saving lives. After her third night of preserving people, she flew directly to Phoenix to ride with me, just because she’s tough like that. She’s also tired, but still game to ride. My original plan was to head up to Show Low to visit my friends Dean and Mz. Pam, introduce them to Sleeping Beauty, and, in the interest of full disclosure, make my riding gear a little tighter with big helpings of Mz. Pam’s incredible pie.

Mother Nature has other plans. The weather forecast for Show Low is a high of 44 with the possibility of up to two inches of snow. Fiona’s reaction to this little news flash immediately tells me it’s time for Plan B.

I Love This Girl!

Plan B… Plan B… B… Hmmm… B…. What about… Bisbee?!? I liked Bisbee, it’s forecast is better than Show Low, and, while I’m not a huge fan of going back to places I’ve already been, I have to admit the beer in Bisbee is good. Right in the Terminal Four parking garage of Sky Harbor International airport, our plan officially changes from Oh No, Snow in Show Low to Plan Bisbee. Just before we leave, I phone ahead and book a special “room” at the Shady Dell, paid for with my Hard Rock windfall.

Mother Nature’s foul mood extends into Phoenix. The wind is brutal, bitch slapping us from one direction, then sucker punching from the other. I struggle to keep us on the black and out of the brown. Passing trucks is like entering the Vortex of Doom, as the sudden vacuum threatens to suck us under. I notice with some trepidation that there are hardly any motorcycles coming up from the Bisbee area.

What an adventure.

After enduring this blow job for far too long, we arrive at the Shady Dell. The Shady Dell is a trailer park with a twist. The “rooms” for rent are all 1950’s mobile homes that, according to their website, are “perfectly restored to combine mid-century Americana kitsch with the comforts of home in a way that only the 1950s were capable of.”

Our kitschy home for the evening is the lavishly, if not entirely accurately titled Royal Mansion.

And with that, Sleeping Beauty and I officially are trailer trash.

I try to find a taxi to take us to my new favoritest place on Earth, the Old Bisbee Brewery. Unfortunately, it seems there are none to be found, so we gear back up and ride Rain Cloud Follows into town. This sucks, because it means I’ll only be able to enjoy one of OBB’s fine IPAs, but that’s the price you have to pay for being the designated front-seat jockey. We learn from the bartender Vic that Mindy, his daughter and my favoritest brewmaster isn’t in. It’s probably just as well because I’m sure Fiona could take her in a fight. Vic fills us in on the history of the brewery, telling us that he and his business partner had a brainstorm to open a brewery in Brewery Gulch, the only problem was they needed a brewmaster. Vic called his daughter one fateful night with a tempting offer to go to England to attend Brewmaster School. She readily accepted. Vic then asked when she thought she’d be able to go. Her answer, “Well, I guess I’ll need about an hour to pack…” The rest is history. Turns out the brewpub has only been open two weeks. Also turns out I was there on the first Friday, a fact which gets me a hearty “Thank You!” but no free beer.

I ask Vic if there is a taxi in town. “Yeah, we have one… sometimes… when he’s sober enough to drive… ” I’m guessing tonight isn’t one of those nights. Draining my pint, we leave for a forgettable dinner, then head back to our trailer in the still raging wind.

The gale shakes the trailer all night long. At one point Fiona and I both jump up thinking our Spartan Royal Mansion is about to flip over. I’d thought about heading to San Felipe in Baja the next day, but with hurricane force winds still threatening to blow us all away to OZ, that plan is quickly scrapped as well. We decide that one more day in Bisbee won’t kill us, while attempting to ride in this violent windstorm just might. I book a room in the haunted Copper Queen for that night, as sadly, the trailer park is full.

I walk around the next morning and snap a few pics of this interesting place.

The diner isn’t open, so we prepare to leave the Shady Dell. As I am setting up the tripod for the mandatory Shady Dell shot, a man runs up and says, “Oh, let me take that picture for you! I do this all the time!” Now, I hate trusting pictures to other people, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my travels, it is that most people pretty much suck at taking pictures.

Case in point. Here is the picture that Dead Eye took for us:

Awesome. I thanked him anyway, then, when he left, I took the picture that you’d think anyone that doesn’t walk around tapping a white stick would take at a location like this.

Right.

Our entire days ride takes all of three minutes. Exhausted from the road, we check into the haunted hotel, fully ready for a day off, and fully prepared for whatever that day may have in store for us in the lovely town of Bisbee.

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Author: frenchy