{"id":22398,"date":"2023-11-19T13:00:53","date_gmt":"2023-11-19T20:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/?p=22398"},"modified":"2023-11-21T17:37:41","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T00:37:41","slug":"getaway-to-early-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/?p=22398","title":{"rendered":"Escape to Winter, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Suffering from burnout, I needed to get away from the problems that surround me at home. My favorite mountain getaway over in Arizona would be cold, but as a result, the cheap motel would have vacancies. I could hike in the daytime, and in the evenings I could get restaurant meals \u2013 something I never get at home since we lost all our decent restaurants during COVID. Normally the only time I eat out is during my semi-annual visits with family back east.<\/p>\n

The weather up there was forecast to be dry. But as I drove north the sky was full of towering cumulus clouds, past the halfway point it got positively threatening, and I hit rain in the high passes. It was cold enough that I switched into 4wd to keep from spinning off into a cliff or a canyon.<\/p>\n

By the time I reached the motel, it was almost full dark and the office was closed. My room was unlocked, but when I opened the door a heavy wave of artificial fragrance poured out. Entering, I sniffed the bed, but it smelled fine. The odor simply filled the air, and I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. It was too cold to air out the room, so I drove to the restaurant for dinner \u2013 which included one of the best malbecs I’ve ever had.<\/p>\n

When I returned, my allergies were triggered by the odor, and I discovered I’d forgotten my antihistamine and nasal spray \u2013 something I can’t remember ever doing before. I faced a night of no relief in this very remote place.<\/p>\n

Adding insult to injury, I soon had a headache, and the normally complete and peaceful silence was disturbed by a rhythmic screeching noise, like an unoiled pump. I couldn’t figure out where that was coming from, either. I was exhausted enough to fall asleep, but I woke a few hours later and spent the rest of the night tossing and turning.<\/p>\n

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In the morning, the sky was perfectly blue and everything outside was covered in a thick layer of frost. I walked over to the office and found they open an hour later in winter. In the meantime, I would drive the 20 minutes to the nearest supermarket for antihistamine.<\/p>\n

But by the time I got dressed for the drive, the sky was completely covered by low clouds and it was snowing!<\/p>\n

The drive wasn’t wasted, though. I was rewarded with multiple rainbows and sightings of the bighorn sheep that were introduced here decades ago, frequenting the shallow canyons that wind through this volcanic alpine plateau.<\/p>\n

When I returned to the motel office I met the new owners. The couple looked and sounded like urban hipsters in their late 40s or early 50s, and I guessed they’d seen this place on visits from Phoenix over the years, and decided to relocate and invest in a modest resort, planning to renovate and increase the rates for more profit.<\/p>\n

In any event, they seemed shocked when I told them the fragrance was a problem. They said they’d installed devices in all the rooms that emit fragrance continually. I know I’m not the only person bothered by artificial fragrance \u2013 every supermarket carries fragrance-free and hypoallergenic products \u2013 but we seem to be an aberration in Arizona. They were anxious to help, though \u2013 they said I could simply search the electrical outlets to find the device, unplug it and air out the room. They said the screeching sound was probably the well pump, in a shed outside the motel, and I suggested it might need lubricating.<\/p>\n

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Next: Part 2<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suffering from burnout, I needed to get away from the problems that surround me at home. My favorite mountain getaway over in Arizona would be cold, but as a result, the cheap motel would have vacancies. I could hike in the daytime, and in the evenings I could get restaurant meals \u2013 something I never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[134,84,83,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2023-trips","category-mogollon-rim","category-regions","category-road-trips"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/IMG_8592.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22398"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22513,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22398\/revisions\/22513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}