The trip was a Christmas gift from the best person on earth, aka Kenny, for me to be able to see my favorite band, The Maine, put on their own fest in their hometown. I absolutely LOVED it there, which is a little bittersweet considering that it's so far away! Arizona in the winter is absolute perfection, and everyone who we talked to while we were there said that the weather was particularly good that weekend. Kenny and I spent Thursday traveling, our flight left from Charlottesville at 11:00am, and we had a layover in Philadelphia. This was my first time flying! I had actually flown once when I was four years old, but I don't remember that so I don't count it, ha.
Thursday Night
After traveling all day, we were pretty whipped. We arrived around 6:30pm MST which felt like 8:30pm to us, so we checked into our hotel, The Clarendon Hotel and Spa, (where they informed us that we had been upgraded to a SUITE, score!) and just hung out for a while.
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It didn't take long for us to get hungry, so we grabbed a quick Lyft over to Joyride Taco House, which was delish! They had free chips and salsa which we INHALED, and then Kenny and I both ordered the garden variety burrito, which was super good. I have such a thing for low-lit restaurants (random? whatever) and I loved the vibe there!
After dinner, we got right to bed. It was around 11:00pm when we got back, which felt like 1:00am to us! We were looking forward to having two "extra" hours to sleep in the next day with the time difference.
On Friday morning, we took our SWEET time getting up and moving. We showered and got ready and went down to spend some time (and take some pictures) by the pool. The hotel had robes in the rooms (which is SUCH a fun touch to me), so we wore those down. The pool area at the hotel was so cool, it had a bunch of different couches and chairs to sit in. My favorite part was this pod-bed thing that was surprisingly huge inside! Needless to say I want one one for my own yard now. I can just imagine myself laying in there and reading on a hot summer day - UGH, swoon.
We didn't have any set plans for the day, but I knew I wanted to check out Old Town Scottsdale because I had heard a lot of good things about it. It was about a 25 minute drive over there, and the scenery was beautiful! The mountains there are FOREIGN compared to here in the Blue Ridge, and they are so stunning. They're red clay and just kind of stagger up out of nowhere among the flatness of the desert. One of my favorite things about our time there was all of the plants. There were tons of palm trees, cacti, and CITRUS TREES which totally stole my heart! I've never seen citrus trees in real life, and I have a minor obsession with them, so I was really excited to get to see those.
When we got to Scottsdale, we walked around for a little while just to get our bearings, and then we went to find a place for brunch. We were headed to a place that I had heard about, but we walked by Morning Squeeze, which looked too cute to pass up! The bar was convertible to be inside/outside so they had it open since it was so nice out. We sat at the bar while we waited for a table outside to open up. One of their signature items is mimosas with freshly squeezed orange juice, and while one of the bartenders was making one, she accidentally hit me in the head with the cork from a champagne bottle, haha! Everyone was worried that I was hurt, but it didn't hurt at all, and one of the bartenders offered me a free bloody Mary, which was SO good! Once we got seated, Kenny ordered nutella pancakes with bananas, and I ordered a pitaya smoothie bowl and hash browns, and everything was great!
After brunch, we did a lot of walking around. There are plenty of cute shops and boutiques to explore, and we accidentally stumbled upon Scottsdale Fashion Square, which we weren't planning on going to but figured we'd do a quick sweep while we were there!
After happy hour, we did a little more roaming. It was getting dark out, so we hit a few more boutiques and then hit a tiki bar I was wanting to try, Hula's Modern Tiki. I only recently discovered that tiki bars are a thing that people seek out when visiting new cities, so I was excited to try it! I ordered the "Tiki Bastard" cocktail which had vodka, ginger beer, cherry juice, and lime juice, and it was one of my favorite drinks I've ever had! I also ordered some seaweed salad and sweet potato fries to snack on, and Kenny and I pretty much spoiled our dinner at that point, ha.
After the tiki bar, we walked around for a little while more before heading to a cute vintage diner called the Sugar Bowl because Kenny was craving a milkshake. Everything inside was pink, and they had Family Circus comics framed that featured the diner which was cute! When we sat down at the table and I saw their napkins, I had the weirdest sense of deja vu like I had one of those napkins at my house?? I told Kenny I was SURE I had one of them, and that my grandparents must've brought one back to me from one of their trips. I texted my grandad and sure enough, he knew exactly what I was talking about! My grandmom even still knew exactly where one of the napkins was that she had saved for herself. How crazy is that?! I brought another one home with me.
Saturday
Saturday was the day of the concert in downtown Phoenix. We got ready in the morning and headed to brunch at a really cool vegan/vegetarian restaurant called The Coronado. We got to eat outside again which was super nice, and the food was SO GOOD, Kenny especially enjoyed it! I got avocado toast and tofu scramble, and Kenny got biscuits with mushroom gravy, tofu scramble, and fried potatoes. I wish we'd had room for more!
After brunch we headed downtown and tried to go to the new 8123 store, but it was closed! So we went deeper into downtown and did some exploring, and we did get to see The Maine's album promo billboard, which was so cool!
The fest had already started, but we really weren't interested in any of the bands besides The Maine, so we didn't want to go in quite yet. We went to a sandwich shop and got some drinks and just hung out for a while and did some people watching before doing some more exploring. It was weird being in downtown Phoenix because we had heard it was the fifth largest city in the US, but it wasn't crazy or crowded like any other large city I'd ever been to, which was nice!
In the early evening, we were ready to go into the fest. We did a LOT of people watching there, ha! We walked around for a while and got the lay of the land, and then kind of just hung out for a while while We The Kings and Mayday Parade played their sets. I was really only there to see The Maine! They had some photo backdrops set up, so we got in the (LONG) line for those. They had promo posters for their new album lining ALL of the fencing surrounding the venue, and I was convinced they were meant to steal, so Kenny grabbed me a couple! We did some more walking around and played a bit of cornhole in an area where they had games set up.
After a while, it was getting to be time for the show to start, so I grabbed a couple of drinks and we went to claim our spots as close to the stage as we could! The show was AMAZING, it was so cool to see the band again, especially knowing we were right in the town where they grew up and got started! There were 5,000 people at the show, but it didn't seem like that many to me!
After the show, we had tickets to an after party at the Crescent Ballroom nearby, but there were about 45 minutes to kill before it started. Kenny and I decided to go find something to eat, and soon stumbled upon a place that I had heard of when researching restaurants to try, Cornish Pasty Co. There are several locations, but the one in downtown Phoenix was SO cool! Like insanely cool, I was so impressed. It was dimly lit (score!) and had three levels, all of which had a slightly different vibe. The main street level felt like a bar, the upstairs level had pool tables and a more laid back vibe, and the basement level had an speakeasy vibe with leather booths and red Christmas lights along the ceiling. It was packed, we ended up downstairs which would've probably been my choice anyway, it was so cool down there! The service was ABYSMALLY slow, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt since it was so crowded and a Saturday night. I ordered a "lavender bees knees" cocktail which was super good, it had gin and honey and lavender bitters. A long time after we ordered our food, our waitress came back and said that they were actually out the pasty Kenny had ordered, so he had to order a different one. He ended up with a tikka masala pasty, and I got the eggplant Parmesan one, which I really enjoyed.
Dinner took way longer than expected, so we headed straight to the after party afterwards! It was so much fun John and Garrett of The Maine were DJing and lip syncing on stage which was super fun, and Jack Barakat even showed up for a second! They played a new song from their album which wasn't released yet and I DIED over, but can't remember a single detail about at this point, haha. After they finished up, a guy called "The Gunz Show" came up and did some emo DJing, which was really fun too! It got to be midnight, and I could tell Kenny was anxious to get back and get some sleep before our early flight in the morning. A new band began to set up, so I called a Lyft back to the hotel, and we did our best to fit eight hours of sleep into less than three, haha.
Sunday
3:00AM came FAST after the long day before, and it was time for us to head to the airport for our 6:00AM flight back to the east coast! I had SUCH a good trip with my love, and I'm already itching to head back to Arizona!
Have an AMAZING weekend, and if you're planning a trip to Arizona any time soon, let me know so I can come with...
xoxx, Laura
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