By Leonardo Rodriguez Carrion

After I graduated from Rowan University in 2021 with my dual bachelor’s degree in public relations and advertising, my family asked me what I wanted as a gift.

I told my brother, “I want to go to Arizona.” And so, we went to Arizona in July.

The hottest month of the year to go too! What a month to pick.

I have wanted to go to Arizona since I was a teenager. By this point in my life, I had met a few people who had gone to Phoenix and even the beautiful town of Sedona.

We began this trip the night before, and I had stayed up a little too late. I am a night owl. I fell asleep on the way to the airport. My mother drove my brother and me to the airport, and my brother and I flew from Philadelphia to Phoenix.

I sat next to a traveling dad who used to work in Phoenix but is originally from Philly. He was just on a family trip. His wife and child were next to us. Our seats were all the way in the back. This was when the mask mandates were still around. My brother and I just held onto our drinks and got around not having the masks on often.

We arrived in Phoenix around the early afternoon. It was pretty hot when we stepped outside the airport. We brought carry-on luggage, so we did not have to document any of our luggage. I brought a Nautica duffle bag, which I had brought on many of my trips. We took an Uber to the Talking Stick Resort Hotel, where we would stay for about a week.

Compared to the Northeast, the Southwest was dry. So, the heat slowly got on you, but it was not on you like the humidity is in the northeast. The first day, we just settled in. The woman who attended us at the hotel was quite nice. The hotel was next to a golf course. I remember seeing a few people in their golf shirts and golf carts as they got ready. I would find out that Arizona has the most golf courses in the country. How about that?

Believe it or not, the food was not too memorable. We ate out almost daily, and I don’t even remember if the hotel had food for us. We went out for breakfast a few times, which was good. The day we stopped at a small diner before going to Sedona stands out. Beyond visiting and seeing Phoenix, going to Sedona was my major inspiration.

Before transferring to Rowan University, I had thought about studying at one of Arizona’s many universities. Thank God I did not because the lockdowns quickly would have brought an end to that. It was an excellent decision to finish at home while all the nonsense was happening. After the first day, my brother rented out an orange slingshot. The three-wheeled cars, I’m sure you have seen at least one during the summer. Did I forget to mention they were lax with the masks in Arizona? Less people, less congestion, I suppose.

I was not there with him, but one of the Uber drivers on his way to pick up the slingshot gave him some trouble. What nonsense. Anyways, moving on. We stopped at a marijuana dispensary on the 2^nd day. My brother smokes weed. This was before New Jersey had them. When we went in, there was an armed security guard with a shotgun who greeted us. They took our IDs to let us in. The way the place was set up felt like something out of GTA V.

This was also on the 2^nd or 3^rd day, but my brother introduced me to some of his co-workers who worked in Phoenix at the time. He told me they had offered to move him out there to start that branch, but he decided to stay in New Jersey. We ate at a diner, and the food was good. I remember this one because it was one of our first great meals! They drove us around for a bit, and we passed by some of the universities. We had to stop because a robot was crossing the road. Yeah, they have those in Phoenix, the little Wall-E-looking bots.

I must have gotten ahead because we didn’t have the slingshot yet. By the third day, we did, I’m sure. I will write about this more later, but I had gone to Spain, and I brought a book with me that day to journal on. Now that I am writing about this, I see how beneficial having brought one to this trip and the many others soon to follow would have been. No need to worry, though, because I have an excellent memory.

Well, we’re about a quarter to a third of the trip. Oh, did I mention the Talking Stick Hotel has a pool and casino? More on that later. The big highlight of the trip was when we drove out to the Arizona desert to drive to Sedona. Sedona is about a two-hour drive from Phoenix. The mountains in Arizona are huge. I had no idea there would be so many mountains out there.

The hotel had a pool we went to at least two or three times. It was here, and my brother asked me what I would like to do now that I have finished college. A question that perhaps even now lingers a bit in my mind. However, I tell you this: this summer, I began writing a novel I have yet to publish, but I have put a few excerpts from it on my blog. I can’t remember the exact details of the whole conversation, but my brother supported my writing endeavors—the sole effort of one too many authors.

In one of the first few days, we visited a Native American Museum called the “Heard Museum.” When we were making our way in, I remember seeing an old native American with a walking stick making his way outside the entrance. We might have seen him again on the way out, but I’m unsure. Inside the museum, we saw the history of many of the different Native American tribes. I would show pictures, but I don’t think the museum allowed it. What stood out to my brother and me was one tribe we saw how they had their chiefs imprisoned in the Alcatraz prison in San Francisco. They were rewriting their history and their culture.

In the late 1,800’s and early 1,900’s, the United States took many of the tribes’ children and put them in boarding schools. My brother told me, “It’s like they’re trying to do now.” This is a profound statement, as I think it is a fair assessment to say that re-educating groups of people has been a common recurrence in human societies. The Heard Museum was an amazing experience learning the history of many tribes we saw.

I had a job interview with Rowan College of South Jersey one day. I had to interview virtually at the hotel. It was almost a huge red flag that it wouldn’t happen because the lady who scheduled me for the interview did it when I would have been flying on the plane with my brother. I found it ridiculous that she wouldn’t let me reschedule, or she had so much pushback that I had to have the interview another day. I just thought I mentioned it because I had recently finished college.

But enough about that. Let’s discuss my favorite highlight of the trip, followed by our adventure into the Scottsdale shopping mall. That mall is enormous and has four floors!