Arizona Big Trains

[ezdays]

I know what you mean, Don. I used to have to do a lot of work in Surprise. Our office was in Scottsdale, so I informally nicknamed Surprise as "Surprise!" (with an exclamation point), as in "Surprise! You are still in the city!" Buckeye, of course was "East Blythe", and we'd say Chandler was so far east that they went on daylight saving time with New Mexico. My out-of-state relatives and friends usually have a poor grasp of how big some of these western cities and states are. Whenever some newsworthy event happens in Arizona, they want to know if it is close to my house, not understanding that it is 200 miles away.

I wrote an article a while back about this. About how towns that were miles apart now border on each other, and how we still will drive from Surprise to Scottsdale, about 35 miles one-way just to buy some of Chompie's bagels, or how we would drive to Chandler, about 45 miles one-way, just to go to the outlet mall there. Right now we drive almost 50 miles just to get to a shooting spot in the desert. I used to kid about bringing a lunch to to go to Mesa, so I guess going on this train tour isn't so bad after all.