Day Two

Slept quite solidly from 2am to 8am, then we decided to get walking for breakfast. Buster suggested a place he’d read about in one of the many guidebooks we were given, and we headed off in that direction. It’s a rail-car diner, situated downtown. What a neat place. The food was great, the people were all locals and we a fun time.



Walking around after breakfast, we found a wondrous thing; a park with a creek running thru it. Jaw-dropping beautiful. Really, you’ve got to visit this pretty city.


Then as we wandered more, we found the Farmer’s Market. I have never been to a real one, and I found myself taking pictures of the fruits and vegetables and sending them to Steve with my phone. You know you’re getting older when you get excited about a Farmer’s Market. And you’re emailing the photos. We found a farmer who seemed to specialize in HUGE cabbage, so we had to take a picture of that.

Oh, and the raspberries. Awesome.

The majority of the Arizona delegates are staying in the same hotel, the St. Paul. It is across the street from a historic building, called the “Landmark,” and it is a courthouse built in 1902.
Also across the street is the stage area for MSNBC and the Today Show. After observing this sort of town square we noticed a guy dancing all by himself. Then someone else started dancing. We poked our heads outside to see if there was music, and there was none. The police and national guard took great interest in the area as the dancers increased in number one at a time, eventually amounting to about 15 people who just flailed around on the sidewalk and street corners. Some of them had ipods with earbuds, others did not. It was funny to watch, at first, until I overthought the whole situation and got REALLY creeped out. What were these people doing? Were they creating a distraction for something else? Bruce Willis action plots came to mind. Before I could get my camera and get out there to take photos of the dancers, they dispersed.
But I noticed in my travels of the neighborhood that the police and secret service presence has pretty much doubled since our arrival 24 hours ago. Streets are becoming blocked off more and more,

and the black hawk helicopters are circling:


It’s a bit of a crushing feeling, to know that you’re in a sort of “ground zero” for something this big. Police everywhere, national guard on every street, and secret service.