Arizona, Breakfast at the Roadrunner Saloon

Thoughtfully the organizers of the trip thought we might need a day to rest after our long flight so the next day was free of any official engagements and ours to do with as we pleased so Allan decided that we would drive to the two hundred mile journey to the far north of the State to see the Grand Canyon.

This seemed a very good idea but did involve a very early start and less than four hours after crawling into bed and it wasn’t even light when we were off and away before I had time to check thoroughly to see if I had a hangover and even before the breakfast bar was open in the restaurant.  Dave wasn’t happy about that.

The route took us along a circuitous route that went first north and then west around the city which seemed sensible because Phoenix is the fifth largest in the USA (I didn’t know that) and suffers notorious traffic congestion and then we picked up Interstate 17 which according to individual preference is called either the Black Canyon Freeway or the Arizona Veteran’s Highway and we started to drive relentlessly north.

As we had skipped breakfast it was inevitable that Dave would be the first to crack and declare his hunger and he predictably started to continuously nag about a food stop a short way into the journey.  After about thirty miles Allan could stand it no longer and at the next available intersection left the Interstate with a flourish and without warning and headed in an unknown direction down Stagecoach Road towards the municipality of New River.

I will never know if this was just a massive stroke of luck, cunning pre-planning he wasn’t owning up to or divine inspiration because I was convinced that he had no idea at all where he was going but just as I was wondering where the dusty Black Canyon Highway  was going to lead to, Allan, with a confidence that he was not really entitled to, swung into a car park of a diner called the Roadrunner Restaurant and declared with a swagger that it was the perfect place for breakfast.

As I wrestled with this conundrum I concluded that he must surely have seen a sign that no one else had some way back on the interstate!

It turned out the place was quite famous; the Roadrunner was established in 1964 and the story goes that its first bartender was only six years old because when the original owner arrived with his new liquor license and a celebratory bottle of whiskey he appointed the only non-drinker present at the time to pour the first drinks.

Inside there were plenty of local folk enjoying hearty plates of good looking food and as we scratched our heads in bewilderment we all agreed that Allan had made a very good choice indeed.  Especially Dave. After we had settled down at a table the waitress  brought coffee and menus and we set about making our choices.  When she returned Keith went first (on the right here) and she enquired how he liked to take his eggs.

Now, Keith was an easy going, mild mannered sort of chap with a most temperate disposition but this simple question seemed to trigger an Incredible Hulk type transformation.  His eyes bulged and the veins in his neck throbbed, ‘EGGS!’ he said in his distinctive Norfolk drawl (and it works better if you can try it with the accent but if you are unfamiliar with East Anglia any local yokel accent will do just as well) ‘I aren’t eating eggs, I aren’t eating something that’s been squeezed out of a chicken’s arse!’

Stunned silence swept across the room.  A silence that was only broken as jaws hit the table!

Being from rural Norfolk Keith clearly knew more about chickens  than the rest of us but we really didn’t need the graphic details of how a hen lays an egg  and neither of course did the rest of the customers in the diner.

This uncharacteristic behaviour took us all rather by surprise, the tables went deathly quiet and needless to say the outburst seemed to alarm the startled waitress who after all was only doing her job and would have been wholly within her rights to decide for herself that he probably liked his eggs hard boiled and squeezed up his arse or simply cracked and served raw over his head.

Between us we managed to smooth over the situation, Dave generously offered to eat his eggs and we were careful after that to keep Keith well away from them for the rest of the trip.  We had a hefty U.S. breakfast and made sure that we left a generous tip.

The full American breakfast is quite similar to the full English but there are a few differences.  American breakfasts are bigger for a starter and have a lot of pancakes and syrup which, quite frankly I could do without but they don’t have black pudding (pigs blood sausage) or potato cakes and the Americans simply cannot cook bacon and instead serve up razor thin strips of overcooked pork flavoured crisps (chips).

This is the full English version with a good juicy slice of back bacon…

Outside, the sun was up now and there was a big blue sky with little wispy white clouds on the horizon but as we travelled further north it started to get colder and the highway verges were piled high with snow where the ploughs had cleared the carriageways of a recent fall.  Arizona is best known for its desert climate with exceptionally hot summers and mild winters but the high country in the north features pine forests and mountain ranges with much cooler weather than the lower deserts and we were beginning to approach them now.

We passed by Black Canyon City, climbed through the Prescott National Park and somewhere around Flagstaff we crossed the famous old Route 66 without really appreciating the significance of the event.  Finally Interstate 17 came to an abrupt end when we reached a junction and Allan selected a route across Coconimo Plateau through a Navajo Indian Reservation and continued north to the Grand Canyon South Rim visitor centre.