After several hours of driving on Monday, Stephanie and I decided to stop for dinner in Phoenix. I did a little searching on the way to find a good restaurant, but discovered that many were closed on Monday night. Conveniently Yelp has an “Open right now” option which filtered out all the non-starters, so we went with the most reviewed Mexican/Southwestern place that was closest to I-10. Which happened to be Gallo Blanco (white rooster).

When we arrived, we discovered it was slightly upscale and attached to a hip-looking boutique hotel called The Clarendon. We ordered two of their house-made margaritas, guacamole, and a variety of seven tacos to try. The guac was sweet, spicy, and full of flavor, the tacos were scrumptious (especially the pork!), and the margaritas were disappearing fast. So we asked the server out of curiosity how much the rooms at the hotel went for—he immediately said, “Let me go talk to the front desk to see if you can get my discount…” He came back and said the rooms are usually $110, but the discount makes it $67. Our jaws dropped. I said, “I guess we’ll be having another round of margaritas then!”

So we didn’t make it any further than Phoenix that night. We did, however, take advantage of the pool after dinner (in the 105° heat), and the free wireless internet back in our swank, $67 room.

For your viewing pleasure, here are a few snaps from the road: