Beaver Creek Brewery

When people think of Arizona, they think of the desert. Or the godawful suburban sprawl of Phoenix. Or the Grand Canyon.

Or this Tom Chambers dunk from 1989. 

(Admittedly, that might only be me.)

Much lower down on the list is Flagstaff. A lot of people do not realize that Flagstaff sits at 6800 feet. There are Ponderosa pines as far as the eye can see. The town is deep green with blue skies; there are microbreweries, bike shops, and Subarus on seemingly every block. It is very much a mountain town. 

I stopped at In-N-Out in Flagstaff for dinner on my way to California; it was a gorgeous late summer evening, the town bathed in golden light. The place was packed with students from NAU - two blocks away - and I thought of something I had not in many years: I strongly considered attending NAU, hoping that maybe I had enough skills remaining to play ball there. 

(The coach at the time? Ben Howland.)

I realized I had not spent the night in Flagstaff in 21 years and decided to do so on my return to New Mexico. 

First up was Beaver Creek. I had a pint of their delicious Mexican lager. The food - especially the appetizers - looked good. But this was three in the afternoon and I had just eaten In-N-Out in Kingman a couple of hours earlier, so I moved on.

(I actually did end up eating this food for dinner several hours later, but not here, and I will tell you the rest of the story in about a week.)