Flancer’s is Now a Favorite of Mine

We have a local version of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives here in Arizona. It’s a television show on PBS that highlights local eateries submitted by fans.

First of all, I love the show. You can even watch full episodes. But don’t treat this watching lightly…you will get addicted to Check Please, Arizona.

I absolutely love PBS. Don’t even get me started on Antiques Roadshow.

Anyway, Date Night rolled around for Hubby and I, and it was my turn to pick our dinner destination. So I checked the Check Please, Arizona website to find something remotely close to our house and within budget.

It’s hard to drop $50 for a steak for us…you know? What do you mean that I have to pay another twenty dollars for a side dish?

Flancer’s was about five miles away and in our price range, so I surprised Hubby with a new place to try.

The guitar-playing goat is apparently their logo, but I didn’t let that sway my high opinion of this place already.

Known for incredible sandwiches and pizza, I knew that we were in for a treat! Gourmet sandwiches are one of my favorite things to eat, after all.

And the selection was amazing, too! My tough decision was deciding between a few of the sandwiches that had been featured in the Check Please, Arizona episode.

Do I do a Philly Cheesesteak? Or something with turkey, avocado, and green chile mayonnaise?

I know! These are tough decisions in my life!

Hubby was having a hard time picking from all of the wonderful options, too. I was really excited to bring him here, since I knew that they had lots of goodies that he would enjoy.

No onion rings, though. That was his only complaint.

I decided to go with the Ace of Clubs, since I knew that I wanted avocado on whatever  I got. It was very similar to the Chile Verde Birdie right above, except that bacon and ham came with it.

I love me some pig.

And Hubby went with the Philly Cheesesteak, which is one of their signature items. I was debating between this and the Ace of Clubs!

But we’re so smart…guess what we did? We split our dinner and each got to enjoy half of the other person’s sandwich!

Best of both worlds, really.

And good for indecisive-when-hungry people like us!

The inside of the restaurant was really cute and quaint, too. It was very casual and relaxed with all sorts of people eating here. The walls were decorated with old music labels from the seventies.

I love when good places are busy. This was about five o’clock in the evening, too, so even before the dinner rush really hit! The place was packed by the time we left.

I’m so happy for them!

My only complaint is that this picture in the doorway was crooked. You know that I wanted to get up and fix it during my entire stay!

It didn’t take long for dinner to arrive, and we were both happy about that.

Hubby picked the Jalapeno and Cheddar Mashed Potato Pie for his side dish to accompany the Philly Cheesesteak. I had a bite of the spuds, and they were delicious!

And this was my Ace of Clubs with fries. I got the fries so Hubby could enjoy them, but I ate a few of them while they were in front of me, too.

Woops.

Get out much? You would think that we didn’t go on a Date Night every week!

I really love trying new places, and I was really hoping that this would become a new favorite eating establishment of ours. I would go back in a heartbeat.

I ate half of this, and then I swapped Hubby for half of his. They were both incredible sandwiches. The only thing that I would change is that I would leave off the banana peppers from the Philly. It made the entire sandwich a little more acidic than I usually prefer.

But melted cheese made up for a lot here, folks.

The manager came over to ask how our meal was. Since I’m a chatterbox, I told him that it was our first time. When asked how we found out about them, he was so happy to hear that it was from PBS! Apparently, they have gotten a lot of business from being featured on the show.

I’m so happy for them!

He was nice enough to give us a coupon for our next visit.

Dibs!

They make all of their bread in-house and have an option to buy a baguette. I took one home and made homemade croutons with it for our homemade Chicken Caesar Salads over the next few nights.

Plan ahead, I always say. Especially when bread is involved.

Our entire evening was just so nice. The food was incredible, and we even have an excuse to go back.

If you’re in the Valley of the Sun and are looking for a great place to grab a meal, might I recommend Flancer’s to you? You won’t regret visiting their restaurant. Even with a guitar-playing goat!

Work Pants, Dirt, Shovel, and Biceps

In honor of getting our concrete curbing poured yesterday morning, I thought that I should do a quick post on some backyard updates.

That we did five weeks ago. Because that’s how fast I am sometimes.

It’s kind of fun to see these pictures, actually. I was outside all day yesterday, admiring our new concrete curbing around these two fences. And when I come in to edit these pictures…well, they just look terrible!

Hey, we knew that it would take a few years to get this yard the way that we wanted.

But now the fun part starts…picking out plants that will soon die that will thrive with our Hubby-installed drip system!

Speaking of Hubby…have I mentioned lately how lucky I am to have such a hard-working man? He is willing to do lots of labor, even if it takes a little longer.

And he’s buff.

We’ve learned from experience that these clumps of dirt need to be broken up as they come out and are still fresh.

If left to dry in the awful Arizona sun, these clumps will make life purely miserable later on.

Clumps don’t fill holes very well. Or break apart easily to fill holes.

This is where Hubby plans to dig for two sprinkler lines…one for the sprinkler heads for the (future) grass, and the other for the drip systems for these (future) planter boxes and garden boxes by the pool.

I think that our plants will have a fighting chance now that they will be watered regularly…and without our forgetfulness getting in the way!

This is our pure clump-removal process. It means chopping up the clumps as they first come out.

Chop chop chop chop.

He’s not even flexing here. He’s just that muscular.

Can you believe that he slaves away at a desk all day?

How do you know that he is truly working? Because of these pants, of course.

They are his official work pants. He does most of our house projects while wearing these plaid beauties.

The trench is dug. Soon, a sprinkler pipe will be in on this side as well. It will feed two sprinkler heads, while the other side of the yard has sprinkler lines and drip system lines.

Diggity dig, Hubby!

I feel so badly just taking pictures instead of helping.

But I remember that on this particular afternoon, I had a meeting later and had already showered.

Terrible timing on my part, I know!

And I promise that it was an accident!

You feel really guilty when the backyard starts to look like this…and you didn’t do anything to help getting it that way.

Wow, buff and patient with his wife?

Is this the World’s Best Husband or what?!

We have found so many “treasures” while working in this yard. Hubby now keeps a trash bucket nearby to throw in what he finds.

We’ve even stumbled upon drug paraphernalia. Weird!

But mostly just rusted nails, toy cars, and trash.

You know, stuff that we wouldn’t want in a brand-new, shiny backyard paradise!

These aren’t little sissy trenches, either.

Hubby does not mess around when it comes to digging properly for sprinkler systems.

Pipes go in here. And then we can fill it in, level the yard, and schedule some concrete!

(Apparently, pipes, filling things in, leveling, and concrete takes five weeks from start to finish).

We are making good progress. I’m learning patience every step of the way!

I can’t wait until we get this place finished! I know that it will be a space in which I will spend lots of time…when it looks nice and no longer like a gravel pit!

Do you remember what this all looked like when we first moved in?

I do. shudder

We’ve already made a teensy weensy bit of progress!

What have you been working on, now that Spring has arrived?

Leaving Denver in the Dust for Home

After a long but fruitful flight from Teterboro, it was time to grab some fuel at Denver Centennial’s Denver Jet Center, our favorite FBO.

The ramp was packed. But I would totally come here today, too, since it was a gorgeous sixty-two degrees.

Did they know that we were coming or what?!

Our passengers were happy to stretch their legs after four hours of flying, and they headed upstairs in the FBO to The Perfect Landing Restaurant for a quick bite while Gladys got some love from the fuel truck.

I’ve eaten here a few times. It’s pricey delicious!

From the top of the entrance door, I always get a nice view of the surrounding area. Gladys is so tall that I can see for miles and miles!

No exaggerations, of course.

This King Air 350 rolled up to the ramp.

And this pretty Citation Excel also arrived while we were waiting for the fueling to finish.

This place is busy! But look at those skies! It’s perfect flying weather!

Soon, we were on our way home! This last flight of our New York City trip was only about an hour and a half. It’s the shortest that we’ve done in over a week!

We headed towards Runway 17L for departure today.

And we were soon in the sky!

It looks like Denver could use a little Spring lovin’…what do you think?

Over the mountains were clouds and some virga (rain that doesn’t reach the ground). We dodged a few bumpy clouds on our climb away from Centennial this afternoon.

Because she is a rocket, we were on top of the clouds in no time. Now it’s smooth-sailing to our home airport!

Snow-capped mountains peeked out from below.

And then we entered the high desert of southern Colorado and northern Arizona.

For mid-March, lots of these places had already started to get rid of that nasty white stuff.

Isn’t that meandering river pretty?

And then some pops of bright orange and red as we flew over some rock formations during our descent into home today.

This always reminds me of southern Utah, where I spent a lot of time as a kid. We hiked and hiked and hiked, and then we hiked some more. In formations that looked just like these!

As we got closer to home, we realized that it was going to be one of those hazy days where finding the airport is a little tricky.

Aren’t these mesas and plateaus so pretty?

This is one of my favorite pictures from today…

Apparently, Spring likes us more than it likes Denver. Just look at those beautiful green fields!

Somewhere down there, in all that haze, is our home airport.

And when we got close enough, it finally came into view!

Luckily, we’ve been here a few times. So we know where to look, even if we can’t quite see the runway yet.

It feels good to be home, even if for just an hour!

We passed this pretty hangar with a pretty Citation X in front. Look at those winglets!

Actually, this same airplane used to be based at Swift Aviation when I flew a Beechjet out of Sky Harbor Airport.

It looks like they have grown wise in their old age because they moved to this airport, too.

I think that our wonderful line guys are ready for us. What do you think?

And it seems that we landed just after this Pilatus, since they didn’t even have time to move him out of the way before we came in to park.

That’s OK. Gladys can fit anywhere!

We loaded up the car and got the passengers on their way. They’ll be right back with new slothes in their luggage.

Then we fueled Gladys and re-staged her from the starting spot on the ramp. In just an hour, we will be on our way again for three nights in Bremerton!

Yippeeeeee!

I am sensing a Pilatus theme today. We didn’t get that memo.

But I wouldn’t trade Gladys for a Pilatus. Not ever. Huh uh.

Just above the hangar at which we are based, you can see the antennas of the control tower. I always wave to them, though I doubt that they can see me through the necessary sun shades.

We love being based here at this airport. Everyone is so good to us! The controllers are fantastic.

This little biplane is quite often doing touch-and-go landings when I am at the airport. He was busy in the traffic pattern today.

Can you imagine just flying every day like that? Just because you want to and can?

Fun!

Now that Gladys is ready for our flight towards Seattle around 5:00 PM, I have enough time to run about a mile away to grab a healthy late lunch at Pei Wei. Perfect!

It’s been a long day, since we left NYC around 6:00 AM this morning. I’m hungry!

After a heavenly five days near New York City, I am incredibly excited to get two whole days off to explore Seattle, too!

Stick around. It’s going to be good!