Tonight’s update comes from Wichita, Kansas, where the road ahead does not look friendly. Denver is under a “snow and blowing snow advisory” and should be covered with four to eight inches of fresh snow by the time we arrive tomorrow afternoon. The forecast looks good for Saturday, so we shouldn’t be stuck in the city afterwards. Unless, of course, the third blizzard in as many weeks decides to bitchslap the mile-high city.

I never put an open thread up for Denver suggestions, so if anybody happens to have any, feel free to drop them here. I’ll have a Texas-Arlington wrap for you shortly.

Here’s the requisite open thread preceding all road trips. I’ll be in Knoxville, Tennessee on Friday and Saturday to see our boys take on the Volunteers in their first road test of the season.

So far, some of the good folks over at Longhorn Nation have suggested a few restaurants to me. The tips on BBQ include Corky’s and Buddy’s, while one Horn fan threw out Calhoun’s on the River. Apparently if you want to open a restaurant in Knoxville, you have to name it after yourself.

Have your own favorite sights or eats in Knoxville? Want to blindly send me into the bad part of town? (I hear those country-western gangs are pretty hard. They’ll cut you.) Just follow the speech bubble and throw in your two cents. And if you’ve got suggestions for Memphis, feel free to throw them in there. It looks like I’ll be passing through, so I can always make a stop if need be.

In the meantime, enjoy the great win over Arkansas and I’ll be back with a Tennessee preview on Friday night or Saturday morning. And maybe someday I’ll get to wrapping up that trip to Phoenix. You know, the one I took three weeks ago.

Thanks in advance for your tips, and be safe on your holiday travels this weekend.

Click here to open the Phoenix photo gallery in a new window.

Phoenix is an oasis in the desert, a sprawling bit of suburban excess that somehow fills one of the most uninhabitable places in the country. You’ve got Glendale, Scottsdale, Avondale, and really just about every type of “dale” you could want. And considering a “dale” is a valley, I’m surprised that the fine folks of Arizona didn’t create their own Deathdale to compete with that more-famous valley over in California. Hell, the name would even go along with the ancient population of Arizona, or at least suggest their impending fate.

This introduction isn’t my way of saying I hate Arizona. Rather, it’s a nice enough place, with lots of sun and great winter weather. But when you really think about it, it’s still a desert. Where they built a bunch of cities. And I guess that may make heatstroke a reasonable explanation for the absurd frontage-road traffic lights they have. Let’s put it this way — if I’m sober and the painted markings on the road read like Cyrillic, that’s probably not a good thing.

Like I said earlier, there’s a lot of old people in the greater Phoenix area. A lot. I used to think Florida was where retirees go to die. Apparently the annual hurricane onslaughts have moved them all to Arizona. But when you couple that with the gorgeous young co-eds of Arizona State, it’s a very weird cross-section of American life. There’s a ton of golf courses, which is a must for any retiree-friendly area. But the nightlife is also pretty respectable, not that Playboy’s “#1 Party School” needs bars to have a good time.

In my three days in the desert, I managed to catch two college basketball games and an NBA one, all in the same place. Friday night, I saw the Phoenix Suns-Milwaukee Bucks game, which only further underscored my belief that the League has absolutely nothing on the excitement of college basketball. While the Suns had the hottest strippers dance team I’d ever laid eyes on — my apologies to the Oklahoma State pom squad — the style of play and lack of fan involvement is really a drag.

After the game, we Bomar-ed an In-N-Out double-double somewhere in Annendalevilledaledale. While a general rule of thumb on my trips is to eat at places considered “local” and avoid chain restaurants, a huge exception had to be made for In-N-Out. Unless rumors of expansion into the Dallas market come true, the closest place an Austinite can find these delicious burgers is in Arizona. ..just a hop, skip, and 15-hour car ride away. So you’ll have to excuse my simplistic meal choice on this trip, not just once, but again on Sunday before I left town.

Downtown Phoenix is a really nice area in the midst of renovations, including what looks to be a trolley being built through many of the streets. I’m a huge proponent of mass transit, especially in sprawling urban areas like Phoenix and Austin. Not to get too far off on a tangent, but the thing being built in Phoenix looks a lot more useful than the light rail being thrown up in Austin. Like, for instance…it actually goes through downtown.

Breakfast was eaten at a nice little place not far from the arena called First Watch. I later found out that this is also a chain, but considering none of us had ever heard of it, the place was new to us. They had a ton of great, healthy breakfast options, including about 22,583 variations on the omelette. After a good, filling breakfast and a quick visit to an outdoor mall a few blocks away, it was time for a Saturday that was all about basketball.

The Horns opened the doubleheader with a game against Gonzaga that I’d generally like to forget. But if you’d like to revisit it for some reason, feel free to read my post-game wrapup.

That nightmare was followed by a great matchup between Illinois and Arizona in front of an absolutely deafening crowd. I’d say the arena was probably about 75% Arizona folks, 15% Illini faithful, 8% Gonzaga fans, and the small burnt orange contingent. Even though they were outnumbered, the Illini fans roared with every basket as they took a huge first-half lead. Arizona mounted a comeback and eventually won, but every single score resulted in an eruption of noise from one group or the other. And in a small NBA arena built specifically for basketball, that sound reverberated. Just a night after finding the NBA wine-and-cheese crowd a bit on the comatose side, I was reminded why college basketball is still the best thing around.

Somehow our group of four UT fans had bought seats on the 2nd row behind the basket, but right in the middle of where the U of A band was supposed to be sitting. Apparently there had been a mistake in the ticketing office, because there were only about four rows of fans who had been sold seats there, and the usher staff was prepared for our arrival. They moved all of us a section to the left, even closer to the benches, leaving space for the Wildcat band. And they were a really entertaining bunch. Seeing fans, cheerleaders, and even the band from a university that is truly a “basketball” school really makes a Longhorn fan pine for that kind of involvement in the Frank Erwin Center. I know we’ll never fully get there, but I’d love to see some huge steps taken in the near future.

Saturday night we called ahead to Richardson’s (map), what many call the best restaurant in town. It serves what they have dubbed “New Mexico cuisine” and is a very popular choice, despite its odd location in what amounts to a tiny strip mall on the north side of town. After waiting nearly two hours — and catching the triple-overtime football game between Rutgers and West Virginia on the bar TVs — we were treated to an absolutely amazing meal. I enjoyed some of the best enchiladas I’ve had, a delicious combination of blue-corn tortillas, turkey, and an incredible mushroom-cheese sauce. The only tip I give to those willing to brave the long wait for Richardson’s is to avoid the margaritas. Horribly overpriced and overrated, they tasted more like an alcohol-free limeade than anything. Perhaps we’re spoiled coming from Texas, but those margaritas eran teribles.

Sunday we spent the late morning hours touring the Desert Botanical Garden. It’s a place not far from the criss-crossing streets of suburbia, yet still quiet enough to feel removed. Considering it’s a garden in a desert, most of the plants are cacti. And evidently there’s about a million different kinds of cacti that can grow out there. Some of my favorites are in the photo gallery from this trip, although there was no way I could have captured all of the variety housed at the Desert Botanical Garden.

If you happen to go, I’d suggest doing it without kids, or at least with ones that have taken a nap earlier in the day. The paths can get to be repetitive and tiresome for the little ones, so they may lose interest and get bored. Be sure to check the guestbook on your way out, though. The comments left by field-trip kids are absolutely priceless, if not a bit harsh. My favorite? “It has been a year since I came here. I changed a lot, but this place didn’t.”

All told, it’s not a bad place to visit. And if you take away a shitty performance against the Zags, it was a pretty good weekend getaway. I’m not sure I could ever live in Phoenixdale, but I wouldn’t mind coming back if any future NCAA brackets happened to send us through the area.

We leave for Phoenix in about 20 hours, so I’m opening it up again for suggestions on food, bars, and other things to do in the area. And this time, people who are using IE can actually leave comments! It’s funny how much easier it is to leave a comment when the submit button works.

I’ve had one person tell me to check out Richardson’s on 16th Street and to hit the bars in Scottsdale. For those reading who know the area, leave your favorite spots in the comment section. Just follow the little speech bubble.

Go to the photo gallery

Everywhere you look in New York, you can see yuppies — does anyone still call urban professionals this? — rushing down the sidewalks or sitting on the subway, listening to their iPods. Or perhaps if they’re “unique,” they have a Rio or somesuch. So Friday morning I decided to try it for myself. And there’s really nothing more fun than being in your own world, with your favorite songs, as you navigate the best city in the country. Being self-absorbed is awesome.

If you have a good sense of direction or can read a subway map, after a few days you start to hate tourists. Incredibly hypocritical, but it happens. You glare at the little groups who stop on the sidewalk blocking foot traffic, or roll your eyes at the dumbasses who mindlessly follow someone across the street and nearly get plastered by a taxi. I feel like the city’s attitude has rubbed off on me. Or perhaps I’ve just always been an asshole.

Friday’s lunch turned into something of an adventure. We wanted a hole-in-the-wall Italian place with good word-of-mouth. Using the magic of the interwebs, we ultimately went with Carmela’s, on Canal Street in the financial district. After a long subway ride and a longer walk, we came to the address — and a sign that said the restaurant had been shut down by the food and something commission. It may have been a blessing in disguise that we never got to eat there.

Random walking brought us to a place that I think was called Giuseppe’s. If you ever want to find the place, just walk around the area and look for the only Italian place that two guys in t-shirts and jeans would be able to walk into. Their menu had just about everything you could want on it, but we ultimately ordered some paninis and scored free sodas. If you’re looking for fancy food or atmosphere, I wouldn’t recommend the place. But if you want good food and great selection for cheap, you can’t beat it.

We raced back to Midtown just after 5 P.M., riding the subway with the go-getters of our society. An interesting note here is that the nicest subway trains we rode on were at Wall Street and on the East Side. I guess even the MTA panders to its audience.

The St. John’s game was an absolute disaster, and I covered it in an earlier post. But is there a better way to get over a narrow victory against St. John’s High School than going out on the town?

Dinner was at Lombardi’s (32 Spring Street), which was by far the best meal of the week. Their food was absolutely amazing, particularly the calzone I ordered. The thing was absolutely bursting with ricotta, which is really the only way to go. A warning for anyone planning on checking out the restaurant — they only accept cash, and while they do have an ATM on site, you may want to hit up your own bank’s machine beforehand to save on the fees.

Absolutely stuffed, the next stop was at Rice to Riches (37 Spring Street), a rice pudding place whose decor perfectly defined pretentious hipster. I fucking loved it. Unfortunately, I was too full to order the ($5) “solo” bowl. But whatever you do, don’t order the rocky road. It looks like gruel made out of diarrhea. Mmmm, mmmm good.

I couldn’t even tell you what bar we ended up at. But I was sorely disappointed by the lack of Jersey guys blasting Springsteen and Bon Jovi on the jukebox. In fact, there were none. So this can’t really be classified as a grungy NYC bar experience, can it?

Everybody bitches about drink prices in New York. And rightly so. But try ordering a mind eraser at this particular mystery bar, and your idea of a “shot” may be redefined. That thing was big. And a few drinks and hours later I was loving it.

So my fairly drunk ass ended up in Times Square at 3:30 in the morning. And, much to my surprise, the place actually gets dead. I was on the phone at one point when a nerdy-looking guy — crackhead? homeless? — came up to me and offered me 100 dollars for my nasty, ratty, falling-apart Red Sox hat. I didn’t even honestly consider the offer. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the fear that this weirdo was going to shoot a ricin pellet into my arm. Who knows. But I’ve still got my hat, and that guy still thinks he actually has 100 dollars to his name.

Saturday I took Rasul to my favorite stop in New York City. Just outside of Columbia University sits Koronet Pizza (2858 Broadway), where the pizzas are 32-inches. You can get just a slice for two bucks, or add a topping for a few quarters more. And with slices this big, that’s the best deal I’ve ever had in any city. If you’re visiting NYC and choose to check out this little slice of pizza heaven, just head a few more blocks up Broadway to see the place that was used for exterior shots of Monk’s Restaurant on Seinfeld.

For those looking for a good, quiet place to drink and watch the game, I have to give a nod to Blaggard’s Pub on 35th between 5th and 6th Ave. The food is obviously just bar food, but the drafts are large and there’s no crowd to speak of. Of course, when I was there, USC knocked off Cal, so maybe the superstitious among you will call the place “bad luck.”

And that’s about it. As always, New York City was a blast. Hopefully we can advance far enough in the preseason NIT next year to make a third-straight trip. But next up for my own travels is Phoenix, coming up this Friday. I’ll have an open post for recommendations sometime after the Texas Southern post-game.