We dropped Lilli at the TownePlace Suites Tempe, where
our rooms weren't ready, so she went to the mall, and we
drove the 3.6 miles north to Tempe Diablo Stadium to watch
the White Sox again playing the Angels. there is no shade
in this park, and there are no handrails. Other than those
two potentially fatal issues, the facility is okay, and
there's a good selection of beer. I stuck with my usual
Kilt Lifter. It was mighty sunny, so we left at the end of
the 8th with the score tied, having seen one homer per
team, five doubles, and only one hit batsman. The Angels
finally won 5-4 on a walkoff, but we were long gone.

The TownePlace gave us two rooms this time; suites is a
wild overstatement; medium-size rooms with a kitchenette
is more like; not unlike the Home2 arrangement, only two
of them. A rollout table such as the TSA uses serves as a
dining table as well as a desk. Unimpressive, but it works.
There were a lot of screaming kids celebrating a birthday;
they were staying on our floor, yay, so after we heard
them cavorting at the pool we got to hear them tearing up
the corridors as well.

The staff are nice.

We drowned our sorrows in a bottle of Novelty Hill Cabernet
15, spicy, peppery, with mature blackcurrant and berry
flavors. Pretty soft but with noticeable tannin. Quite good.
No sharp edges.

There's a Texas Roadhouse just a couple miles down the way,
and the Website claimed a wait time of 0 to 10 minutes, so
that seemed fine, so off we went only to find some event
tying up traffic in the Indian reservation between us and
the restaurant. After a futile attempt to finesse this issue,
we got back in the traffic; by the time we got to our
destination, more audible with its nonstop loud country music
than visible from the street, the estimated wait had inflated
to 35 to 45, so we decided to wait at the bar, but there was
only a single over here and a single over there, so we gave
Lilli a seat and flanked her standing like bodyguards. Beers
are a good way to while away a bunch of time (Lilli had
Malbec instead), but 45 came and went, and seats were opening
up at the far end of the bar, so we decided to eat there.

Swisher got the small NY strip medium rare, which came
medium rare. Having been extra disappointed the previous
night, I ordered the large NY strip extra rare; the cute
and with-it bartender said "we can do better than that -
it's called black and blue," so of course to that; it
really turned out more like gray and blue, which was fine
by me. This steak was nowhere the quality of the previous
ones, but the broiling was careful and as ordered, and we
enjoyed our food. My sides were as usual chili and chili,
gristlier even than usual, no beans, spicier than what you
get back east or in Anchorage, quite tasty. My steak tooth
was satisfied. Lilli had the 10-oz ribeye rare, about which
one can say only that there's nothing more pathetic than a
10-oz ribeye. It was 1/2" thick if that, barely colored on
the outside and barely rare in the middle. She ate about
1/3 lb of meat and most of her baked potato and salad and
gave me 1/3 lb of meat and quite a lot of globbish fat. I
enjoyed the latter and toyed with leaving the meat behind,
but secondary meat craving set in, and I finished it off.

Oh, this time I asked for mine to be cooked without the
house rub, and the bartender checked with both of the
others if they wanted theirs that way too, which was a
yea, and the steaks were better that way.

With dinner I had a Kilt Lifter, and the others continued
with their same orders.
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