Lisa and the dogs are spending some time in New Jersey with her family, and I’m on my way back to Seattle. Along the way, I’ve landed in Arizona—a personal first. Phoenix from the air looks like an absolutely flat tabletop cut with a careful grid of roads, onto which some giant has dropped big stiff dark peaks of mountains. Otherwise straight roads are interrupted by enormous stiff-edged chunks of brown dirt. Oh yeah, and it’s hot as hell.