Cave Creek, Arizona - Part One El Encanto

El Encanto - Cave Creek, Arizona, originally uploaded by treylawyer.

Cave Creek, Arizona was an interesting place to visit.  Since I visited twice during my stay in Phoenix I will be posting multiple blogs for this town.  I am starting with The El Encanto restaurant because this is where we ate the first night in Phoenix.  It is hard to top Tex-Mex and the Mexican food in the Southwest is often different than what we are acustome to in Texas.  With that said, El Encanto was an outstanding place to eat.  The atomosphere alone was an enjoyable experience.  There are inside and outside seating options.  We were inside, but our table was against a window overlooking the pond that is located in the center or the restaurant, so we were able to view the ducks and geese with no problems.  The entire restaurant has character and the artwork, statues and pond make El Encanto unique in its own little way.  



Now to the fun part, the food!  I have to say, I was very impressed with the food.  I didn't know what to expect, because I am not a huge fan of Southwest Mexican Food, but everything turned out perfect.  Surprisingly, the food did not have the Southwest taste I remeber from my past and it actually tasted like Tex-Mex.  I thought I was in San Antonio eating Mexican Food on the Riverwalk!  Yes, it was that good!  The price was even similar to the Riverwalk, but I wouldn't let this hold you back because it is worth every penny.

The only thing I didn't like was the flavored Iced Tea.  I am not a fan of foo-foo teas, but they were out of regular iced tea, so I really didn't have a choice. 

Fiesta Bowl 2010

DSC_0065, originally uploaded by treylawyer.

It has been a few days since my last posting. I was hoping to be more active in blogging this year, but it has been crazy first week of the year.  I left for Arizona on Saturday January 2nd to attend the Fiesta Bowl and didn't get back home until January 6th.  So here I am on the 9th trying to get settled back in to the new year.

The Fiesta Bowl was a great experience but unfortunately the Horned Frogs could not pull out the win.  It was a great run at TCU's best year since the 1938 Championship.  It has been a long time coming, but Coach Patterson has done what many thought could not be done, take one of the smallest D1 schools to a BCS bowl.  Utah was the pioneer for the small schools by winning the Mountain West in the 04-05 season to play in the Fiesta Bowl against Pittsburgh.  Two years later Boise State would break the plane and would shock the country by beating Oklahoma by one point in overtime to win the 06-07 Fiesta Bowl.



While the success of the small D1 schools is great, it does not serve final justice for the system.  A playoff system should be considered so as true champion can finally be crowned.  There is almost a one month layoff between the last regular season game and the start of the BCS bowls. This is the perfect time to continue playing and only a few more games would need to be added.  It is real simple, take the top 12 teams like the the NFL does and start playing.  I know the BCS is all about money, but I would imagine more money would be made from this type of system.

Maybe one day the system will change and everyone will be happy, but it is very unlikely.  Until a new system is in place, we will continue to hear both sides and the contraversy will continue. I will continue to watch and hope the small schools can continue to break through, dominate and shake up the Bogus National Championship!