Chloride Post Office
Note: Photo captions are time and place of WiFi connectivity.

May 17th, Part 1
Fuck! One thing about being in a flat desert: because it’s flat, it stays light till 10:30pm (!) and it gets light awfully early.

Never seen these in Vancouver: Starbucks Doubleshot. A tiny cold can containing a double espresso shot and cream - yummy.

Prices here… went in to local version of Safeway last night. HUGE deli counter with all manner of seafood delicacies. Keep in mind, this part of the good ol’ US of A is about as landlocked as you can get. Guy behind the counter tells me that the store — it’s a chain of about 20 around Arizona — cut a deal with one of the seafood procurers for the Vegas hotels. They get whatever the Vegas hotels reject for a cut rate and pass the savings on to the customer. Sounds tacky, but he says since Vegas went upscale the fresh seafood (and meats too) have had their ‘collective bar raised’ in terms of quality, so what gets rejected is still prime stuff, just not what the procurers are looking for.

Anyway, the price for this stuff is amazing. Fresh Tiger prawns, 4 to 6 inches long, $1.50 a piece! Ahi Tuna steaks $2.99 a pound! Crab salad — real crab, not imitation — $2.49 for a small container! I saw a huge rib roast — just under four pounds — $10.95! Outrageous.

Don’t even get me started on the micro brewery tasting in aisle 7. Okay - it tasted like shit, but it was free!

Also, Wells Fargo has a bank in this store. Nothing unusual there. However, it was past 8:00PM when I wandered in and there was this young woman ‘manning’ the bank kiosk - a teller! I was curious as to what that deal was all about so I asked. Yup - bank stays open as long as the store does. You can make a deposit and a withdrawal through either one of the two ATMs there, or, if you’re in need of some assistance — mortgage application at 9:30PM on a Saturday perhaps — she’s be more than glad to help. Now THAT’S customer service.

Heading south to Tucson in about an hour to steal more WiFi!

Reporting tonight from a grocery-based Wells Fargo Bank in Kingman, Arizona