KPHX - Sky Harbor Intl. Phoenix, AZ, USA

World Heritage Sites Air Adventures: Comeback 2 USAmerica Air Tour
Flight Log #07 – October 2, 2025
Edition Title: Mesa, Pueblos, and Ember Broth
Log Entry by Tony Hillerman, Guest Co-Pilot

Before the crew gathered for this day’s adventure, Cropduster logged a solo transit flight the day before, hopscotching from New Orleans (KMSY) to Dallas/Fort Worth (KDFW), making a stop at Clinton-Sherman (KCSM), and continuing up to Denver (KDEN)—a quiet crossing under southern and plains skies that set the stage for today’s eastward journey.

A day’s journey from Denver to Phoenix, if flown at low altitude and high spirits, can season a man’s soul as much as it shakes the bones of an airplane. Mark’s on shore leave, so the duties of ink and recollection fall to me. I held down the starboard seat of our plucky two-seat A-37 Dragonfly—no spare room for a dog, and barely enough for my knees and a well-traveled notebook. The canine contingent traveled in style aboard the C-130H Hercules “Maui,” shepherded by a crew who knows both logistics and loyalty, the kind who make a reunion feel like a powwow.

We departed KDEN beneath Colorado blue, the Rockies shouldered in the morning haze. Cropduster fired up the traveler’s French press—an old campaigner’s kit battered by years of sunrise, border crossings, and a thousand miles of cautionary tales. Into it went the local “Fourteener Roast,” beans dark as juniper bark and robust enough to brace us for whatever lay ahead. The aroma curled around my notes, bold enough to make even the dogs on Maui’s manifest sit up and take notice. With that black medicine came “Mesa Sunrise Ramen”—bison, Olathe sweet corn, Pueblo green chile, Palisade peach in a miso broth that tasted of prairie sky. Heritage noodles and a soft-fried egg—comfort for the trail, a quiet homage to every sunrise we’d ever watched through plexiglass.

We rode the wind over Mesa Verde’s stone dwellings, then Taos Pueblo’s earthen walls—a land inscribed with ceremony. At midday, we spiraled down to KABQ, the promise of coffee and lunch working wonders on the spirit. There waited “Pueblo Red Trail Ramen”—blue corn noodles, slow-cooked pork adovada, green chile broth with deep red flecks, pinon crunch, a crisp sopapilla wedge riding shotgun. A fresh pot of piñon coffee brewed in our road-weary French press: earthy, potent, with a hint of wild pine. Once the canine squad arrived via Maui, spirits stayed strictly limited to story and anticipation—no whiskey or rye until the sun had set and every aircraft was tied down.

Chaco unfurled beneath us, followed by the silence of the Grand Canyon and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West, a daylight journey mapped with awe. Phoenix welcomed us home, Maui’s ramp crew and the canine ensemble ready on the tarmac, tails and spirits rising as one.

Only after flying hours were truly complete—engines cooled, logbooks signed, and bellies full of “Sonoran Ember Ramen” (served with brisket, roasted green chile, mesquite mushrooms, sweet corn in bone broth, and a scatter of prickly pear)—did the real Southwest emerge in our cups. Glasses were raised with Park Rye and Sacred Stave Rye Whiskey from Arizona, neat and starlit; Prophet Share Bourbon out of New Mexico, the bottle catching the last gold light of day; and TINCUP Fourteener Colorado 14 Year Bourbon, poured slowly, a toast from the Rockies to the high desert.

Cuban cigars glowed as bluegrass played, stories spun wider and warmer, dogs dozing at our feet. Here, whiskey and rye, like the roads we travel, connect memory and land—kept sacred until every journey’s end.

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