South by Southwest

It's June, summer has almost landed in New York and people are spending their weekends in the Hamptons/the Cape/at the Shore. The warm weather and lazy days (or those that I dream of, anyway) make me crave a road trip and recently I've been thinking about heading south. It's totally against my nature because I'm kind of a cold weather girl, but maybe it was that Mint Julep I had a few weeks back at Death & Co that has me dreaming about lounging on a veranda under oak trees and spanish moss; or baking in the desert sun, margarita in hand as a wicked summer storm thunders in the distance.

Last July, I spent a 105-degree week under the Tucson sun attempting to turn my Northern skin golden brown and stressed mood into a more relaxed one. It didn't take long - a 30SPF afternoon by the pool at Loews Ventana, followed by dinner at Hacienda del Sol watching the sun set over the Santa Catalina mountains and suddenly I couldn't remember where New York was any longer. Nor did I care. The sublime beauty of the desert had put everything into perspective.

Like how difficult it is to get really great, authentic Mexican food in the Northeast.

We'd been directed to Cafe Poca Cosa, told it was the best Mexican in the city. At the time, the restaurant was housed on the first floor of a crumbling old hotel. Part of the experience was entering through the decrepit white structure into the explosive red and green interior, warm with the scent of chiles, chocolate and cinnamon. We ordered the chef's menu, happy to let someone else decide what we should eat, and it included her (chef Susana Davila) famous Mole. It was Like Water for Chocolate in downtown Tucson.

The city was quiet in July, as half the population was probably up North somewhere, which appealed to my need to slow down. We found the underbelly at Hotel Congress, a historic hotel where John Dillinger was captured in 1934. It's now a haven for local artists and musicians, restored but feels very old West in a cow punk kind of way... the kind of place where you kick back with a cocktail at 4 in the afternoon and hang with the colorful locals.  Which seems like the perfect thing to do on a summer afternoon... and what I think of as I run my fingers across the map wondering where to run off to this summer.