So Basil heads off to Scottsdale from Mesa with 500 pounds or so of luggage and a taste for adventure.

If that doesn’t sound like the start of some disaster movie…

Luckily, Basil is safe.

He’s in Scottsdale, on his way to visit Bill and Kathee Austin. I know they’ve been looking forward to seeing him. I would expect he’ll arrive sometime this evening.

So what happened to Basil along the way between Mesa and Scottsdale? Remember, it’s only about 18 miles. Well, what didn’t happen?

First, Basil stopped off at the Mesa Country Club, which I should point out is a private club. Think that’d stop Basil? Of course not!

Basil hooked up with a few guys and somehow managed to convince them to let him play a round. Remember the golf clubs we saw in a recent picture of Basil? Exactly.

Basil claims he won the 9 hole round they played, but considering he’s never been great at putting, I highly doubt that’s the case. Of course it also seems like he bragged to everyone within shouting distance at the Country Club about his golf dominance…turns out, people take their golfing seriously. And the chase was on.

According to Basil, he escaped the Country Club unscathed and ran north until he got to the Hawaiian Village Mobile Home Park right near the Red Mountain Freeway. He figured the Country Club folk wouldn’t chase him into the mobile home park, so off he went. By this time he was rather hungry. Turns out, the folks in the mobile home park didn’t particularly appreciate Basil chewing up their gardens and rummaging through their garbage. Of course, he wasn’t rummaging in the garbage for food, he was looking for art.

And yes, the chase was on again. While Basil’s telling me this story, I’m thinking the whole time, “Good. He needed the exercise…”

From the sounds of it, Basil stayed on the straight and narrow after those two encounters, hitching his way with a lovely retired couple to Scottsdale, Arizona.

Having had his fill of excitement, Basil decided to find himself a cozy pub to relax in. He ended up at Giligin’s in Old Scottsdale. He called me from Giligin’s, after a few microbrewed pints and I haven’t heard from him since.

I told him to keep himself together, and I think he was flat out too tired to do any real partying. He told me he promised to show up at Bill and Kathee’s place soon.

Guys — good luck! Enjoy his company, keep him out of trouble and show us around Scottsdale!

(Related Tags: scottsdale, arizona, mesa, golfing, pubs)