Arizona, you're beautiful. We first met when a girlfriend and her mother were spending a few days at Scottsdale's Inn at McCormick Ranch and I was invited to join them. We took a Jeep tour into the desert, watched the sun rise over the Grand Canyon, visited the Frank Lloyd Wright school of architecture, and generally had a good time under your brilliant blue skies. A few years passed before I returned as the writer/director of corporate videos launching the new Grand Prix, Regal, and Cutlass. The highlight of that trip was being allowed to explore Mr. Barrett's (of auction fame) collection of eighty-plus million-dollar classics to select a half-dozen to accompany the hero cars in our end-scene.

During the 90s I again became a General Motors freelance writer/director, creating the annual "fleet videos," a sales tool for GM Canada reps hustling product to rental car and business fleets. Because the General's desert proving grounds were located near Phoenix, it was an obvious location. The highlight? You could call it a lowlight. Our spokesperson was a lady with a prosperous service-advice business aimed at women. She was a hell of a driver, too. With the sun setting and time for just one shot, I asked her to accelerate the new camaro flat-out across the desert towards that sun. The sound of the V-8 engine was like a symphony and the image was soul-stirring. When exposed to the client back in a Toronto editing studio he screamed "cut that shot! Nobody wants to hear the noise and who cares if a car is driving into the sunset?" His career with GM was short-lived but my agency a.d. Ray Fry and I were heartbroken over the loss. No, not the client, the shot.

A few more years passed during which I'd returned to my original career as an automobile journalist. This brought an invitation to the media presentation of the then-new Porsche Boxster. Luxury hotel; laps in the elegant swimming pool accompanied with music by a pool-side pianist; gourmet dinners, etc., hey, my kind of lifestyle! The next day's entertainment was a lengthy drive across desert roads at speed, followed by a climb through twisting mountain roads to a luncheon destination. Following me was a driver who was equally quick through the corners but couldn't manage a pass. His name is Hurley Haywood. Yes, he who won more LeMans 24-hour endurance races than any other driver. Am I suggesting that I was his equal? No way, but I was pretty good at making the turns one-car wide.

And then came the new century. And with it another career change, to become an Internet writer/producer, first testing new cars for About.com, later developing Classical Drives. For the last three years I've covered the Scottsdale auctions, reporting for viewers from Barrett-Jackson, RM Auctions, Russo and Steele, and Goodings & Company; possibly the greatest assembly of Edwardian, antique, classic, vintage, rods, customs, and muscle cars in the world. A fun adventure, though not always as pleasant as I'd hoped. Your January weather isn't a guaranteed refuge for we northerners, Arizona, as it is often cool and one year had the temerity to snow on my parade! Not much fun when your media loaner is a new Pontiac G6 convertible.

Regrettably the 2009 classic auctions will proceed without me. Affected by the recession or, to put it correctly, the negative effects on Creative Weblogging's ad sales for Classical Drives, I can't afford to join you in January. I'll miss your (mostly) blue skies, miss power-walking through the lengthy greenspace next to the motel, miss strolling the art galleries, miss enjoying delicious meals at your superb restaurants, miss top-down driving to your nearby lake district (yes, there are lakes near Phoenix), and above all miss those magnificent automobiles. So have a good time without me, Arizona. With any luck, I'll return again to indulge myself in your undeniable charms.

[Photo: Philip Powell]