When we left Salvation Mountain, we decided to make the drive all the way to the Phoenix area. We made the 250 mile drive which is a long ways for us in one night. We decided to check out Buckeye Regional Park which offers free camping in designated sites. It was kind of tricky getting to a new spot at night but we managed to find a good spot.
We came back to California after a few nights in Las Vegas in order to attend a friend’s wedding in Santa Barbara. We left nearly 2 months ago knowing that we had to be back for this special event. Even though we are only here for a week before heading back out, it was worth to trip to come back.
Last night we parked next to big rigs at the Flying J truck stop in Ehrenberg, Arizona. This is the same spot where we spent out first night as full timers back in 2010.
Today marks our 200th day on the road since we left Las Vegas. Technically we have been in the Airstream for much longer than that but the daily posts did not start for this trip until we departed from our 5-night hotel stay in sin city. We are getting very close to home and by the end of today, we will be even closer.
During one of our first visits to Tucson several years ago, we were introduced to the great Hotel Congress. Our friend Carrie use to live in Tucson and she acted as a tour guide and introduced us to lots of neat places in town.
As some of you might know, we have been back in California for some time now and have gone on many other adventures within the state since then. However, we cannot start sharing about those experiences until we are done with these last couple of weeks of our trip around the country. This is my best attempt at wrapping these last couple of weeks up so we can move on closer to the present. Let me rewind back a couple of months: Today, we are in Tucson.
We intentionally spent the night just short of Tucson last night in the town of Benson so we can go see one of the best preserved natural caves in the world. We found a Wal-Mart in Benson that had a no RV overnight sign but the manager had no problems with us being there. It is becoming more common to have cities and counties ban RV overnight parking in Wal-Marts.
As we drove west last night out of Las Cruces, we contemplated making the long drive all the way into Arizona and settle somewhere in Tucson. That would have been a really long trek and we would be missing a stretch of I-10 that we have not explored much in the past. We decided to stop at the town of Deming, New Mexico for dinner and stay the night at the Wal-Mart.
Why is this picture blurry you ask? Well, do you ever drive down a two-lane asphalt road on a hot day and see that distorted mirage down in the distance in front of you right above the road? This is just like that. It is so hot here now we are getting the heat shimmers inside Mali Mish. OK, not really, but you get the idea.
Today is our official day to tour the Grand Canyon National Park after getting into town around dusk yesterday. The weather is definitely getting much warmer even at this high elevation so I can’t even imagine how hot it is at the base of the desert in Arizona. Ava is ready with her sunglasses and hat and even a couple of dandelions as mini-umbrellas for some much needed shade from this heat wave.
A day of climbing up and down rocks really tuckered out Ava as she slept in just a little later than usual this morning. Mila on the other hand found herself in a ripe opportunity to get her hands on some of her sister’s toys.
