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20 May 2024 – Trip Day 50

by Alan

We had originally planned to visit Ft. Bowie NHS when we came west from New Mexico, but we changed the plan due to the required RV repairs. I cut out the visiting days and we pressed on to Tucson, so we could turn in the RV to the shop and get the repairs started.

Once the RV was delivered to the shop, and we were settled in the AirBnB, we got to work visiting the various sites we had passed up.

Ft. Bowie is a little town along I-10, of which if you are not careful you would miss it. It seems that their major activity is pecans or another tree nut – there were large orchards of them there. The other big store was the combo gas station/ jerky store/ RV park, where we stayed at one night on our way through the first time.

Our campsite at Ft. Bowie, AZ. We had a very nice sunset.

 Arriving at the trail head and parking area, this is the valley that you have to hike up to get the historic site.

Before we commenced the hike, we had lunch.

A quick look at the information signs at the trail head:

 Arya helps Garrett across a bridge.  The trail started out on a gentle climb through the woods.

Garrett insisted on walking for a bit. That worked out O.K. for a little while, but he ended up in the pack before long.  

We encountered the ruins of the Apache Indian Agency building along the trail.

As we climbed out of the valley and up in elevation towards the Fort site, we passed an Apache shelter that was re-created.

We passed by Apache Spring on the way up to the visitor center. The spring was the source of conflict over the site, being able to sustain the Fort or the Indians.

 We enjoyed some spring flower on the way up as well.

We came up on the site of the first Ft. Bowie, which was abandoned around the time of the Civil War. After the Civil War, a second Fort was re-established up the hill a little ways.  

A view of the ruins of Ft Bowie. Not much remains but the foundations of the buildings.

The kids worked on their Junior Ranger badges at the visitor center slash museum. Randal enjoyed some pack free time to stretch his legs.

The museum contained a number of artifacts from the site:

Arya talks with the Ranger about her book, while Evan restrains Randal, who is very interested in the display.  

The kids completed their books and were sworn in by the Ranger.  We took the Overlook Ridge Trail back to the parking area.

 As we headed back, clouds were blowing in. Fortunately, no rain fell. Getting caught in a desert rain storm was not my idea of fun.

 Beautiful desert cactus flowers greeted us along the trail.  As we went down the trail, we pass a fault where the geology and plant life changed rather dramatically to a more forested area.

The trail provided wonder vistas of the mountains and valley.

 We came down off the ridge into a small forest (bosque) along the main wash.

 Stopping for a photo at the bottom. Somewhere along the trail I lost my hat, which had been tucked in the pack. I wonder if Ducky had pulled it out?

 I got to break in my new walking stick that I had picked up at Guadalupe Mountains park.

 Despite the signs saying it’s a 1.5 mi walk, it’s more of a 2 mile hike in and out to/from the visitor center.

10 June 2024 – Trip Day 71

After our rest day, we drove to Albuquerque, New Mexico, our next hub for a week or so.

 Happy morning baby!

We went to Petroglyph National Monument, which is located on the west side of Albuquerque. This was a different kind of Monument – there isn’t a visitor center per se, but an information center. There are four different trail heads that you can go to. From each trail head, you can hike along the cliff faces and observe the various petroglyphs.

There was a notice about Rinconada Canyon and numerous break ins of vehicles. Stay classy, Albuquerque.

We decided to go do the Piedras Marcadas Canyon hike.

 We started out on the Mesa loop trail.

 A passerby took a nice group shot of us, along with a friend we met up with in Albuquerque.

 At the end of the mesa trail, we came down a fairly steep trail. Then we returned along the base of the mesa.

The trail did not generally permit close inspection of the rocks, as it was along the base of the mesa and the carvings were on the boulders up on the hillside. Most of these pictures were taken with the zoom on the phone cameras, so please excuse the weird angles on some.

As we got toward the end (beginning) of the trail, we encountered some of the better carvings.

 Sun wheel petroglyph.

 After our hike, we went to Costco for a resupply run as well as dinner and ice cream for the kids!

 Randal was all about his chocolate sundae!

 Brother, why won’t you share with me??!!

Thanks for reading!

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April 29, 2024 – Trip Day 29

Catching up on the back log here…

 Garrett poses on the overlook from the Carlsbad Visitor Center with the valley behind him.

A cut away view of the Carlsbad Caverns, showing the natural entrance. The image below is the lower portion of the cave.

 We got the Junior Ranger books and the kids worked on them for a bit in the visitor center. We decided to hike in the natural entrance down to the lower cave.

 Family shot, by Evan, at the top.

 A view of the walkway to the natural entrance. The tour of the cave is self guided, unlike some of the other caves we toured.

As we went down, we did meet a guy coming out going up. That’s one way to get your steps in!

As we worked our way down, we saw some neat formations. When we were working our way down, Jarek encountered a Ranger on the way up and they had a chat for a bit, which was also part of their Junior Ranger program.

 Stopping before this passage for a family shot. I (Alan) would have to crawl on hands and knees to get through this with Garrett on my back.

 Out on the other side, we continued on our way.

 We saw some more neat formations on the way down. I’ve selected a couple of them for this post. Perhaps I’ll put the rest in an album somewhere.

One of the pools of water in the big room at the bottom of the cavern.

 Garrett was passed out when we got to the bottom of the cave. We stopped where the elevators came in for a bathroom break.

 Touring the big room at the bottom, we saw wonderful formations, like this one above, fairy land.

 There were numerous other formations that were lit up as well.

 At the completion of our loop, we were glad to have the elevators available to ride back up the 700+ feet, rather than walk back out!

Jarek turned in his badge at the completion of our walk in the cave. Arya and Evan did not have their books finished until a couple days later, when we stopped by on our way to Guadalupe Mountains National park and they turned in their books and got their badges.

23 May 2024 – Trip day 53

by Alan

Updated 1/6/2025 with additional images from the trip!

 Today we drove up to see the Casa Grande Ruins. It was about an hour and a half drive from Tucson. Traffic wasn’t too bad. We had a bit of a later start than we would have liked, so we changed the plan from Organ Pipe Cactus to Casa Grande. Our plan is to hit Organ Pipe tomorrow.

Below: A view of the Casa Grande structure from the parking lot.

The site is fairly simple overall, a small visitor center with a little museum and complex A of the site, which contains the Big House.

Below: An information placard describing the finding of the site.

The kids worked on their Junior Ranger books for a bit then we watched the park movie, which had some good information. At this park, they gave us the badges up front with the books, so Alan held onto them until the kids were done with their books.

The next couple of images will give some scale of the site. It was interesting to see that there were astronomical functions built into the structure.

Below is the model of the various compounds. Apologies for the glare – I was unable to find a shot without it. The model does show the scale of the community, which at one point had ~2,000 people living there.  

Site plan of the ruins in the Casa Grande site and surrounding area.

Various artifacts found at the site.

Mock up of a pit dwelling of the time period.

A view of the structure, showing some of the interior walls and spaces, as well as the thickness of the walls.

Infographic display regarding the engineering of the site.

Infographic on the modern history of site.

While the kids worked on their Junior Ranger books, Randal and I played key chain toss. He thought it was very funny. I would toss my keys into the wagon, and he would fetch them and drop them off the side, then I would toss them back in again as he giggled.

Randal has been saying a lot more words now, and has actively communicated via sign language, e.g. ‘more’ (usually food). His walking has improved significantly and he is also a climber.

This site was very accessible, which worked out well as he could chill out in the wagon while we explored the Museum and the grounds.

A little perspective on how large this structure is!

 A happy Randal!

I hope you enjoyed today’s update! I’ve got a few more in the backlog to catch up on – Carlsbad Caverns from April; Fort Bowie and Colossal Cave from the last few days and a Fix It update with all the other shenanigans that have been going on.

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May 13, 2024 – Trip Day 43

by Meagan

We left the house at the crack of 1:15 in the afternoon, and headed to Ironwood National Monument. This site was designated a monument in 2000 and is managed by the BLM, so it’s not in our National Park Passport books. We finally got our act together a few nights ago and printed off the Junior Ranger books before going to the park. Arya and Jarek have completed their books. Evan is likely to have meltdown about not being done once we get there, but hey, laziness has consequences. It’s a clear 91 degree desert day with distant dust devils sending dirt up into the sky.

After driving 50 minutes and a couple of stops and wrong turns, we reached the Titan II Interpretive Site. There were 18 missile sites spread out across the desert south of Davis-Monhan Air Force Base. They were decommissioned in 197x and the bunkers destroyed. The site had a quarter mile gravel path around the former silo with sun faded signs detailing the layout of the complex and the explaining how it was constructed. The kids got an introductory lesson on the Nuclear Triad one of the worst jobs in the US military. Living in a bunker and running drills to end the world is not my idea of a good time.

We realized we did not have enough time to drive into town and turn in the kids’ books at the BLM office, so we headed to Saguaro National Park Visitor Center at Red Hill. We printed out the Saguaro NP books the previous evening and Jarek had finished his. Arya and Evan were less interested and scattered their pages across the house, helped by Garrett and Randal. Picking up all the pages left me reconsidering the wisdom of printing them off beforehand.

At this point, I realized I had grabbed Garrett’s two water bottles, my laptop, and snacks for everyone, but left my two full water bottles next to the door at home. I can’t stand being without water when I go out, but being without water in the desert was unbearable. It was too late to drive back and get them, so I commandeered one of Garrett’s. A spare water bottle proved to be full of repulsive floating bits, so Garrett’s teeny 20 ounce bottle would have to do.

Suddenly, there was a sign for the Desert Nature trail.

 I yelled,“Let’s do it!” with great enthusiasm, while the part of my brain that talks to my sore foot grumbled and cursed. “It’ll be a quick, half mile hike!” I said brightly, while the children slowly dragged themselves out of the car. Garrett woke up with a sob of despair while Alan got the Bob stroller ready for Randal. I’ll admit that I felt a lot less enthusiastic once I opened my door and began to bake in the relentless sun. Just a half-mile walk on a paved trail, no big deal. Having to convince myself to walk a half-mile is a new low for age 40.

The children got their Junior Ranger gear, grabbed their water bottles, except for Evan, who had once again left the house without one, and we all hit the trail. The trail was a smooth, asphalt path on completely flat ground. The saguaros were huge and most had multiple arms off their main trunks. They don’t start to grow their arms until they are at least 60 years old, so we had some real old geezer cacti out here. We passed a dead saguaro and Jarek was excited to see its inner structure. A saguaro is supported by tall wooden ribs around a central wood core. The dead giant had been at least 20 feet high and looked like it once had a diameter of two feet.

We walked quickly between the information placards and learned to tell the difference between palo verde, acacia and mesquite trees. A zebra lizard skittered across the trail and hung out long enough for a picture. We also saw baby saguaros underneath their nurse trees. Each saguaro produces 20-40 million seeds in its lifetime, but only one or two make it to adulthood. The only way they will grow is if a seed finds its way near a tree that shelters it in its infancy. We saw a few saguaros that now loomed over their nurse trees. Those trees were probably wishing they’d kicked their kid out a long time ago, the poor things.

Evan was now, once again, thoroughly regretting his choice to leave his water bottle behind. Maybe he’ll actually decide to bring one next time. My wittle bitty water bottle was completely drained when we finished the walk, so off to the visitor center we went. My foot was predictably unhappy, but kids had fulfilled my requirement to hike the park and could now become Junior Rangers. My first stop was the water bottle fill station where I guzzled two bottles and turned the third into a Liquid IV. Jarek took himself on the Cactus Garden Walk while I worked with the other two, less-than-enthusiastic Junior Ranger candidates. Long story short, they didn’t finish their books and I was ready to be done with all Junior Ranger programs forevermore. I bought a cute cactus sticker to make myself feel better.

Jarek turned in his book with much praise from the rangers. He proudly pinned his badge on his vest next to the rest and I bought him a sticker as a reward for doing the whole book. Most of the programs only require doing a certain number of activities, but my deal with Jarek is that if he completes all of it, I will buy him a sticker. I’d do it for Arya and Evan as well, but I think my wallet will be safe from them for quite some time.

There was another side of the park with its own Visitor Center so we planned to head to that one some other day and Evan and Arya could get their badges there. Back at the house, I made tacos for dinner. We ate and went to bed.

Editor’s note: Mommy was D-U-N done. 🤣

April 17, 2024 – Trip Day 17 – By Meagan

Ed – catching up on some back posts!

Another amazing day: we left the RV precisely when we meant to. No poopsplosians, nothing forgotten, lunch packed, nobody crying. We drove 45 minutes to Natural Bridge Caverns to take their Hidden Wonders Tour, a new cavern that opened last year. Alan, my mom and I had taken the Discovery Tour sometime in 2008 when we lived in Corpus Christi. It was definitely a good tour, but a new cavern sounded too exciting to pass up.

We arrived 30 minutes early, another rarely experienced phenomenon.

The pull-up and diapers were checked, straps checked on the kid backpacks and we waited for our noon start time. After pictures and a safety briefing, (no touching the caves you filthy humans and no getting hurt) we headed through the double doors and were immediately in another world. The cavern was warm and moist. There were beautiful formations everywhere. Flowing cave curtains, soda straws on the ceiling, stalactites, stalagmites and columns, this room had it all.

The stairs led downward around a central area covered in flowing cream colored rock. The guide explained this cavern formed when the water receded. and the limestone ceiling collapsed as it lost the support of the water. The calcium deposits over the fallen ceiling debris indicated that it was a stable chamber. The rock formations grow at a rate of one cubic inch per hundred years and there were a good number of tall formations on the rubble. This cavern was named the Jeffery Cavern, a combination of the first letters of the names of those who discovered it.

The tour continued downward and over the course of a half mile, we saw numerous formations, all easily visible with well-placed lights. There were a number of stops; the tour wouldn’t have been very that long without them. The blackout demonstration was great; everyone actually put their phones away and it was truly complete darkness. It really made me appreciate how much it sucks to not have darkvision in D&D: I could not see my hand just in front of my eyes. The people who found the cave were initially lowered in through a drilled shaft. It must have been amazing to see a cave for the first time and explore it. I think I’ll make spelunking a hobby after the kids grow up. Either that or I need to play more D&D to get that itch to explore out of my system.

The last room of the cave was a large plain chamber called the Ballroom. It had a large paved area that could be rented out for special events. I told Arya she should have her wedding here someday, but she was not amenable to that suggestion. Maybe one of the boys will make it happen. Jarek was the most excited about the cave tours (Good news, he told me later that he’d consider it.) We moved through the Ballroom to a dead end chamber. The tour ended there with a light show and dramatic music worthy of Jurassic Park.

Well, the cave exploration part of the tour ended there, but we got to ride the BAT back to the surface. The BAT, a Belt Assisted Transport similar to the moving walkways at airports, would carry us up the incline to the surface. After a five minute safety video, (I’m not kidding, people need to be told how to step on a moving walkway. My hope for the future of humanity took another hit today) we bravely stepped on and began the five minute journey back to daylight. I think my foot would have hurt less had I just walked up the ramp. The incline meant there was constant pressure on my sore heel. There were a couple of points where the belt did seem to be trying to shake us off as it passed over some rollers. I give the BAT two out of five stars, would not do again.

Alan grabbed our gigantic lunchbox from the car and we sat down near a school group at a picnic table. A very polite and sweet young lady said she was sorry to interrupt our lunch, but she had to tell us we had a very handsome baby. He hadn’t bitten me yet today, so I agreed with her and thanked her for the compliment. The kids chowed down on their sandwiches, oranges, and Izze’s. Randal and I shared cottage cheese and a banana, then he wanted an orange, then he wanted my fizzy water. I finally passed him off to Alan so I could have my peanut butter crackers without having to share. None of the other babies needed food like Randal does, he’s such a little beast. Hauling him around in the baby backpack was a great workout. My poor foot hated me for it, but I gotta lose weight somehow.

During lunch, Alan and I discussed doing the Discovery Tour with the kids, and we got four out of five on board. Randal and Garrett were up for another fun ride in their packs, Jarek was bouncing with excitement, Arya was enthusiastic, and Evan was a no. I told him to suck it up because the rest of us wanted to do it, and he did. Garrett, after moving a safe distance away, stealthily dropped a bomb in his pull-up. This was discovered only after a vigorous session of tag with his older brothers, at which point the pull-up’s capacity to contain the bomb was exceeded. After going through half a pack of wet-wipes and bagging up the stinky clothes, Garrett smelled much better and we bought our tickets for the Discovery Tour.

This tour was also great. There were many named formations, impressive drop offs, underground streams with flowing water and lots of opportunities to be dripped on. The explorers found the cave by crawling through a small tunnel which narrowed to 11 inches at its narrowest point. They also waded through mud two to three feet thick and crawled through a place they named Grendel’s Gorge to explore the entire length of the cave which is about 2.5 miles long. The part we saw on the tour was three quarters of a mile. The mud river has a nice walkway over it and the gorge got a path cut over it so people with toddlers can enjoy a nice easy walk. Randal fell asleep immediately after we entered the cave and Garrett followed soon after.

It must have been incredible to be the first to explore this cave.

The end of the tour took us through grand chamber over 300 ft long and 180 feet high. There was incredible beauty where ever I looked. The flow stones, the cave curtains, the thousands of soda straws on the ceiling, it was absolutely amazing. Even the bat guano in the middle of the room was fascinating: a giant pile of poop dated to 15,000 years ago and another at the top of the climb that was 8,000 years old. You could see the bat roosts on the ceiling; discolored black by the oils of their feet. The same process that disrupts cave formations when they are touched by human hands, the natural oils produced by human bodies, still prevents stalactites from forming on the ceiling where the bats clung so many thousand years ago. A kind lady took a family picture of us on the overlook and we walked back to the surface.

Garrett melted down as we headed to the car. He and Jarek had just returned from a successful bathroom stop, but as we were leaving. Garrett insisted he needed to go again. I told him “No, you just went and we need to get home.” and that was it. He needed to pee RIGHT NOW. I then said a few words I would soon greatly regret. “Just come outside, you can pee on the wall by the van.” I thought he would forget his tantrum after being distracted by snacks in the car. “NO! I don’t want to pee on wall!” he shouted and I thought, “well, good, I didn’t want you to anyway.” and we loaded up.

For the next thirty minutes Garrett us treated to the phrase “I want to pee on wall!” in a maximum volume demon scream as we drove back. After fifteen minutes of this, I turned back to the kids, who all looked as if they wished they had brought a roll of duct tape, and said “I am so sorry I ever said he could pee on the wall. I swear I will never, ever, say that again.” This got a couple of giggles. I tried screaming the dreaded phrase to see if it would scare the wall peeing demon out of Garrett, and the kids all found that hilarious and started laughing. Garrett was momentarily stunned and Jarek passed him a lollipop, successfully breaking the demon’s hold. I added this new technique to my tantrum breaking tool kit and the rest of the drive passed uneventfully.

7 May 2024 – Trip day 37

On May 7th we packed up to head west toward Arizona. Here is a look at the post cards that we got from White Sands. Their selection wasn’t that broad, but the cards are nice.

We arrived at the camp site and began to set up. Randal helped supervise the activities.

 A view of our camp site at the Dave’s Mountain view Jerkey and RV camp ground. Typically Arizona, gravel, dirt, and mountains.

 Ducky was playing soccer and had kicked the ball off to the side. There were some other people and they were walking some pit bulls. Ducky was a bit upset that he had to come back and was very pouty about the whole affair.

Arizona sunset.

 The mountains at sunset.

 We were, of course, joined by the ever present trains. There was a lot of train traffic, but fortunately it was not very noisy as they did not sound their horns.

 Final sunset.

 Our microwave glass tray did not survive the trip. It finally yeeted its last. It had yeeted out of the microwave several times, but it had survived. This time, it did not, and it took out several other glass dishes from the drawer below the oven, which tended to slide open during travel.

24 May 08 – Trip day  38

The next morning we proceeded westward, towards Tucson, Arizona. We had several hills to climb over, but overall a short drive at around 120 miles.

Meagan and the kids stopped at a rest area on the way for a bathroom break and a bit of rock and tree climbing.

 Arya never saw a tree that she didn’t want to climb.

 Arriving at our destination, an AirBNB, we began to unload the RV. It took a little longer than planned, so we shifted the drop off time to the next day with the repair place.

 Dinner on the back porch with the Saguaro cacti in the background. The kids were very excited about getting to be in a house, or perhaps, not the RV, for a little while. The biggest thing they were excited about was being able to take baths, followed by being able to run around.

09 May 2024 – Trip day 39

I dropped off Big Country to get repaired. It was a bit of a sad moment leaving Big Country behind, but it is all for the better. We should hear next week (on Monday, May 13, 2024) on the status and hopefully when the repairs will be completed.  

 After dropping off Big Country, I set up our Starlink at the house with my backup cable. The house internet is a wireless internet which tested out around 2 MBps, which while ok, is not great.

I would set up Starlink and boom, we’d be in business. Except that it booted up and promptly lost connection with the antenna. Periodically, it would reconnect. I turned the antenna and came back later to find it aligned, but not connecting. I ordered another cable, and we are eagerly awaiting that.

 A contemplative Duck in the evening. He was looking out through the fencing while I sorted out various things from Big Country.

 Sunset on the evening of the 9th, with a view of one of the Saguaro cacti that surrounded the yard.

 Baby Randal was pretty happy with the whole affair!

 10 May 2024 – Trip day 40

We woke up to find some of the flowers on the big saguaro had opened overnight. They only stay open for a short time, opening at night and closing by the next afternoon.

 Apparently, these cacti have to grow for about 35 years before they flower, and 60-70 before they grow arms, living to around 150-200 years old.

We took the day off mostly, sorting through all of our stuff that we moved out of Big Country. We took the opportunity to winnow down some clothes and identify things we could get rid of. Living in the RV with limited space necessitates a minimalist life style, as well as weight considerations for the trailer.

Randal enjoyed his breakfast on the back porch.

Ducky was practicing his writing on the chalkboard. He was getting into writing his letters. I offered to help him, but he didn’t want it (yet). Soon, though!

 Gambit was being weird and started nomming Meagan’s hair. He’s a weird cat.

 We made an evening trip to the local Costco for dinner and a resupply run.

We have enjoyed these much needed days of rest. We’ll take the weekend off and then we’ll be back at it next week. We’ll also hopefully have a timeline update on Big Country. The initial estimate over the phone was two weeks, so we’ll see what they come back with next week.  

6 May 2024 – Trip Day 36 – by Alan

Today we went to White Sands National Park, but first let’s catch up on a few things!

The RV we are staying at has a number of these type of shelters. They seem to becoming very popular in the southwest.

This morning the kitchen sink backed up as we were cleaning up after breakfast and getting ready to go. I checked the tank valves – usually my trick is to forget to open one of them and then we spaz out about having a clogged drain somewhere. Well, the valves were open but there was a small trickle of water coming out.

I closed the other valves to the other gray tank and hooked up my flush hose to the back flush valve on my sewer adapter. I opened the valves and back flushed the gray tank for about 30 seconds and then opened the drain gate. I saw a lot of chunks and debris come out of the drain, followed by the rest of the water in the gray tank. After that, it drained normally. Except that I forgot to reopen the rear gray tank valve, which backed up during the kid’s showers. Easy enough to fix, but irritating. After our plumbing adventures, we headed out to the Park.

We got the kids Junior Ranger vests, so now they are fully kitted out.

We picked up the Junior Ranger books and headed out to do a hike on the Dune Nature Trail. It was a windy day and a lot of the sand was being kicked up.

The road into the park was closed past the Nature trail parking lot due to a F-16 crash that happened previously.

All of the visitors were packed into this small parking lot. It was fairly packed when we arrived.

 Kitted out, we started out on the trail.

 The trail had various signs describing the wildlife and they were tied into the Junior Ranger program. However, a decent number of the signs were sun faded to the point of being unreadable.

 Posing on a crest for a photo with the blowing dust in the background, the kids did well in the soft gypsum sand of the dunes. The dunes can move as much as 30 feet or more in a year.

 We came across this Cottonwood tree, which from the looks of it, had been buried at one point.

 We came across this little guy crawling on the sands. Upon further investigation, we found that he must have been blown off the Cottonwood tree.

 A nice gentleman passing by took our family photo; he mentioned that he came from a family of 6.

 Despite the harsh environment, desert flowers were blooming.

 After our hike, we drove back to the Visitor Center and turned in their Junior Ranger workbooks. The kids happily added another badge to their collection.

Afterward, we drove back to the campground but we stopped at the https://pistachioland.com/worlds-largest-pistachio/. 

 In keeping of the tradition of roadside attractions, we sampled their ice cream.

 Evan and Arya were not fans of the pistachio ice cream, but Garrett and Jarek didn’t mind.

Tomorrow we are back on the road, headed to Arizona.

 257 miles tomorrow with a mountain range to get over, then an over night and a shorter drive to Tucson to get Big Country’s slide out fixed.