Arizona Arrival

We left Van Horn, Texas early in the morning yesterday and headed for Arizona along with the sun. It was 12.5 hours on the road, but a few of those were hanging around the Speedco shop in Casa Grande, waiting for them to get the engine and generator serviced. But let me tell you if I ever have to go back to working this is the place I am looking for a job first. They had the most relaxed, stress free operation I have ever laid eyes on. No hurry here, even though we were only second in line when we arrived it took them almost 3 and 1/2 hours to change the oil. I am thinking I could have done it myself in half the time, but alas they had the filters and I didn’t. Besides I am not enamoured about crawling around under the bus in the desert, and then what do you do with the over 5 gallons of used oil that it requires. Once we got the servicing done it was off to the Ak-Chin Casino in Maricopa for the night.

Entering New Mexico early yesterday

The border checkpoint east of Las Cruces checking for illegal aliens. None here, we are legal for another four months anyway.

The jet contrails above are probably the evidence left by a couple of rambunctious pilots having a little fun. Lot’s of military jets doing manoeuvres hereabouts.

The snow above was in the ditches east of Deming, New Mexico.

This morning we got our early wake-up call from the construction crew at the Casino and headed off towards Usery Mountain Regional Park to see if they had a spot available for us. This is a pretty popular campground just a mile north of Mesa and it is usually pretty full. But it was our lucky day and they had a spot for us, in fact they had the exact same spot we set up in two years ago when we were here.

After getting set up we took a quick run out to pick up some things at Costco and Safeway and then headed back to relax the afternoon away. Meg and I got in a short walk this afternoon and I am certain we and our readers will see a lot of this park and the surrounding environs  over the next few days.

I guess Phoenix is over that-a-way <------- somewhere….lol.

If you look closely at the shot above this little fellow is sitting on top of the tallest saguaro.

That is Superstition Mountain off in the distance and the saguaro on the right is all twisted up about our visit.

 

Tonight we are off to cousin Mick’s for dinner and a visit.

Mick is the most loyal reader of our journal and maybe of those along our sidebar also. She follows the goings on in our cyber community pretty closely and I have seen her comments on many of our friends blogs also.

She has made comments in the past about how we always seem to be eating so although I didn’t get the camera out quick enough to show you the wonderful meal that she whipped up for us I thought a shot of what was left was appropriate. This girl can cook, she comes by it honestly though, her mother, my Aunt Hazel was a world class cook and prepared a lot of great meals for us as kids.

She and her husband Jeff have just finished building a beautiful home here in Arizona complete with a pool in the backyard.

And the first thing I did when I got there was measure the driveway and lo and behold it is plenty big enough to house a rig like ours.  Never fear Mick we won’t stay more than a few months at a time….

Thanks again for the wonderful dinner and we loved meeting your friends from back home Brent and Benita. Hey is there some kind of rule that any gathering of 4 or more people with the Macnabs there has to be a Brent in the room..lol.

The weather here is great and although it is few degrees cooler than Texas at night I sure like the bright blue skies and the low humidity.