It’s 110 (bleeping) degrees Fahrenheit outside today without a cloud in the sky. It’s hot! Who would’ve thought Al and I would still be sitting in Phoenix, Arizona during the first week in June? Certainly not I. Thank goodness we have a flexible mindset and were able to readjust our plans after this most recent delay.
But it’s fricken hot 🥵 No sugar coating it by saying it’s a dry heat. Even an oven is a dry heat. Oh well, this ain’t our first rodeo experiencing extreme desert heat. We lived in Las Vegas, Nevada in the nineties. You learn to adjust.
Our initial plan was to depart Phoenix in mid-May and point the RV toward Wisconsin, but a few things happened that derailed those plans. First and foremost is that nasty virus that shut the country down … shut the world down. We wanted to wait for some level of normalcy to return (even just a glimmer) before we hit the road.
In reality, we didn’t mind changing our departure date until after Memorial Day Weekend because one of Al’s sister’s recently (April) moved to Phoenix. We were enjoying visits with her and her husband and assisting any way we could as they settled into their new home. So a couple of extra weeks in the valley spent with family would actually be fun.
Extending our stay turned out to be a good thing, a very good thing, as I encountered a potential little hiccup in my health. A couple of medical tests later followed by a teleconference with my doctor and we were once again good to go and set a new departure date. (I’m fine BTW)
The truck was ready. The RV was ready. Al and I were ready, and after one final gathering with the family to say our goodbyes, we’d be hitting the road a couple of days later, or so we thought. The day prior to rolling, Al lost a crown while eating a relatively light lunch. No peanut brittle involved. Well, he didn’t exactly lose it, it ended up in his hand instead of being securely attached to the tooth in his mouth.
Poor Al! However, after three uncomfortable hours in the dental chair enduring some major work, he’s doing great and currently waiting on the permanent crown to be ready for installation. Turns out, that old crown and root canal were most likely older than the dentist. Now that’ll make ya feel old! 😆 So obviously, that tooth was something that needed to be taken care of before traveling and we’re glad we were still in the valley when the crown fell out.
As soon as Al gets his new crown installed, my crowned king and I will be hitting the road. Fingers crossed 🤞 we won’t encounter any more faux pas. We’ve already encountered one too many for my taste!
Happy trails!
We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Lake Havasu City. It was never our plan to visit western Arizona this winter, but when hurricane Harvey hit our favorite 
Grocery stores: I’m usually fond of shopping at a Kroger Grocery store (aka Fry’s or Smith’s in Arizona) but in Lake Havasu City, I prefer Arizona’s local supermarket brand, 
Car wash: Our equipment was in dire need of cleaning. 
That desire to change the view out our front door quite often revolves around the weather. If it’s snowing, we ain’t going! Oh sure, there are times I miss my Colorado winters, especially around Christmas, but then I think about the realities of shoveling and driving in the white stuff, and it’s all I can do to keep myself from embracing the cactus near my front door here in Arizona. “Oh dear saguaro, how I love thee … ouch!”
So remember when I said I wanted to visit a new to me farmers’ market? Well, Friday I did laundry, including all the bedding, and by the time I was done making the bed, I knew something was wrong. I must’ve pulled something …. grrrr!
We purged more than half our stuff. Items we couldn’t part with, like our canoe and a few family heirlooms, were stored at Al’s sister’s farmette in northern Illinois. We packed up our full size van and a small pull behind U-Haul trailer and off we headed west to Las Vegas, Nevada ….. in January, no less. Our larger pieces of furniture were moved by Mayflower.
Husband always sported cool dude aviator shades, the kids and I rarely found the need to wear sunglasses in the mostly overcast Chicago suburbs. Ah, little did we know, but this lack of sunglasses habit was about to change 😎
It was calm at the moment, but I kept in mind, winds in excess of 40 miles per hour are common around here and gusts over 60 miles per hour aren’t unusual. Hang on Toto!
Since I was starting at the south entrance, I needed to plan my stops carefully keeping the weather and my priorities in mind. The day before, we had entered the national park via the north entrance with the RV in tow and I was able to get a quick overview.
I hadn’t been in the truck driving more than fifteen minutes when hubby called with an urgency in his voice. He informed me of a severe storm heading our way. A semi-tractor trailer had flipped over on Interstate 40 due to a wind gust just east of Flagstaff and those high winds, hail, and torrential rain were heading our way. All I managed to say to hubby before the call was dropped was, “Ok”. You can assume cell phone coverage to be spotty in this remote park in Arizona.
Hurry Ingrid was at the fore front of my mind as I continued on my quest. I wanted to touch those fossils and even though there were plenty of petrified logs where we were camped, I wanted to see a forest of them. Wood turning into stone is a rarity and takes special conditions for the process to occur. There’s only a few places in the world to find petrified wood and I was exploring one of those places.
My visit was a week before my birthday and as such a little souvenir shopping was in order. As much as I would’ve liked a nice chunk of petrified wood, the size and weight wouldn’t be conducive to life in an RV. I opted for a lovely bracelet that I found at the Rainbow Visitor Center Gift Shop.
Fortunately, the worst of the storm bypassed our immediate location, but we did endure some nasty gusting winds and torrential down pouring rain. I returned to the RV unscathed, to a relieved husband, and looking like a drenched puppy. The minute there was a break in the weather, we hooked up and rolled in the opposite direction from those threatening clouds. Hmm, where to next?
meandering along the way, or extend our stay in Rockport, which we seriously thought about – considering I wasn’t quite ready to bid farewell to the scenery OR the birds.
neighboring mall for a little retail therapy and architectural photography? The 
I must admit, for a split second I felt a little guilty about being in San Antonio and spending all my time at the Shops at La Cantera. This city offers so many fabulous things to see and do, but since we weren’t unhooking the truck from the 5th wheel, driving anywhere was not an option. Plus, during 
previous visits to San Antonio, we’d already visited the 
possible in an attempt to avoid the next wave of weather expected to hit this part of the country.
Live Laugh RV 