Sep
10
2009

Hello Tempe Arizona!

(Add / View Comments) (0)Thursday, September 10, 2009 - 10:39:51 pm
(Posted Under: Operation Desert Rock)
We hit Phoenix around 4:45pm, coming through Glendale, and the traffic on the 17 was nice pretty much the whole way around downtown Phoenix, and we were on schedule to meet our appointment at the storage facility at 5pm. And then we hit the Phoenix traffic close to the 60....and there went our whole being on time thing.

Nether the less we got there before 5:30pm, got our storage space, and unloaded the car. Unloading the car made me realize just how much stuff we managed to bring in this load - it was quite impressive! The clothes bag we brought for the roof rack worked wonderfully. Given all thee rain we drove through at various places along the way, spending the extra money on the $50 one felt really good. After unloading everything and loading it into the storage unit, we both felt pretty wiped - and I felt reasonably sick - just the two days of driving, Tempe's heat and the work of unloading the car. While being feeling sick, feeling that way with a vibrant sunset over Tempe, and saguaros all around wasn't that bad. It was rewarding that the sick feel was due to the effort to make it to Tempe, which we'd pulled off successfully. We decided that our plan from here was to get some food and head to Casa Grande.

Burger King was close by. In the process of getting there, we crossed over Southern and noticed that Yucca have a new cool sign on the side of the building. While I didn't feel hungry - actually, the thought of food made me feel sicker, after having some huge gulps of the Coke, I started to feel better and was glad that I got some food.

Soon later we made it to Casa Grande, and to Aaron's. who is graciously putting us up for the week. It's been fun shooting the shit about music with him, and sort of unfortunate that after tomorrow he's leaving for Folsome and so we won't have much time to hang with him until we return.
Sep
10
2009

Onwards To Arizona

Texas, New Mexico and The Grand Canyon State

(Add / View Comments) (0)Thursday, September 10, 2009 - 04:45:43 pm
(Posted Under: Travel, Operation Desert Rock)
Our aim was to hit the road at 7am this morning, much like yesterday we didn't quite hit that, but weren't too far off our target. If we'd skipped breakfast, we probably would have been closer, but when are we ones to pass up a free continental breakfast? Never, that is the answer. We were both impressed with the Texas shaped waffles on offer at the Baymont Inn. It turned out to be a really nice place to stay, especially given the super cheap price we paid - and all of our clothes were still on the roof of Pepe when we went out to load up the car. Sweet! [wink] So we were back out on there road by 7:40am.

The drive through Texas was much like that of yesterday - quite flat! A little way out of Amarillo there was a lot of fog, however that lifted as the morning wore on. As we approached the border, the landscape changed a little, beginning to look a bit more like the landscape of New mexico that I remember from a few years ago. Which was further true once we crossed over the New Mexico border. Gaining the extra hour was quite appreciated too! We stopped for gas, not that far over the border. Getting out of the car for a smoke, things felt closer to home - just the landscape, the large mountain behind the gas station, everything looking a bit more Mexican / native American.

The drive through New Mexico was really nice, and really much more scenic than yesterday's drive. Once we hit Albequeque things started to became a lot more familiar, as the route to Arizona from there is basically what we took in 2006. A little after midday we stopped for gas again at a look out over the Continental Divide, which was really cool. The mountains were quite beautiful, in the typical New Mexico way.

Hitting the Arizona border was pretty exciting for obvious reasons. It was cool that the highway leading up was familar with the red cliffs to the south of the highway. Just like every other border crossing in the past two days, the change in landscape was obvious around the border. While northern Arizona doesn't quite have the same landscape as southern Arizona / the Sonoran desert, it did feel quite at home.

It was funny the number of Stephen Ashbrook related things we saw along the 40 - the first being the Meteor Crater - which at the show Stephen told a story about he and his band took a road trip diversion to check it out, was appalled by the $13 entry fee, which doesn't get onto the crater, and opted for going through a hole in the fence and sitting up on the crater, before long with the fuss at the bottom waiting for them. The prelude being that they got away with a warning, and paying the $13, since they'd gotten to see the crater!

Then we passed a souvenir place called "Geronimo". The change in temperatures was definitely noticeable, and confirmed that we were in Arizona! Of course, not that long out of Flagstaff the temperature dramatically dropped, with a huge dark cloud over Flagstaff. Driving through Flagstaff the heavens opened, and it continued to pour rain as we were heading south out of Flagstaff, really slowing us down. Which was slightly annoying, since we were starting to race against the clock to get to Tempe by 5pm to unload the car at the storage unit.

It was pretty exciting for me as the landscape changed again, from the pine tree / Colorado like look around Flagstaff changed more and more to the desert, and eventually the first saguaro cacti emerged on the landscape. We had to make a stop in Black Canyon City for gas - the small town looked really nice, though we didn't have much time to take it in, as it was about 4:30. I'd definitely be somewhere that we'd like to come back to some time, maybe when we're not racing against the clock. [smile] After filling up, we kept on trucking, Katie relying on me to get her back to the I-17, rather than Buller.

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