Arizona...

Bet you are all wondering how laundry is taken care of on the road.  Luckily most hotels now have guest laundry rooms.  We save quarters, have become great fans of the Tide pods and have a large cloth laundry bag we keep into the truck.  Since our goal is to only drive about 350 miles per day, we generally are at our next hotel by 4 PM.  I do laundry first thing.  It is usually just one load as we only carry about 3 or 4 days worth of things in our small suitcases.  When we stay some place long term, I always make sure they have a washer & dryer.

We had a great time in Phoenix with Cousin Tawn.  We spent the day at the Tempe Arts Festival.  There were beautiful sculptures, paintings, ceramics, etc.  My interest was also in the dogs (of course) and we did meet a Yorkie who thought everyone was gathered there just to pet and scratch her, 2 mini dachshunds, 2 Pembroke Corgies, and a bearded dragon named Spike.  We found one piece of glass art that we would have purchased but we don't have a wall to hang it on so it stayed with its creator.  Dinner was at The Soul Café in Scottsdale.  Nice bottle of wine and wonderful food.  I had stuffed rigatoni in green chili which was sooooo yummy.  But the best part of the evening, other than the company, was the live music.  The band that night was a rhythm and blues band which played Motown, Al Jarreau, Marvin Gaye, etc.  Tawn and I sang while we ate and I made Mike get up to dance.  There was a tiny dance floor.  No one was dancing but when they started to play a Etta James' At Last - Mike only does slow dances - I insisted we go dance.  That broke the ice.  For the first dance, to Mike's mortification, we were the only ones on the dance floor.  After that there were about 6 other couples who got up to dance and we all had a great time.  Mike and Tawn  took a spin just a little later in the evening too. 

Then off to Deming New Mexico.  We stopped in Tucson for In-N-Out Burgers and to get gas for the Tundra.  I was watching this guy eating in his jeep at the curb by the gas station and saw a roadrunner (inside orange circle) jump up onto his spare tire.  The roadrunner then jumped up on his roof and explored.  When the guy got out to throw away his trash, the bird didn't even pay any attention to him, even when he got back into the jeep.  The guy was really careful to leave slowly and watched until the bird safely jumped off when the jeep.  Best gas stop so far on this trip!!

 

Next stop Ft. Stockton Texas...