Yes, it’s always a little warmer on the car screen vs reality, but in this case, even Ben’s watch was showing 104 degrees.
The point is, we need to get out of here, and soon. We can take the heat, but we’re used to a Gulf breeze and enough moisture in the air to coat our nasal passages. Seeing a breeze or wind in the SW is scary because it involves dirt and dust flying everywhere. As dry as it’s been, we’ve already spent valuable retirement money on three vats of body lotion and we’re still dry and flaky.
Onward! So today we drove from Sedona down I-17 through Phoenix and onto I-10, which took us to our next destination, Tucson, AZ. Turns out this place isn’t much different from everywhere else in the SW. Everything is toasted like the bread you forget was in the toaster and it was turned all the way up. (What’s that smell? oh shoot!).
We stopped taking pictures of the dirt devils because it became like spotting seagulls in Florida. Little dirt tornadoes were EVERYWHERE.
Additionally, the road bumpies, along our journey, blew one of our kitchen drawers apart and also shook loose the cap to the tube that holds our sewer connection hose.
We’re falling apart over here!
Thankfully, we have an extra stinky slinky and we have the tools to fix the drawer. Tomorrow, we will see if we can find another cap for the slinky tube, or failing that, we will rig something up to keep the tube in place while we are traveling.
Repairs completed (ish) and dinner made (chicken breast, Brussels sprouts and gem potatoes, yum!) we are going to go check out the pool and hot tub before calling it a night.
The best part about our campground in Tucson is that they had a handful of spots that have a huge solar panel canopy overhead, so we will be somewhat protected from cooking in the sun while we’re Saguaro 🌵 hunting tomorrow.
As a bonus, we have our own personal kumquat tree! Wait, google says those are red grapefruit. Gross! Never mind and bluck (Ben forgets that I love grapefruit, so NOT gross or bluck! YUM 😋).
Since we’re only in the Tucson area for one full day, we’re heading over to Saguaro National Park as early as we can in the morning. We know we have to beat the worst of the heat or we’ll die. And every sign in every National Park in the SW has been very explicit about not wanting us to die. ☠️
Our objective is to find as many obscene gesture looking cacti or phallic shaped fellas, or really, just any cool cacti that we can find, learn a few things about them, grab our sticker, and then get reloaded on groceries before we head further east along the US / Mexican border, for the next four or five days.
TaterTotTales 