We were on the road by 7.00am. We even skipped out on the free breakfast as we needed to get as many miles as possible under our belt before 2.00pm. We had this deadline of 2.30pm as we needed to be at the facility in Mesa before they closed the administration office. they supply you with personal passes plus one for the car. Without these, it would have made it difficult for us to go in and out of the park and to also use the pool etc..
As you can see by the map, it really was a straight road all the way. When you cross the border between California and Arizona you go over the Colorado River which comes down from Lake Powell and Hoover dam. We were going to stop and capture a photo of this mighty river, but we were belting along at 120k and there was no where to pull over. When we did go over it, we were appalled as to how small it was. The mighty Colorado River no longer reaches the Sea of Cortez. Its entire annual flow has been diverted and spitz out into hay fields, water fountains in front of Vegas hotels and thousands of golf courses. The Colorado has been sucked up to the last drop. This is very sad.
Like driving through LA, driving through Phoenix was just as nerve wracking. Even from Palm Spring across to Phoenix was bad enough as the speed they travel at, and the volume of traffic is unnerving. The traffic would flow a lot better if they adopted the correct way of only being in the left land when overtaking, but nope, they all must drive in the left lane. We know from experience that they would not survive in Europe or the UK (of course we are talking the right side in the UK). It just makes such a huge difference to the smoothness of the traffic, and you know what other drivers are going to do. Here it is a total crap shoot.
Well, we made it, and in time. So, 5,224 kilometers in total. We are exhausted. We are so pleased to be out of the confines of the car as is Toque.
So, this is where we will be holed up for the next month. We have had it described to us as summer camp for retirees……hm, this will be interesting.
We met our host and unpacked the car and headed straight for the washing machine and a good shower. The rest of our day was spent filling up the larder and finding our way around our new abode.
We did note that as soon as the sun went down there was a significant drop in temperature. It does get down to single digits overnight and we did need to use the furnace during the evening – that was a little unexpected.
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