Arizona leg

So we pulled out of New Mexico mid morning headed for Arizona.  Normally you would consider a 5-6 hour drive as quite lengthy however after already logging 2300+ miles on the trip already it almost felt “short”.  We arrived at my sisters place mid-afternoon local time. (we lost an another hour going from Mountain to Pacific time)  My brother, niece and Mom had been at Torrin’s place since Wednesday. We were greeted by my brother-in-law riding his dirt bike.

As soon as we stepped into the place you could feel the stress in the air.   Having all of those people under one roof 24/7 that are not accustomed to being around each other can be stressful I’m sure.  Throw two young girls, one 3 month old baby and 4 dogs into the mix and it adds to the chaos.  We greeted everyone and got a mini-tour of the new place. It was another home built by my brother-in law.  He builds a real nice home.  I especially like the fact that he builds them with the AV freak in mind with built in speakers in the living room, bedroom and garage.

Along with their new baby, we also got to meet Kiko a little dog that specializes in catching small animals.  Kiko is very high strung and has the bad habit of taking a leak in the house.  Kiko took to Sadie very quickly.  It was funny how Sadie, who is normally the high strung one eventually looked at Kiko like she was on speed as the little dog was constantly trying to tease Sadie into playing.

We caught up on the latest and greatest as well as meeting my first nephew, Griffin.  He was a very quiet 3 month old, a cute baby.  We had dinner at their place with mom doing most of the prep work.  After dinner we just basically hung out for the rest of the evening.  Ali and I were both very tired and planned to hit the sack early.  However after the kids were put to bed Torrin, Damon and Todd wanted to hang out and drink.  Ali declined the invitation and retired to the air mattress in the office.  I decided to hang out and talk since it is something that only happens once every year or two.  I didn’t drink anything though, it would have put me right to sleep.

Todd drank more than my share, pounding  Miller Lite’s in rapid succession.  We sat out there late into the night, mostly hearing horror stories about his never ending divorce saga.  We did touch on other interesting topics though such as our childhood and the memories of our own parents divorce.  It was an interesting conversation. 

Tuesday morning Torrin had a friend of hers come over to shoot some group photos to take advantage of the family being all together.  I think she got some good shots, I’m looking forward to them.  During the morning we spent time entertaining the kids and getting our stuff together.  The plan was for Mom and us to head out later that day to go to Tucson where we would grab a hotel to stay the night since Mom’s flight was early Wednesday morning.

The combination of the stress from mom losing her job compiled with the stress of being out of her normal comfort zone resulted in her crashing off the non-smoking bandwagon.  She has been smoking like a chimney.  It’s really unfortunate.  I think she viewed the job thing as a legitimate reason to start smoking.  To me it just means she was not serious about quitting.  My brother Todd is a heavy smoker as well which is too bad. 

Well anyway, mom was anxious to get up to Tucson so she could relax a bit at the hotel.  I didn’t want to shoot out of there too early though since we had just arrived the prior afternoon.  After eating lunch I helped Damon with a mini-project, mounting a mail box post by the main road.  It only took all of 10 minutes since he already had the hole dug out with a back hoe. 

While I was there Damon also showed me all the work he was putting into a motorcycle trip coming up on the Trans-American trail, an off road trail that crosses the continent.  He has spent endless hours mapping out his journey using  his GPS software and Google Maps.  He is also making a scroll chart that he can use to navigate along the way in an extremely precise manner.  The ride sounds like quite the challenge.  The ride back to Vegas from Oregon on a dirt bike may prove to be almost equally challenging.  He is very pumped about the ride. 

So we got the van packed and pulled out somewhere around 3.  It was a quick visit but enough for us to catch up which was fine.  The drive to Tucson felt incredibly quick, we arrived in not much more than an hour.  The hotel was very nice.  Mom and Ali took a break to go hang out by the pool and hot tub while I tended to the dogs.

Ali found a dog friendly place that was about a half hour away.  It turned out to just have mostly fried bar food but it served it’s purpose.  After a good night’s sleep we got up and had Mom at the airport bright and early.  My attempts to convince her to drive back to Florida with us were fruitless.  We waved goodbye as she stood by the air cap desk.  The hellish 14 hour driving day ensued from there which is covered in prior entries.

A few thoughts about the trip:

Sadie really endeared herself to us during the trip.  In spite of her sometimes high strung, high energy personality she also has a very loving and devoted side as well.  It was tons of fun watching her interact with the other dogs.

We saw DOZENS of anti-abortion billboards on the trip.  Just what the world needs, more unwanted children.

The party van AC was unable to keep up as we drove through the deep south on the way back.  95 degrees with high humidity meant the only two bearable seats in the van were the front ones.  If you dared sit in the back you would sweat through your shirt in short order.

The coolest things about the trip in no particular order – the St Louis Arch, the drive through the canyon, lunch in Mobile, the impromptu stop at Greensburg,  the rain run out of the canyon, watching the dogs interact

The least cool things – the party van tailpipe drama and repair, Ali getting accosted when walking to a nearby convenience store in Memphis, driving in the wind through Oklahoma and Texas, the 14 hour drive between Tucson and San Antonio.

Having the dogs along certainly puts a big dent in the things you are able to do.  It would have been fun if Ali and I could have explored the arch together, gone into Graceland and do any other number of things that are not dog friendly.  I know the dogs feel otherwise.

The drive out was very enjoyable due to the shorter driving days and leisurely pace.  The drive back was a test of endurance.

Total mileage for the trip 5320 miles.  Best gas mileage between fill ups 15mpg, worst 10.99mpg.  Least expensive gas $2.31 most expensive $2.81

I think long road trips will become a pretty regular staple in our vacation rotation.  Unfortunately they also make our timeshare purchase pretty worthless.