We left Colorado on November 29th to head for Phoenix. Since my parents met me in Colorado, we caravanned. Mom rode with me. In two days, we spent another 16.5 hours driving and put another 694.9 miles on my car.
Our first stop was in Rifle so we could have breakfast with Uncle Wes. It was nice to see him, but sad that Aunt Lois is no longer with us. I never got to see her the last couple of years of her life, but from what I hear that might have been a blessing. I remember her just as the way she always was and not the way she was after getting ill.
Lunch was an exciting (not) stop in the middle of nowhere at Subway.
By mid afternoon the temps finally rose above the freezing level. Thank goodness.
Later that afternoon we entered Navajo Country. It was a surprising adventure to stop at Burger King and see a nicely put together Navajo Code Talkers display. My parents had been here before and I was glad that they shared it with me.
Our first night ended in the ‘big’ city…town actually…of Tuba City, Arizona.
The next morning, November 30th, we left Tuba City just before 9am after eating a nice/free breakfast at the Quality Inn. And yet again, we found an exciting place to have lunch…the food court at Anthem Outlet Mall just outside of Phoenix.
It turns out that we should have spent more time driving to Phoenix because we got to my hotel by mid afternoon and it SUCKED. Honestly, it was one of the worse places I’ve ever stayed, but I had already booked and paid for it online. Luckily I was only staying there one night before heading to Belize the next morning.
Dad took the van and bypassed the city of Phoenix. After a quick trip to grab some dinner from Wal*Mart, Mom took off with my car and Kinley to catch up with Dad who was waiting for her on the other side of Phoenix. They were headed on to Yuma and would be back to get me when I returned from Belize. I was kind of sad to leave Kinley. He was headed to place he had never been with people he had only met a couple of times. Life was going to be a little complicated for him.