We made it to Arizona

We finally got on the road at 9:30am, only ½ hour after I had hoped for. But we immediately had to turn around and head home because I realized I had forgotten my sunglasses. That disaster averted, we headed for a public scale to see what our rig weighed and discovered the truck and trailer have a combined weight of 21500 lbs! That's with almost 50 gallons of diesel fuel and a full tank of fresh water. With that information we headed on the road.

Then 10 miles down the road Marianne realized that she had somehow lost her information notebook where she writes down everything (and I mean EVERYTHING), a frantic search throughout the cab turned up nothing. Marianne wasn't a happy camper - oh, oh.....not a good was to start a journey. Nevertheless we continued on our journey. (Even a thorough search of the truck and RV turned up nothing - yikes!)

Just before Yuma and the Arizona border,we stopped at a rest area and stepped outside into the 101° heat. HELLO and welcome to the desert! We fired up the generator, turned on both air-conditioners, walked both dogs, and then had lunch. I also tried to get my tire pressure monitors working again (they worked fine for Zion trip) but I failed. I called the company office Florida office and spoke to Chuck for 40 minutes and he tried to get me to do a myriad of fixes none of which worked, which totally stumped him. But TireMinder is a great company so they're sending me a complete new unit to Austin, which will be our first stop where we know a mailing address we can use.

We continued on our way and made it all the way the Gila Bend, AZ where we decided to spend our first night, arriving about 5:00pm local time (same as California time - Arizona, although in the Mountain time zone doesn't "celebrate" daylight savings time). We pulled into Augie's Quail Trail RV Park, which we found through our Woodall's directory. It was 103° when I stepped out of the truck, but as they say in Arizona, "It's a dry heat. . ."

The lovely girl at the counter informed me that this area was under a heat advisory. Wow, I thought, when in the summer isn't this area under a heat advisory? We got a nice large flat pull-through space close to the entrance of the park for only $27 with our Good Sam Club discount, which may be the best deal we get all trip.

We pulled into our spot,didn't bother on unhitching, but did put down the stablizers, and hooked up to the 50 amp electrical circuit and stood by as the interior temperature started to decline after we turned on both air-conditioners. I fired up the satellite dish and we caught up on the day's news - just a rehash of non-worthy items. Marianne grilled cheeseburgers with sweet potato fries, she was so glad that she could do this on our stove instead of on our outdoor grill on our old Outback trailer. Obie had a design flaw - the stove exhaust fan did not vent outside, but rather right back into one's face and living area, making the Obie really stinky if one cooked inside. What were the engineers/designers thinking? The Monte is got it right - and no stink.

We noticed that our dog Coco was acting a bit strange and continually scratching under his chin. Upon closer inspection we discovered a 3" red raw area caused by a too close of shave when he had gone for his grooming on Saturday - thanks Jacki at Grooming with TLC - I guess I didn't know that TLC meant Too Livid Close. Marianne put antibiotic with anesthetic on the infected area, and we had to continually had to reprimand Coco not to scratch the infected area. Marianne was such a trooper that she slept with Coco all night to prevent her from scratching. It's gotten better today.

After dinner at dusk when the temperature became more bearable, I went outside, turned on the outside TV, smoked a cigar and had a refreshing libation. Ahhh, this is camping the way I like it.

I was in bed by 10pm, totally pooped.

Total miles driven today: 323
Maximum temperature: 105°

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