By the Time We Get to Arizona

Had a good night’s sleep when sleeping – up between 3-4am (me, not Lori) but it was comfortable. Lori took care of “bed prison,” i.e. when they tuck in all the sheets and blankets tight and you can’t move your feet. Had an okay breakfast – the “hot” in the hot breakfast is one buffet server full of bacon and just bacon . We got on the road around 10am, still not as early as I’d like but we’ll try again tomorrow. We stopped at some nondescript, scary gas station in Mojave – had a bit of a gender-confusion scare when some kid asked Lori in the women’s room if she was a boy but thankfully nothing else came of it.

We ended up stopping in Holbrook, Arizona for the night, too tired to make it to New Mexico. The room is cheap but clean – got very good reviews on TripAdvisor but the carpet is pretty unclean and somewhat smelly. Fridge is a little loud, heat doesn’t seem to work but we have sleeping bags if needed. TV works and there’s free WiFi at least. Cats are doing okay, despite the sad picture below.

Nikkyo and Buster in backseat

Nikkyo and Buster on the road

Had a bummer at first when I canceled a motel reservation in New Mexico, only to realize they are an hour ahead and was going to have to eat $90 + tax. The motel called me later this evening to tell me they weren’t going to charge me – so nice! I did tell the person who called that we wish we could have stayed there.

The area where we are staying was a little too sketchy to venture out for dinner so we ordered in good ole Pizza Hut. As in the other motel room, cats can’t get under the bed but can still get behind it (sigh).

I just want to say again to any of you AHP-ers reading this: thank you, thank you, THANK YOU from both Lori and myself for the gas cards and for the Harry Potter (you rock Mary Beth!) book on cd – we have been listening to that only since midday yesterday and we are loving it. I’ve read it and seen the movie, Lori has only seen the movie so doesn’t know the last half of the story (shhh!) and we love the narrator. I believe he won a grammy and it’s easy to see why.

Tomorrow we hope to pass through New Mexico and make it to Amarillo, Texas. Thank you all for the good travel vibes, texts, phone msgs, well wishes, blog and facebook comments – they are keeping us going and we are so lucky to have so many people across the country thinking about us. We are sending lots of love and oxox back at ya.

Here are some pics of the road:

Mojave, CA

There is a lot of this in Southeast, California

And some of these:

Train in the CA desert

Train along Route 40

And then in Arizona:

Rocks in AZ

Cool rocks in AZ

And some of this:

Snowy mountains in western AZ

Snowy mountains in western AZ

Gross-out alert!!!

Two Guns, AZ sign

Two Guns, AZ as seen through windshield bug-splatter

And then this drove by us – was even more scary when it was in front and pointing straight at us:

Missile?

Some kind of scary missile?

Arizona sunset 1

Arizona sunset 1

Arizona sunset 2

Arizona sunset 2

Good night!