Saturday, May 14, 2016

We said goodbye to Marge and Bob this morning, and stopped in Chandler, Arizona, where we had a good visit with our travel friends, Jerry and Kathleen.  Then it was back on the road to the  Saguaro National Park outside Tucson.

The saguaro cacti are huge, and some were beginning to bloom.  The other types of cactus are just on the verge of blooming but it appears we are a few days early to see it.  A rather large lizard scooted across the walkway as we left the visitor center.  We liked this Park, and felt it was well worth seeing.  It was hot, though, in the 90's, so sunglasses and hats are needed.

Back on I-10, we continued east.  There were a lot of dark clouds ahead and it was just starting to sprinkle when we stopped at the first tourist trap "oddity" of the trip.  The Thing is advertised on billboards for two miles before the exit off the freeway.   It was a combination Dairy Queen, Shell gas station, and trading post, with a museum, run by Native Americans.  I was very surprised by the amount and variety of fireworks for sale, pretty much anything you could want was available.

We decided we couldn't pass up seeing The Thing so we paid our $1 entry fee and went through the door.  Yes, you read that correctly, it cost one dollar.  It should have been our first clue.  Anyway, when you open the door to enter, you are immediately outside the building.  Here's where the fun starts.  You follow the big yellow footprints painted on the sidewalk.  They lead you through three different buildings that house everything from antique cars to old tools to carts, buggies, etc.  There were signs posted about scorpions, snakes and tarantulas sometimes being in the buildings and to notify the employees if you see them.  These were official signs so it must happen from time to time. Stella pointed out on the walk from the first building to the second that the footprints were painted backwards with the left foot on the right and vice versa.

There was some cool antique stuff and there were some things that were marginal at best.  But, in the last building was the largest trap I have ever seen.  It was easily 5' from one end to the other.  It looked like a bear trap, but I can't imagine what animal it was for.  You could have caught a rhino in that thing.  I should have taken a picture of it, in hindsight.  We stood and looked at The Thing for awhile, and then followed the footsteps to another door into the main building that we started from.  And had to walk through the full length of the gift shop again, imagine that.  I don't want to give away the secret, but let's just say we didn't take any wooden nickels, but we think we saw a wooden Indian.  Not completely sure, though.

As we continued east, we went through a rainstorm that dropped the temperature from 99 to 78.  It came back up to the mid 80's for quite awhile.  Outside of Tucson, we passed some large groves of trees that looked like nut trees and not citrus trees.  We debated that for awhile, but when we saw the same trees in New Mexico, they were advertising walnuts and pecans for sale.

I've never been in New Mexico before.  It's very dry here, but we did see grapevines and winery ads so there is water available for them, I guess.  The farther east we came, the blacker the skies.  By the time we reached Las Cruces and stopped for the night, it was 69 degrees out, rainy, and lots of lightning.  We were glad to be in for the night.

Yesterday was a 311 mile day, the shortest one day distance we've had, and I didn't check the miles tonight, but we've decided we will probably have to stop one more night before reaching Houston.