I really did intend on blogging every day during this trip, but just couldn’t manage it with all the other things to take up time each day. If it is any consolation I will be doing more in depth posts when I return, and will also give you some valuable lessons that I have learned from this trip.

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Three days ago, I went to an old mining town in southern Arizona called Bisbee. It was recommended by a friend. When I got there it reminded me of Galena Illinois, which was the home of U.S. Grant. The main part of the old town had a main street with storefronts door-to-door. I did find some eclectic stuff and bought a metal bug, to put in my collection. I guess I gotta blog about that to some time.

Anyway, it looks like the town is another victim to the pandemic. About half the stores were vacant or closed, and I was so hot (sunny 104 degree day) after walking the main street that I decided to forget looking for the tour of one of the mines. This old Midwest boy just can’t stand the heat 😁

I got up early that day, so I could get a cooler start on visiting Saguaro National Park. The park is mainly a 17-mile loop through some impressive cactus country. It was only 88 degrees, so I managed to get out and take several pictures. I’ll show you a few now and more when I write a more descriptive post about this trip. When I finished the loop, it was 94.

The next morning I made the 1.5-hour trip from southern Arizona to the Phoenix area to finally meet my long time blogging buddy Bob Lowery. It was such a delight to meet him and his beautiful and very talented wife Betty in person. We spent several hours just getting to know each other better. I hope I didn’t scare them off because of my weird ways? 🥸

Bob has mentioned Betty’s talents on his blog in the past, but I was not prepared for the depth of her artistic talents. They deserve a post of their own, so I won’t go into detail about that until a later post. I must have a month’s worth of posts to go into the details of this trip. For now, it is enough to say that, at least as far as I am concerned we had a great visit.

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I am now in the official “return to home” mode. When I left Phoenix it was about 105 degrees, but when I got to Flagstaff it was 30 degrees cooler, mainly because of the increased altitude. I had a pleasant night boondocking, which is something I had not done for the three previous nights due to the nighttime heat in Arizona.

This morning I started my trek east. The only stop I made was to a Pueblo Indian Cultural Center in a town I forgot the name. Logging in almost 400 miles today I am now in Santa Rosa New Mexico and hope to take a quick dash through the Texas panhandle and into Oklahoma tomorrow. I think I will spend a day there before hitting the road again.

I don’t know how long it is going to take to get home, and I don’t really care 🥸 but at least I will try to put out another post or two during that time. Whoa, I way overdid my 500-word limit for this post, but since it has been a few days since I posted, I hope you will forgive me.