Phoenix Vacation--Day 2

Saturday, March 10

We woke up at 6 am and got our showers in, bags packed up once again, loaded the car, and went to breakfast at the hotel. If you ever need a good place to stay in Santa Rosa, NM, the Days Inn was great. The rooms were very nice and inexpensive, and the breakfast was awesome. They even had a waffle maker where you could make your own waffles, and they were absolutely delicious.

We took some pictures of the view from our room…Andy was right…very different landscaping, but it was very pretty. We got checked out and were on our way around 7 am. We had to stop and take a picture of the historical route 66 sign that our hotel was on. We hopped back on I-40 and drove and drove and drove. We hit some awesome mountains around Albuquerque and I was snapping some pics all along the way. Then, we got into the desert and all I kept thinking was that the desert wasn’t at all what I expected it to look like. Where were all the cactus? Andy kept telling me that Phoenix would look different. He thought we were going to be in Phoenix anywhere from 2-4 pm. We drove and drove and drove and we finally hit the Arizona border. We made a pit stop by the Petrified Forest to look at the petrified wood and see some ostriches. Then, we hopped back in the car to head out again. We drove on I-40 for awhile until we picked up Hwy 87 at Winslow to head into Phoenix. That was a very picturesque view of their forests and if we hadn’t of known that we were in AZ, we would have thought that we were back in MI. There was even patches of snow on the ground, which we thought was funny as it wasn’t cold out at all. Deidra was disappointed because she didn’t see any cactuses…later we figured out that we were way up too high in elevation ( about 7000-8000 feet up). We drove though canyon after canyon and again I was snapping pics all the time. So beautiful. We went down one and up another, and down again. Once we were down far enough, we began to see all the cactuses and Deidra was so excited. Andy was a bit nervous on driving down them as there were no guard rails and all you could see were long drop offs and crosses where people had died. Anyway, the drive was beautiful…and then we found out that we still had 55 miles before he hit Phoenix and Andy was shocked as he thought that we were almost there and that it was just around the hedge.

We didn’t realize that we were going to be twisting and turning around canyons for so long. I think we finally pulled into Andy’s mom’s condo complex around 5:30. She was glad to see us. Deidra was so happy to get out of the car and she ran right up to Grandma Hoffman and gave her a big hug. What was funny was that a hummingbird wouldn’t stop buzzing around Grandma’s head. We got to see the condo where we would be staying, which is also up for sale right now. Very nice! I joked with Andy that we should buy it so we had a little get away spot to come to and we could rent it out while we weren’t here. We had dinner with Grandma and Hal…chicken broccoli casserole…and we visited for awhile. Then, it was time to get Deidra in the bath and ready for bed. That little girl for claiming to be very untired, fell asleep in just a couple minutes and she was out for the rest of the night.

The picture is of the New Mexico prairie and canyons that we saw along the way. So pretty!