After totally gorging ourselves yesterday on "the big box" from Pizza Hut, due to Superbowl XLVII, I think I've sworn off Pizza Hut for quite some time. The first few pieces of pizza were great but after that it just felt like we were eating more dough and not really the good stuff, so for now, Pizza Hut is but a memory!
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Holy Heartburn Batman![/caption]...and we still have food left over...so cold pizza, wings and breadsticks for...everything! haha
Today, we thought we would try to go back to the mountains...yet again. This time we will take a different interstate or highway and go the opposite direction of the Superstition Mountains. We have to get lucky this time...right!? haha But first, we had some errands to do: exercise, wash up, post office, Wal-mart, farmer's market, then we will go camp! Sounds like a pretty easy day...if you're a different tribe! We went to the park and washed our hair (in front of about 10 landscapers taking their lunch break and a cop...we do shows at 11 and 3!) We kicked the soccer ball around for about 40 minutes at Desert Breeze Park, went and picked up our mail...everything is going great!
Went to Wal-mart to buy a blender, we've had our eye on, and asked a local in the parking lot if she knew of a nearby farmer's market...she said she goes to one in Mesa, giving us one road name and no market name, but we went anyway...we were headed that way after all. We drove through the city to Main St. in Mesa, looking down every side street in the city and finding nothing but a crap-ton of traffic and construction!
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That's a lot of construction posts[/caption]We finally just punched in a farmer's market into the GPS and it took us to a market called Sprouts. Sprouts is like a natural grocer more than a farmer's market but it would work for now, we bought some berries and we were back on the road. We just drove, when we saw signs for Apache Junction, we turned the other way and after a few turns we were on Highway 87. We figured we would have to drive out pretty far to get to some BLM land, so we drove and drove...and drove...and drove. There is a ton of open land out there but every turn off to every road off the highway had signs saying, No Trespassing and/or Indian Reservation signs. Indian Reservation signs are not the best thing you want to see when looking for BLM/dispersed camping...they don't want you on their land. (Can't say I blame 'em, but c'mon man!) We were driving for a really long time, a lot further than we both had anticipated. We had passed a casino a while back and thought maybe we would stay there for the night and try again in the morning, since we were already out this far. We finally turned around somewhere, I don't even know where we were, seeing signs for a National Forest Recreation Park...those have come in handy in the past!
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Where's your pass?[/caption]We followed the signs for the Park only to be "told" (by more signs) that you have to buy a pass, which is $25 in town...what town? And $25? For the day? You're kidding right!? Well, we drove into the park anyway where we were very UNwelcomed by locked, metal gates with no access to public restrooms unless you have a pass and those tire spike things if you try to get in....whoa! They must have a huge problem with people not getting passes and trying to get in...I felt like we were at the Mexican border or something. We pulled over to the side of the road, used our bathroom, walked Savannah and for a few moments pretty much sat in silence pondering what our next move was going to be from here.
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Sitting...pondering...[/caption]We talked for about 15 minutes about several different options: We could go back to the casino, we could stay at a new casino, we could stay at a Wal-mart and try the Superstition Mountains again, blah blah blah, with the end result being...Let's drive to Tucson! haha My sista' lives in Tucson and my lil' noodlebugs (my nieces and nephew have some days off of school coming up, so why not just go now and spend a bunch of time there!?) We chowed down the last two pieces of cold doughy pizza and we were..."On the road again!"♫ I think there is something about us and 5:00 p.m. because here we are (again) leaving a place we thought we could camp at 5:00! You'd think we don't have a time schedule or something! haha Oh, that's right...we don't! Which brings me to my next point...Rush hour traffic!
Oh the joy of (moving) bumper to bumper rush hour traffic, where everyone is doing everything else except paying attention to the road and everyone is mad. Not us, though. It's just another part of this day and not having to sit in this every single day for hours on end...it doesn't really get to you...well to me, I wasn't driving! J' is really good at this whole traffic thing though and before you know it, we're saying, "Sayonara!" and getting on a traffic free Interstate to Tucson!
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Sayonara Suckers![/caption]We were traffic free for a nice amount of time until we came over a hill and saw that we were getting onto I-10...back in business! At least this traffic moves, J' was telling me about L.A. traffic and how it really is bumper to bumper and it never moves...icky!
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I-10 to Tucson[/caption]I think for the time of day and everything else, we moved right along pretty quickly and before we knew it, we were cruising right along, coasting down the highway. Savannah didn't care...as long as she could see and touch daddy! She's been on this really weird anxiety, panic attack kick lately when we drive, it came out of nowhere and it's just weird. When we start driving, whether it's a short or long distance, she starts shaking and trembling and panting, it's the weirdest thing. Over the Summer when we were moving around as much as we were, she would be excited for the first 10 minutes of a trip, then understanding that we were driving, she would just lay down in my lap and fall asleep. Now, she's a friggin' hot mess...look it up in the dictionary and you'll see her picture! I made her a little bed in between our two chairs to try to make the driving situation a little less 'manic' for her...sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
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Spazzoid[/caption]We drove into Tucson in the dark, putting 'casino' into the GPS the closest one being The Casino del Sol. We pulled in at 8:00 p.m. on the dot! Okay, let's see if we can camp here for a minute, eh!? As we drove into the parking lot, a little worried wondering if they were going to allow overnighter's, we saw about 50 RV's...no joke! There were more RV's here than at the Lone Butte Casino and just like Lone Butte, these people looked pretty comfy in their spaces. Relief at last...we only had to drive 100+ miles to get it, but finally, we have it.
Now that we've found our resting place for the night and hopefully longer than that, I'm off to bed, for tomorrow I have a ton of 'work' ahead of me researching where we are (because I have no clue) and where everything is around us: parks, stores, my sista', etc.
Off to Snoozerland to dance with my Sheepies...zzzzzzzzzz
PEACE
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