February 8, 2005 - Drive to Phoenix, AZ

Starting our Long March back to the east, we hitched up the trailer and were on our way by about 8:30. I was sorry to leave Joshua Tree National Park as there were other old roads to drive and trails to walk. But the fact of the matter was that Monika was still limping badly and walking trails was out of the question due to the danger of re-injuring her ankle. Hoping we would come back some day, we drove back down to Interstate 10 and headed east along the valley floor.

I was amazed at the profusion of wildflowers blooming alongside the road during our daylong drive. The mix was an ever-changing palette of yellow, orange, blue, and purple flowers, and it was just gorgeous. Except for the dry lakebeds, most areas of the desert and even the mountain slopes had a soft covering of light green that appeared to be some kind of grass or sedge. Altho the road clung to the valley where the elevation changes were very gradual, we always had sheer mountains either near at hand or off on the horizon, and they gave the flowing panorama an interesting focal point. As my sister Phyllis used to put it, the mountains were "Something for the eye to lean on."

We crossed the Colorado River at Blythe and as soon as we entered Arizona we started seeing huge RV dealerships. I mean suddenly there were fields and fields of new and used RVs on both sides of the road. I also saw an absolutely huge flea market on the south side of the road; it must have covered a good 10 acres and looked like a permanent installation. Despite the fact that we passed by on a Tuesday morning, the place was absolutely packed and it looked like business was booming. I admit I was curious about what all was for sale, but stopping would have meant running a real risk of acquiring some Great Find that we would have had to lug back in the trailer for the next couple of weeks, so it was probably just as well that we kept on trucking.

We also passed a park that seemed to allow folks to park their RVs any which way they wanted to. At least 40 or 50 RVs were kind of scattered across the landscape in a higgledy-piggledy fashion. No hookups were apparent, so I think these folks were dry camping much as we had just done at Joshua Tree, but that's pure surmise. I know I'd like to have solar cells to recharge our battery (cheaper, lighter, and a lot quieter than a generator), but I didn't see any such arrays as we went whizzing by.

As we climbed back up from the Colorado River onto the higher regions in Arizona, we started seeing Saguaro cacti in addition to the ubiquitous Cholla and Prickly Pear varieties. That signaled, I think, the boundary with the Sonoran Desert ecological zone that typifies much of central and southern Arizona. in a curious way the Saguaro were coming to replace trees in my mind and make the desert vistas seem more friendly. I am not sure if that means I just had been out in the desert too long or if it was some kind of psychological adaptation to a new climate, but it was an interesting shift nonetheless.

As we came into view of Phoenix, I was surprised to see a thick pall of brown, Los Angeles style smog lying over the city. Again, that might have struck me because we had just been driving for 5 hours in crystal clear desert air, but it certainly was there and I fancied I could smell it, too. We cut off on the 101 loop road to the north, and thank goodness almost all the truck traffic stayed on Interstate 10. We found our intended RV park and paid for a spot for 2 nights, but unfortunately it was a back-in space where the neighbors had put carport awnings right up to the property line. Backing in, needless to say, was a nerve-wracking chore, but I got the trailer in without crunching anything and we set up shop for the night. Monika cooked us a nice Rice-A-Roni lunch and, having unlimited power, we settled in for the rest of the afternoon on our respective computers while various batteries were busy recharging themselves. It was hot enough we had to run the air conditioning, whereas the last few nights we had experienced temperatures down in the 20s or 30s, so that was a switch.

After supper Monika continued choosing pictures on Daddy, but since I had finished my computer chores I elected to start reading an e-book on Baby. Looking for something light-hearted, I settled on "The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling. For the next couple of hours I was engrossed with the problems of Mowgli, the child raised by wolves. That section just kind of ended rather abruptly with Mowgli haring back into the jungle with his animal buddies, but then Kipling added the one liner that Mowgli ultimately returned to mankind, married, and had children, which implies a sequel of some kind. Can you imagine how Mowgli's wife would have felt about having regular isits from wolves, a panther, and a bear? She must have been a very understanding, or at least forbearing, woman. I also read the tale about the mongoose Rikki Tikki Tavi. Curiously, my father left an old 16 millimeter film that actually showed live combat between a mongoose and a python, so I could mentally fill in exactly how fast that mongoose had to move to avoid the python strikes, and that is very fast indeed let me add. Fortunately the Kipling yarn had an unambiguous "good guy wins and everyone lives happily ever after" ending so I could get to sleep easily enough altho I did have some strange dreams that night.