February 9, 2005 - Volksmarch in Phoenix, AZ

We needed to do the Capital walk in Phoenix, but I also needed to refill our empty propane cylinder and replace the plastic lens I had broken at Rio Bend, so I dismounted the tank, removed the base plate for the light, and chucked it all in the truck. We were very nearly out of gas, so the first order of business was to refuel the truck, and that proved to be remarkably difficult. First we tried to drive to the Costco across the street from our trailer park and fill up there. But there was a chain link gate across the road, and it turned out that our campground wanted $30 for the use of the remote control to open the gate, so we couldn't get out that way. Next we tried driving around to the Costco by side streets, but our first attempt ended in a concrete block wall and our second attempt dead-ended in a private mobile home court, so we gave up on Costco.

An ARCO across the street was open, but their pumps didn't accept our credit card and we didn't want to go through the rigmarole of prepaying inside, then pumping, and then going back inside to finish the transaction, so we drove off from there. The next station we spotted was a Chevron station, but they would not accept our credit card or even cash unless we purchased a car wash as well as the gasoline! We thought, "What next??" but refused to be coerced in that manner and instead drove off to find a gas station that would let us pay at the pump with a credit card like all the pumps in Virginia do. By the way, the pumps in California would typically require you to enter your zip code before they would complete the transaction, and the only reason I can think of for such a check is that credit card fraud is rampant in that area. In the end I did refuel the Tundra at another gas station, but I was admittedly feeling somewhat disgruntled by the time it was all over.

Fighting the interstate traffic to drive back downtown and re-entering the pall of pollution hanging over central Phoenix did not improve my mood any, but things finally began to look up when we signed up for the walk, retrieved our instructions, and started off on our walk at last. I will be blunt: I found out that Phoenix is a fare nicer town to walk in than to drive through. The Phoenix walk was arranged as a big, flat loop around the central business core of the city. One end of the loop ran west to circle the state capitol building, a pretty but rather modest structure as capitols go, and the other end of the loop ran east to circle a big city center and a small shopping mall.

Monika accompanied me on different parts of the walk and waited for me in a downtown park while I did other portions as we were trying to not overstress her ankle. I also counted 3 museums along our route: the Wells Fargo museum, a mining museum, and a science museum, but with Monika's limited mobility we didn't get a chance to actually explore any of them. The ambiance of Phoenix finally helped switch my mood, as it was a clean city with a nice mixture of architecturally interesting buildings and people-friendly public spaces. I particularly liked the street landscaping using royal palms (I think), and the profusion of flowers in the public gardens.

Don't get me wrong; Phoenix was not all peaches and cream-besides the smog and traffic there were some of the normal big-city negatives such as the homeless folks in the park-but we were not panhandled and that is what I dislike the most. I was also politely asked by a Scientology group if I wanted some of their literature, but that was because I was studying their display protesting psychiatric practices on the grounds of the state capitol. However, I don't recall seeing any litter on the streets that I walked. During the walk I did see both bicycle policemen and bicycle helpers of some kind associated with the big civic center. Parking was easily available on the street for 60 cents per hour, which I thought was a fair price to pay. We certainly enjoyed the walk itself; the weather was perfect and all the lights had automatic or push-a-button pedestrian walk cycles. Monika also bought some strawberries at the farmer's market in the park that we ate later that afternoon, a distinct bonus. So by all means do this walk if you are in Phoenix for a day, and if you have extra time you might consider visiting one or more of those museums. If you put your pictures on the web, send me an email so I can see what I missed!

After the walk we drove back north on Interstate 17 looking for lunch, and we finally settled on a Taco Bell en route to the RV parts store. The RV store had the plastic lens and bulb I needed plus they refilled our propane tank for $9, much less than I had paid in Wisconsin last year. After we got back to the trailer I hooked up the tank and reinstalled the new lens and bulb without a hitch, so we were now ready to hit the road to the Grand Canyon. During a quick visit to Costco-we walked over since we couldn't figure out how to drive there-we picked up some turkey jerky and Bernard Cornwell's "The Last Kingdom" in hardback. It turned out to be a humdinger of a book about the Danish conquest of parts of England in centuries prior to 1066. Other things being equal, the larger print of a hardback makes it easier to do joint reading compared to a paperback.

But we still had our computer chores, so we spent the rest of the afternoon picking pictures (Monika) and updating the journal (me) before having a quick supper. Monika downloaded the new pictures after dinner while I finished "The Jungle Book". I read the White Seal segment, a segment on Toomai of the elephants, and the final segment about all the animals used in the English army in India, which was quite an assortment in the days before motorized vehicles. Kipling certainly was a keen observer of wildlife and had a singular knack for making them talk but still be true to their basic nature. All together I found the book both interesting but also quite strange. At the end of the evening we started "The Last Kingdom" and that took us up to our normal bedtime and somewhat beyond as the book was hard to put down.