Vaca 2021, Day 5 - Driving, Extreme Heat, Saguaros & Private Pool

We left our Holiday Inn Express after extracting about as much coffee as we could carry! Rob was driving to Las Cruces this morning, with Caleb in the front passengers seat, mom in the second row and dear ol' dad in the waaaaaayyyyyy back.

This was a bit of a head trip with the boys in the front!

Google Maps of our drive from Alamogordo to Tucson. 

     

Not far outside of Alamogordo and part of the Holloman Air Force Base where they sometimes close White Sands while they conduct missile testing!  That might have been cool to witness, but alas, it was not to be.

More of the same.

Rob did a great job driving and Caleb running the map.  Rob also provided much humor with his near constant commentating on his current situation.  This guy would make a GREAT TV sports announcer! Once in Las Cruces, we ate at a lovely little place called Indulgence Cafe.  It was some stupid good food with very unique plates and some dang good coffee!  The bathroom situation was less then stellar tho, so before we got back on the interstate, we hit up a gas station to visit their rooms of rest.

Once back on the I10, this time with me driving again, our only surprise was just a mile or two out of town when we encountered a border checkpoint, with guards that were in combat gear and heavily armed, and also dozens of cameras aimed in various positions at your vehicle. We slowed, but never stopped as they waved us through.  Not sure what they were looking for, but apparently it was NOT the Schmitz Mobile Chaos Unit.

The border checkpoint as we were approaching.

On we went for several good hours.  I did road combat with an older lady and her Nissan where she would pass me, pull in front of me and within 10 - 15 miles, I would have to pass her again.  This went on for 100+ miles until we finally got to the exit to head to Saguaro National Park.  I hate that crap.

So we exited the I10 and shortly thereafter realized that it was hovering around 113 - 115 degrees!  Now for some, that's probably not a huge deal, but for several select Iowans, it was fairly miserable!

We stopped at the visitor center on the East side of Saguaro Ntl Park.  Unbeknownst to us, Tucson pretty much splits the Saguaro Ntl Park into East and West.  And they are very different looking as well.

We stopped at the visitors center and within one minute, Mama was talking to a couple from Maquoketa, IA!  One of the rangers working overheard the conversation and came over to ask us if we've ever seen the butter cow at the fair!  LOL!

We went on the scenic drive and got some reluctant photos with the lads who were NOT keen on getting back out of the vehicle into the crazy heat.   

Rob was not happy about the 50 yard "hike" to get to this cactus!  LOL!

You can tell by his posture in this pic that he's even less impressed the second time we stopped for a pic!!!  The boy has his mind on the private pool coming up at the air b n'b and this is only delaying that glory!

Once we left Saguaro East, we went to find Lesley a swim suit as you may recall, I left her suitcase back in Pleasant Hill, IA.  She got one for her and also bought one for Rob who, while he owns several pair, including a fantastic fitting new pair gifted to him by his wonderful girlfriend, Jackie, didn't pack them while he was spending his 93 seconds packing so he could get back to his video games...

While Mama was in Target getting swimwear, I was hitting up the Googles and looking for beer stores where I can buy stuff that you cannot buy in Iowa.  Too my surprise, we were about 12 miles from a BevMo, which I've never visited but they're said to be very much like Binny's stores in Illinois where there is beer for days.  So there we went and I delayed retirement by another year...

After that, it was time to go find our Air B n'b.  This place was quite lovely even though we are dumb-a$$3$ trying to use the keypad to open the door when Rob eventually fumbled the keypad thingy-ma-bobber and it fell to the ground, revealing a KEY, an old fashioned KEY, used to unlock the front door!!!  LOL

Once inside, we unload the van as we're in desperate need to do laundry and rearrange for the next bit of the trip.  But first?  The pool!!!

Ah, the pool!!!  What a relief after the heat!

Looking over the backyard fence.

The "grass" here is prickly, like the cactus and you really couldn't walk thru it to get to the pool thinking you weren't going to burn your feet on the sidewalks.  Seems like everything here wants to harm you in some fashion.

Taken looking over the fence from the back of the yard.  You can't really see it, but Tucson is down behind that first hill.  This is roughly the same angle of the last picture taken at night.

Rob and Caleb playing some pool baseball which they had just invented.

Those chairs are where I would enjoy my morning coffee!

Several card games of Blitz (31) played on that glass table!

Tucson at night from our vantage point at one of the only times that we'll exist in a gated community!

We had a bags tournament since they had the game in the backyard and Rob is competitive about EVERYTHING!

I think this was our bracket for the Tucson Bags Tournament...  Looks like when we reached the conclusion of the tourney, we failed to document the champion!  Must have been an unpopular outcome.

This was our score card for Blitz.  You can see one game in Alamogordo,  3 in Tucson, 1 at the Grand Canyou, 2 more in Kanab...  You know who didn't do well in these games?  ME!

Mostly Caleb's sketches to make fun of his brother!

And that's it for Day 5.