Our Hot Rendezvous and a Change in Plans

We made our way west all of 49 miles to our meeting spot at Kartchner Caverns campground.  Karen and Tom arrived about an hour after we did, of course they had a bit farther to go :-)   It is a very nice campground, all paved streets and sites, lots of room, nice views, but no sewer.  

Settled into our site

Karen and Tom next to us

Jan and I had planned to drive to Bisbee for a Vietnamese lunch at a little place we had been to many years ago, and Karen and Tom readily agreed to go with us.  Thuy's Noodle shop had moved, but we found it with no problem hoping the food would be as good as we remembered.  It was.

The excellent Banh Mi

Jan had pork and shrimp egg roll Bun

And Tom and I had delicious pho.
Tom who lived in Vietnam for a year said it was as good as any he had in Hanoi

After a wonderful lunch we split up and Jan and I headed up through Tombstone, we had planned to go to a jewelry store we had visited several times before, but, maybe luckily, it was closed:-)  It was a pretty day, although hot.

We joined back up later for happy hour and managed to solve at least half of the problems in the world.

Tom and I

Me and Karen

We talked about our initial plans to go over near Phoenix for 4 days, but with the forecast for over 100df, we worked on an alternate plan.  We cancelled our reservation in Phoenix and decided to go to Homolovi Ruins State Park, near Winslow, AZ for 2 nights and then over to Williams, AZ the other 2.  Highs forecast there 70's:-)  

We met at a little place in Benson for lunch the next day and all of us had good meals, the Horseshoe Cafe, established in 1936.  Yeah, more food pics...

We were only there for a few days and Jan took off on a hike to an overlook, yeah I passed, too hot for me.  She went early and had a nice time, got it done before it reached 90df.

The happy hiker

We left for our 350 mile trip to Winslow on a route that took us through the amazing Salt River Canyon.  It started off pretty flat and featureless but improved quickly.

We even nicked a corner of the Sonoran Desert the only place the largest cactus in the US grows, the Saguaro.

About half way on our drive we went through the Salt River Canyon, quite a sight!

We wound our way to Homolovi and settled in just in time for cocktails:-)

Westward to Our Rendezvous

We left Llano heading west to a meetup with Jan's sister Karen and Tom outside of Benson, AZ, but first we had a slight detour.  We are definitely moseying along this trip, short days, taking our time.  We stopped in San Angelo, TX for the night and while there we spied these cute little guys.

And these big guys

What's Texas without Longhorns?

And after a short night we headed to Lubbock to see our daughter Kelly and son-in-law Brian.  On top of a great visit we wanted to drop some things off to them, and we had sent lots of things to them to pick up on our way by.  Little did we know Kelly had a Mother's Day feast in mind, and spoiled us big time.  A delicious crab, shrimp, sausage, potato, and corn boil.  Wow, was it good!

We had a great visit!

Back on the road with a quick stop in Carlsbad, NM.  We were blown away by the number of oil wells we saw between there and Lubbock.  We have seen many areas with tons of wells, but for about 50 miles they were everywhere, all the way out to the horizon on both sides of the road.

These two quick pictures don't come close to doing the number of these justice.

Our spot at the Carlsbad KOA

Our route from Carlsbad to Las Cruces, NM, our next overnight took us south and around by the Guadalupe Mountains, by the highest point in Texas, Guadalupe Peak, 8751', and we happened to stop and have a picnic right beneath it.

That's Guadalupe Peak in the middle

We had a nice view from our site at the Las Cruces KOA as long as we didn't look directly down:-)

Our site

Our view

Spring in the desert

So now we are in Willcox, AZ for 2 nights so we could go do a hike we had done quite awhile ago.  Even from here it is a 50 mile drive to the Chiricahua National Monument and the Echo Canyon hike.  But it is worth it, a fantastic experience.

Our very nice site at the Wilcox KOA, patio, furniture, Weber gas grill

Then off to our hike.  Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Time, very smart, and since we are only going to be here a short time, we are trying to stay on Mountain time, so we had a built in 1 hour jump on anyone else doing the hike, and it really paid off, we saw no one for at least an hour then passed only 5 friendly people total, we had the area to ourselves!

Spectacular views driving in

Jan, the happy hiker

We both had a great time

Then driving back we saw this guy looking for love.

Uh, ladies, ladies

Hard to see but there are 5 hens here obviously ignoring him

Fine, but watch me spin around

So one more night here and then off to Kartchner Caverns for our rendezvous.