Hard to beat a desert sunset...

We've been loving the winter sun in Mesa Arizona since the 18th. We're staying at the Usery Mountain Regional Park in East Mesa. It has electricity and water hookups, fire pits, picnic tables, nicely groomed, spacious, gravel campsites and LOTS of cactus...lots!

We're getting some maintenance done around the trailer, inside and out, and getting the roll-top bed cover replaced on the truck. It cracked in a few places and isn't supposed to crack, at all.

We can't tell you how enjoyable the sunshine is. You'd think we'd never seen it before! Like most things, you take for granted what you have all the time and get used to what takes it's place. But boy is it good to be warm again!

Our trailer is situated on a North/South axis so we have the sun coming over the Superstition Mtns in the morning and setting over Phoenix in the evening. The first picture is sunset looking at the lights from Phoenix, the second is the moon rising in the east and the last is the moon setting over our trailer at 7:30am.

We're heading to Tucson and Bisbee this weekend before heading into New Mexico.

Hyperhidrosis on I-84

Hyperhidrosis: a condition of sweaty palms caused by towing a huge trailer on icy roads with blowing snow!

Yup, that's what I had today for about 20 miles of Interstate 84 just before entering Utah from Idaho. After the truck tried to get a little squirrelly on me, we passed a jack-knifed semi and just past that, a Jeep going the other direction lost control and overturned on the center meridan! Woo hoo, wild times on the Interstate today!

We had beautiful blue skys and sunshine for most of our drive today from Boise to Ogden Utah. We had rough conditions before the state line and when we got close to SLC area, we had snow and dark skies. Our angels were with us and we made it in one piece. We're staying the night in the Riverdale, UT Wal-Mart parking lot. Tomorrow we'll head to Zion National Park for a few days.

Mountain Time ???

Okay, this is a good one. Here we are in Idaho on January 1st. Robert is at the pool with the boys and notices the clock is fast by an hour. He figures since it's up high in the pool area, they probably just didn't turn it back. Then he sees another clock that's off by an hour, then another and over the course of 3 days, by the fourth clock he FINALLY figured out...WE'RE IN MOUNTAIN TIME!

OMG, it's a good thing we didn't have to be anywhere at any specific time yet! If you remember from our website update on Portland Oregon, we were having a hard time with the time change in November, now we're causing our own time changes! This ought to be interesting!!!

Half way between the Equator and the North Pole

We crossed the 45th Parallel yesterday, which as you know, is half way between the Equator and the North Pole. :) As we drove today from Baker City to Boise, we passed some beautiful snow covered ranchland, as you can see in the picture. It never got above freezing today but that didn't stop Robert and the boys from trying the indoor swimming pool at the RV park (where were you Orser's?).

An interesting surprise awaited Robert when he went to hook up the sewer pipe. Seems we have a slight leak in the holding tank valves so some "fluid" built up in the pipe. Fluid + freezing temperatures = Yup...frozen poopcicle! We left the grey water (sink/shower) line open and ran warm water which seemed to do the trick. Ahh the adventures of life on the road in wintertime!

The sunset picture was taken in the parking lot of our overnight stay. If you're ever on I-84 and going by Baker City, stop at the Sumpter Junction restaurant. It looks a little touristy from the outside, but the food was delicious, affordable and the decor and history (trains) is great!