Heading south

After trying to cool down the hotel room here in Tucson by opening the window as far as it would go (which was not very far) I am now engaging the help of the air conditioning. This seems to be more successful, and we are approaching a temperature now that will make it possible to sleep.

This is not a long-term concern, of course: we will be flying home from Phoenix tomorrow evening, arriving in Edmonton just after midnight. The summer heat will soon be a thing of the past.

We left Kingman late on Saturday morning with the idea of visiting the Casa Grande ruins south of Phoenix and spending the night somewhere close to there. Not overly enthralled with the stretch of Scenic Route coming to Kingman (even though one or the other of us has recited at least one of the Burma-Shave advertisements that keep popping up along the way – 'If daisies are/your favorite flower/keep pushing up/those miles per hour') we took the I-40 instead.

From there we took the turn-off onto US Route 93 to Wickenburg, a very scenic drive termed 'The Joshua Tree Scenic Parkway of Arizona' because it passes through a long stretch of forest comprised of these interesting looking shaggy trees.

Heading east on I-10 we soon were once again swallowed by the Phoenix traffic monster and spit out on the other side, unharmed, thankfully. Actually, while traffic is heavy in the greater Phoenix area it actually flows smoothly, and progress is fast. 

In Kingman already it had been quite warm, and the further south we came the hotter it got. Our plan had been to find a place to stay as close as possible to Casa Grande National Monument after visiting the site, but it turned out that this was not going to be so easily accomplished. The closest town, as far as we could determine, was Sacaton, a few miles off I-10, but when we got there it became immediately clear why we hadn't been able to find any mention of accommodation on the internet: this place looked desolate, many of the houses empty, with doors and windows boarded up. By now it was too late to visit Casa Grande without having to hurry through before it closed. We decided to postpone the trip to the historic site to Tuesday when we'd drive through again on our way to Phoenix, and move on to the city of Casa Grande instead, a bit further south and, according to our Lonely Planet, a 'modern town'. This it was indeed, and also long stretched-out – even more than Kingman, it seemed. Our search for a mid-range motel was unsuccessful, however: it was booked out, supposedly because of spring training camp. This seemed not our most lucky day as far as finding a place to stay.

The receptionist of the Super 8 was very helpful and suggested we try Eloy, just south of there, instead: three motels were right close to the I-10 exit. This time we had no trouble and slept well in spite of the traffic noise from two major Interstate highways plus regular train traffic. We were close to our next destination, chosen because we could do some hiking there: Saguaro Forest National Park. This park consists of two parts, one to the north and west of Tucson, the other to the east. Habitat-wise they are similar, but the east part reaches much further and includes mountains. Maybe we could visit them both: we had two days left to spend here in the south, after all. If we were lucky the cacti might have started to bloom already ...