We camped the night in Mesa Verde National Park. It was our first (and only) nights camping.

Mike expertly put up the tent. I carefully got the firepit ready for a fire. I put all the newspaper from the car into the fire along with some cardboard ripped up from our beer cans. I then laid the wood on top, ready to light later when it got dark.

We put some water in our saucepan and started to boil some pasta up for our dinner, when suddenly there was a loud CRACK, FLASH, and some giant SPLOTS of rain. We dived in to the car just in time as torrential rain pelted down on us for about 30 minutes. I was very thankful we had chosen a high spot as we watched the campsites below us start to flood.

It is the monsoon season in America and it’s pretty normal to have thunderstorms and flash flooding in the afternoon. This is the reason we hadn’t camped already. Most days, the radio would warn us of thunderstorms and hail and send us rushing to the cover or a hotel. Then the sun would come out and there would be no sign of thunder or rain. Until tonight, when we decided to camp. Typical.

Anyway – after about 30 minutes of torrential rain and busting for a pee, the storm stopped. It looked like another black cloud was coming our way – so we ducked to the toilet. I did mine pretty quickly and was waiting for Mike when it started to splot again. “Mike – it’s starting again – pee faster” I yelled into the gents toilets. “I can’t pee any faster” he replied.

Thankfully, it did not rain again, but our fire was ruined, our tent had blown over and everything was soaked. On the positive side – out pasta had cooked itself.

Thankfully the store let us swap our wet firewood for some dry stuff, and we were able to have our campfire.

We slept in the car.

Mike putting up the tent we didn’t sleep in

Cooped up in the car watching the storm.

Our pasta cooked itself.

Campfire

Enjoying our campfire

Cave dwellings

cave dwellings from the Indian days

We left all the tourists behind and went for a lovely hike in the Mesa Verde National Park. We were all alone as we wound our way down through Sheers Canyon, admiring the scenery while trying not to think about mountain lions and bears.

We reached the bottom of the canyon and the trail became very overgrown and we were walking through really long grass. All I could think about was rattlesnakes, tarantulas and venomous lizards waiting to jump our and bite me.

All of a sudden something grabbed my arm. I screamed and was paralysed by fear. Mike turns around an seeing the panic on my face he says “what is it, what’s happened”.

My fear faded fast as realisation dawned on me. My fitbit picked a real fine time to vibrate the hell out of my wrist. “I’ve just done my 10,000 steps” I reply to Mike.

We were on the road this morning before 8am. It is best to try and get an early start to avoid the heat.

We stopped at some ancient cave dwellings built into the rocks in Tonto National Forest.

The tools they used to make flour.

The view from the top was pretty cool.

We saw a coyote as we walked down but he moved too fast to get a photo of him.

We then went to see a natural bridge, also in the Tonto NF.

natural bridge in Tonto Nationl Forest

Wild Boar

We were going to camp, but the radio kept interrupting with a siren and warnings about a severe thunderstorm in the area. So we booked into a hotel with this stunning view from our deck.

View from our hotel in Sedona

Today we visited Tombstone, Arizona. This is a historic gold mining town from around 1880. It kinda reminded me a bit of Thames. We watched the re-enactment of the gunfight at the O.K Corral with Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday and the bad guys. Still 40 degrees here, but it was pretty cool.

First thing this morning we went for a hike in the Sabino Canyon. This was about a 30 minute drive from Tucson.

It was crazy hot already. The lady in the tourist office warned us about rattlesnakes, The venomous Gila Monster (big lizard) and mountain lions. Luckily we didn’t see any of these. We did see cute little chipmonks, some lizards and a roadrunner.

hot

big cactus

cute chipmond

large lizard

We looked around the Pima Aircraft and Space museum. Was really hot.

Air Force One used by JFK and Johnson

My plane 🙂

Then we checked out the Titan 2 missile from the Cold war. There were 54 of these around the country, sitting ready to nuke the rest of the world if prompted. The control centre and the missile have been left exactly as they were in the 60’s (minus the nuclear warhead of course).

Control room at Titan missile silo

at Titan missile silo

The Titan missile without warhead

Titan missile

It was still really hot when we left the hotel this morning (about 40 degrees Celcius)

We visisted Yuma State Territorial Prison. This was a prison from 1875 until 1909.

We then headed on to Tucson. We found a nice hotel for only $50 per night and it includes hot buffet breakfast and two free drinks each for social hour in the evening.

Nice hotel with Pool

We went out for an awesome Mexican dinner at El Charro Cafe. Being so close to the Mexican border – the Mexican food is excellent here.

Mexican for dinner

Mike’s Food

My Food

We spent the morning looking around the San Diego.

We wandered around the old town and had some mexican food for lunch.

Old Town San Diego

Then we ventured into the Gaslamp quarter. We weren’t going to stop, but I saw a Sketchers store and really wanted to buy some new trainers. They are very cheap here, over half the price from NZ.

Driving in to San Diego

After San Diego we navigated to a Walmart (like The Warehouse) as we needed so get some camping supplies (Tent, pot, blanket etc). Just a few blocks from the gaslamp quarter were all the homeless people. They had there tents set up on a bridge. It was a bit like a gypsy community. The Walmart was right next to this lot so we decided to lock the car doors and drive on.

The drive to Yuma, Arizona was like driving through a massive quarry. There were mountains of rocks, wind turbines and Sand dunes.

Heading towards the mountains of rock

Mountains of rocks

Wind Turbines everywhere

We are right on the Mexican border. We didn’t exit though,

We arrived in Yuma, Arizona at around 5.30pm, got out of our airconditioned car and we were struck by the heat. It was HOT. We had gone from low 20’s in San Diego to 37 degrees! We went out to sit by the Pool at 9pm and it was still just as hot.

We stayed at the Radisson and got a really good price. It was about a third of the price of San Diego and even had free washing machines and dryers. So our clothes got a well deserved wash 🙂

We were just in time for happy hour, so we had a couple of budweisers at the bar.

Day One – 24 June 2015 – Los Angeles

We arrived refreshedin LA, having been upgraded to business class on our flight.

Upgraded to business class

We picked up our rental car which smelled of smoke, so we swapped it 3 more times until we found one which would have to do. The seats fold down flat so  hopefully we can sleep in it.

Day Two – 25 June 2015 – Los Angeles to La Jolla (near San Diego)

We were up at the crack of 5am and on the road by about 6am. I’ve heard bad things about LA traffic and wanted to avoid it at all costs! We stopped for breakfast at Wilma’s Cafe on Balboa Island near Newport in Orange County.

Wilma’s for Breakfast

Mike’s horrendously big breakfast at Wilma’s cafe.

Mike and I had a little walk around Balboa Island to walk off our giant breakfast.

Balboa Island

Our next stop was Oceanside. There was a nice pier here with weird lifeguards.

Weird looking lifeguards at Oceanside.

Pier at Oceanside

A couple of stoned guys played us a really bad version of Hotel California.

Stoned aged surfer dudes playing Hotel California really badly

We stayed for two nights at La Jolla (pronounced La Hoya) and found an amazing beachside hotel with a studio apartment overlooking the sea.

Stunning sunsets from hour hotel at La Jolla

Day Three – 26 June 2015 – La Jolla and Mission Beach, San Diego 

We hired some weird looking bikes which they call “Beach Cruisers” and  cycled along Mission Beach.

Cycling along Mission Beach in San Diego