After we stayed at Calico Ghost Town much longer than planned, quite a bit of the ride to Kingman was in darkness.
I was disappointed to find out that bodie's highly anticipated Redneck's BBQ is closed on Sundays.
We grabbed a tiny snack at Taco Bell, before settling on In and Out Burger.
Very tasty! Fresh and preservative free. Underneath the cups and on the chips packets are Bible verses. The 7 yr old was presented with an In and Out servers hat. He took on the role quite seriously, quite disappointed with himself when a couple of siblings (who will remain unnamed and unshamed) teased him for not knowing where his company's rubbish bin is.
We thought we had a lot of time before the KOA (RV park) closed, so imagine our horror to discover we had list an hour there somewhere! The lovely KOA people had left our site details in an envelope stuck to the office door.
We had a great sleep and all obediently rose at 7:30 next morning.
We had the routine of readying the RV much quicker today.
Now we are enroute to Sedona for put ATV canyon adventure!
Like lambs to the slaughter, we approached our ATV Adventure with joyous anticipation.
The road to Sedona started out gently but next thing we were careening and lurching around sharp bends and over massive drops, with a crash barrier the height of a standing baby, and obviously placed there as a joke. ( I was afraid for my life, and not for the last time that day)
We were starting to think that Sedona was actually a national park; when all of a sudden this town- adobe -colored buildings bejeweled with bold, bright and festive tourist traps- sprang up on us. I could have stopped and looked all day, but we were 10 minutes late for our ATV tour already.
First, we stopped on at headquarters to put on our safety gear. Then it was off to ATV orientation 101.
I knew right off the bat that I suck at ATV driving. And no pressure, having my youngest child holding on for dear life on the back of my vehicle !!!
We had a short drive out to the canyon. Then we were all lined up and off, following our guides.
The first time I veered off course wasn't so bad, but the second time I thought I was going to die and take the 7 yr old with me. He was absolutely terrified. My guide wasn't about to take pity on us both and do the rescuing for me. He gave me a piece of advice that stopped me getting into strife again, ( after chiding me first) . ' You went that way and got stuck because the RV led you there! Don't go where it wants you to go- you are the boss. Make it take you where YOU want to go.'
A few minutes laterBodie got too
much sun in his eyes and he and Zac ended up in a bush. THEN I was ready to go home.
The guide came back and assured me that from now on, with the last two tricky maneuvers, he would stop, get out, come over to me and and talk me through them.
The first time he did, I was full of dread, knowing it was going to be hard.
But we were fine, he did a great job of coaching us through.
I kept waiting for the second tricky part and it never came.
We eased up and enjoyed the rest of our ride, gazing out at scrubby desert terrain against a backdrop of towering red/ gold formations with a sun setting slowly.....
When we got base to our base, I told the guide, ' I think you worked out that I was dreading you coming back to help with the dangerous bit, so the second time, you de odes not to let me know it was dangerous, so i didn't freak out'.
He said:' I told ( the trainee guide) that you were overthinking the hard bits so if you didn't know it was dangerous, you would be fine.'
I said: ' you should be a psychologist.'
He said, with All seriousness:'my psychiatrist told me that too.'
!!!!!
We made it back to the RV unscathed!

Observation of the day: I think Americans have to be the most polite friendliest race on the PLANET!

Today's Interesting character: the poor, old ( very old and quite frail looking) Santa- be-hatted, wheelchair bound man ( with his back to us) skittering his wheelchair backwards with his little feet as fast as his little legs woyld allow him TOWARDS our RV as we were exiting the KOA. His job apparantly is to take up piles of leaves around the park.
Mid-speak of the morning- I unwittingly picked the unfriendliest American to ask for directions to find a petrol station. As I stopped him, he glared at me like i had snatched his purse while his tiny dog tried to let me know via high- pitched diva bark that he was going to gnaw my feet apart, toe at a time.
' if you mean gass-O-leen, left at second lights', he growled.

Happy find: sugar-free peanutbutter cups!