There's not much to write about Thursday, because we spent most of the day driving from Fort Stockton, TX to Phoenix, AZ. Something cool while travelling through West Texas though, was the 80mph (130kph) speed limit, which made the trip a little quicker. The roads are straight and it's dual lane each way, so it's not even reckless!

We had to stop at the odd border patrol checkpoint along the way too as we were pretty close to the Mexican border. We didn't have any dramas there, but it looked like there was a bit of action going on nearby...numerous 4WD's, ATV's and a helicopter were patrolling areas off the highway toward the border.

We got in to Phoenix at about peak hour, so all I can say is thank goodness for HOV lanes! The traffic was hectic.

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The fair today was at Thunderbird Academy in Scottsdale, AZ (east of Phoenix). The school has been there a while...apparently the land it was built on used to be a US Air Force Base back in the day with airstrip and all (obviously). Since then, the Scottsdale area has been developed to accomodate new shops, restaurants, theatres, fun parks and all sorts of other stuff. It's a really nice looking part of town.

After the fair we thought we'd explore a bit of the Scottsdale area, and before long we came across the CrackerJax Family Fun Park! We got a 4hr pass for the afternoon and immersed ourselves in all the fun that the park could throw at us, which included go-karting, bumper boats, mini-golf (x3 courses), baseball batting cages, and the golf driving range. We both had our struggles on the mini-golf course, and got splashed by 9-year-old girls on the bumper boats, but regardless of that, we had a blast!

Probably the highlight of the afternoon for both of us was the batting cages. The last time I played baseball was year 8, so, needless to say, we were a little rusty on technique. But this was just plain good fun. The cages ranged from 40mph-75mph, so we were able to start slow and work our way up to the fast pitches. The fast pitches were insane! We could hardly follow the balls coming out of the machine! I think we both agree that 60mph was the best speed we could handle while still retaining some sort of accuracy with our hits.

Once we were full on fun, we left CrackerJax and found a cinema down the road, so we thought we'd treat ourselves to a movie. We watched The Book Of Eli, which came out today, it was pretty impressive.

So that was Friday in a nutshell. Tomorrow we'll try and find a Church somewhere in the Phoenix area. Allison (PUC recruiter) recommended Camelback (her home Church), so we'll probably check that out in the morning.