We are finally back on "schedule"! I woke up early, as planned, and did three loads of laundry before we headed out to pick up Big Jimmy. Once again, we had a blessedly uneventful day. No car trouble, no trailer trouble, no problems!

We left Tucson, drove to Phoenix and got Jimmy and then headed over to Thunderbird so the kids could see where I went to grad school. So much had changed that I could hardly find my way around campus. The Tower Building, in which I established a coffee shop when I was in school there, is being completely remodeled and we couldn't even get in. Oh well.

From Phoenix we started to head to our next destination: The Grand Canyon. Along the way we saw a sign for Montezuma's Castle and decided to swing by. It was so cool. A 20 room "castle" built into the side of a cliff by the Sinagua indians. I guess this is similar to what the Anasazi indians built? We couldn't go in, but we did get a couple of good pictures.

From there we drove through Sedona. What a gorgeous drive! Unfortunately, I could not find a phone number for my old grad school friend, "Mr. Sedona", Dennis Andres. We were totally in a rush, and could not have done a visit justice anyway. We wanted to get to the Grand Canyon before nightfall, and try and beat a rain storm. Trying to set up a pop-up in a rain storm would surely be a nightmare.

We swung by Flagstaff for what was most possibly the fastest oil change ever. 10 minutes at the most, literally. Back on the road to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Got all checked in and set up before it got too dark, and right before the rain drops started to fall. We wandered over to a lodge's cafeteria for dinner, and then settle in for a cold night's sleep.

If it was this cold here, we are going to be freezing at the N. Rim and as we head north!! It rained through the night off and on, but no leaking inside our tent. I'm hoping the leak was just due to the wind blowing the air conditioner back just enough that it let water seep in around the gasket. We'll see.

The Grand Canyon tomorrow!