Welcome to Arizona

We had a short day today, traveling about 200 miles. Tomorrow will be even shorter as we travel south to Organ Pipes Cactus National Monument, where we plan to stay at least a couple of days.

Mike and I lived in Phoenix for the first three years of our marriage, from 1975-1978, and so we know this Interstate 8 route well. Mike had forgotten about the dunes along the way. It's now the Imperial Dunes Recreation Area, and he was bemoaning the fact that we are here without our ATV's. We also passed by a huge facility with a big burm (so we couldn't see over the top) and surrounding chain-link fence with barbed wire at the top so no one can climb over. We wondered about this facility known as the Brock Research Center. Why can't we see over the top? And what's up with the chain-link/barbed wire fence? If you click on the link, you'll see that it's really nothing sinister at all. Silly us. In any case, the Brock Research Center was new to us as well. Seems it's been there a long time, just maybe not marked until after Mr. Brock died.

Now . . . I don't mean to offend anyone, and I'm just asking a question, but, um, Is Arizona the new Kansas? I'm just sayin'! We'll be in Yuma for one night before moving on, then a couple of nights at the national monument, then probably three nights or so in Tucson before moving on to New Mexico. I'll be surprised if we have internet access in the National Monument, and so I'm posting a few things ahead. It might be a few days before I can tell you about the Organ Pipe Cacti though. And we're really hoping to see some wildflowers in bloom!