When we visited the Pima Air Museum last month in Arizona, we bought a new Aloha Shirt featuring WWII airplanes superimposed over a green palm tree design. Click image for a close up.
Vacation
Mission San Xavier del Bac
Panoramic image taken near Tucson, AZ. The photo says it all about this beautiful mission.
Click on the panoramic image above to enlarge.
Cantilever Bridge in 3D
Verna takes a lot of photos when we’re on vacation. Every once in a while she takes a pair of frames that can be combined into a 3D image. The motion of the truck provides the horizontal offset between frames that is required for the 3D effect.
During our last vacation in Arizona we drove a scenic route along U.S. Hwy 60 east out of Apache Junction heading toward Globe, an old (still active) mining town. Along the way, we crossed over several cantilever bridges. This one, just east of Superior, AZ, spans a creek bed below the highway. Verna snapped several frames of this bridge, two of which were combined into the 3D image shown.
Of course, if you haven’t sent away for your free 3D glasses yet, you can click to see the 2D image here.
A Good Experience
I recently posted about our travel strategy of first driving to Phoenix before renting the travel trailer for our vacation in Arizona. The strategy worked out great and we enjoyed the vacation a lot.
Image: The cruise America Travel Trailer at Apache Junction KOA. Click image for full-size. We were in one of several Cruise America RVs there.
When we returned the rental trailer to Cruise America in Mesa, AZ, we inadvertently forgot Verna’s Canon Camera battery charger which was still plugged in to one of the AC outlets in the kitchenette. As soon as we discovered it was missing, I called the Rental Supervisor, Joe Morales, and asked him if he would look for it. He agreed, and was to call me back later. He did call back later that day, but I missed the call. By the time I got his voice mail, Joe would not have been at work. I sent him an email asking him if he would send the charger to us, with an offer to pay for shipping and handling. The next day, Joe emailed us back saying he would send the charger and advise us of the cost.
Two days later, the big brown truck of goodness (UPS) delivered the charger. It was bubble-wrapped in a small parcel – a real professional-looking package. Verna was glad to have the charger since the battery was low and you know how she loves to take pictures.
After the package showed up, I sent Joe a follow-up email thanking him for the effort and asked how I could pay them back. Joe sent this response today:
No problem, just let your friends and family know how great we are, nice doing business with you.
Joe said it – they were great! We’ll be back to the Mesa Cruise America for sure. Soon, we hope.
Travel Strategies
Our last vacation to Arizona was the second time this year we rented a trailer. This time, however, we did not rent the trailer until we were over in the Phoenix area. I figured that we could save some time and expense by heading out early to the rental facility in Mesa, Arizona, and camp a few miles from there on our first night at Apache Junction, so that’s what we did.
This image is from the morning after as we were getting ready to break camp and hitch up to head out to a part of Arizona neither of us had ever visited. Click the image to enlarge to full size.
We can report a lesson learned on this trip; driving the six or seven hour trip straight through to Mesa takes a lot out of us. On the way back, Verna had the idea that we should stop at a pet-friendly motel somewhere near the halfway point. I found one just a few hundred yards from the Colorado River along I-10 in Ehrenberg, Arizona. We were able to relax there, “Bear” was welcome (with a modest pet cleaning charge) and we watched Monday Night Football as opposed to going another almost four more hours to get home.
Good choice – next time, we’ll stay there on the way out to Mesa as well.
Yikes! Spikes!
Wherever we stayed during our recent road trip to the desert, there was always a wonderful variety of local plant life. This cactus (at the KOA, Apache Junction, AZ), in spite of its spikes, was very pretty in its own way. Click image to enlarge.
