Phoenix - San Diego

Firstly, it's Friday here - National Donut Day. Magnificent!!!!!

Well we had a very few lazy days in Scottsdale Arizona, the Toorak of Phoenix, mainly just sat by the pool, kicked the footy, played volleyball ( youall will notice iam sucking the gut in!). Only thing we did do while there was take a tour of the Arizona Cardinals (NFL team) home field. You will notice in some of the photos the RV's where the field should be, that's because they have all kinds of events there, all year round, as the turf is rolled in and out of the stadium as required. There is 10 home games per year and 5 college games played at the stadium, the rest of the year, the field is outside in the sun!!! We were expecting this huge stadium but once inside it's about the size of Edihad,Tesltra Dome (whatever they call it nowadays).

There are 2 big bush fires in Arizona at the moment, 1 of them started about 20 mile east of where we drove through the mountains 4 days previous........so the Driscoll clan can rest easy, as we are no where near them!!

Our journey today was 1 of 450 miles (about 7 hours with a lunch stop), kids did school work nearly the whole way, with teacher Mrs. Connor. On the way here we came close to the Mexican border on several occasions, we were stopped twice at border patrol points, even though we were still in the USA the whole time. Some of the photos show the fence between the USA and Mexico. One of the stops had stats on how many people had been picked up, how many kilos of drugs, DUI's, you name it, they had been caught. The check point had cameras about a 1/2 mile before you stopped, by the time we where at the stop, they new our names and country of origin!!! God bless America and home land security.

There are also a couple of photos, of the landscape, as we went from desert(cactus) to sand dunes within 3 miles of crossing from one state line to the other.

Weather - 101 degrees in Phoenix (Scottsdale)!!

Food - Have been doing really well here. Breakfast supplied at the motels. Have wraps etc for lunch and then Taco's for dinner. Note - Kenny found a ripper deal at Taco Bell's. 12 Taco's for $10!! So we had Taco Tuesday, Taco Wednesday.....

Have found a chain of motels we have been staying in, quite reasonably priced about $60 a night with pools etc. so hopefully will keep us out of trailer parks or the car for a bit longer.

Holed up here in San Diego for the next 5 nights, so will update before we head off again.

Love Team Connor USA

Grand Canyon to Phoenix

Out to the Grand Canyon since the last post, 4 corners then on down to Phoenix.

Grand Canyon - Amazing! Last time we only viewed it from one spot, this time because we had a car (Rodger the Dodge!) we could view it from many angles. Kids couldn't believe that we could drive for an hour and still be at the canyon.
Weather conditions that day were not kind, sunny but very windy. The further we headed into the desert the worse it got. We stopped at a little town called Kyenta, the wind was so strong it was blowing Coyote's off their chains! Nearly as bad as Romsey winds! We couldn't even bring our bags inside the motel room till morning as the desert winds were something else. There were no phones/internet that night as they had blown down & snapped.
Kyenta & the 4 corners post are in the Native Indian Reservation called Navajo Country. As in real "Indians"!
We saw some very humbling shacks and tee pees of the natives, and got to see their world. We can't understand and imagine how they survive in these dwellings!

After driving for hours through the desert, a few cool ale's were required. Unfortunately this couldn't be had, as the Navajo County is a dry area - the sale of alcohol is prohibited. Even harder to understand how they survive the heat and dusty conditions. Oh I forgot to mention, the motel fee was applied, plus normal tax, plus city tax, plus something called tribal tax! All these taxes added another $20 onto the price of the room.

We left Kyenta the next morning and headed for 4 corners,  (the only part of the USA where 4 states all meet at the one point - UTAH, COLORADO, NEW MEXICO & ARIZONA). This was pretty cool! It's a very well populated tourist attraction to our surprise. A monument out in the middle of the desert with many Indian market stalls around the perimeter, displaying hand made arts and jewellery. There were several stall vacancies Shazz & Kylie, thought Amante bags might take off over here! The monument allowed you to have your hands and feet in four different states at the same time! While we were there we bought some Navajo Fry bread for $3. Yummo! Real Indian food.

We left here and drove through a bit of Colorado. How the scenery changed so quick. Then back through New Mexico and down to our next stop in Holbrook back in Arizona. We booked this accommodation in Holdbrook, over the Internet and we were a bit scared at the time of arrival.
For $50 a night it appeared to be just a place to have a shower and lay the head - very dated, nothing fancy. However it turned out to be one of the quietest nights sleep we have had. And the complimentary breakfast was one of the best we've eaten in 3 weeks! It was on Route 66 in this groovy little diner and we were served up pancakes, bacon, eggs & coffee all included in our $50! There were some great locals in the diner, each with there little stories - Dad they reminded me of you! XX

Left from here and drove down to Phoenix (Scottsdale) which is now where we are writing this. On the pool deck at the motel!

On the way down to Scottsdale, we didn't take into consideration the massive elevation change we would have. Had gotten use to being up at around 5000 feet for so long, that when we climbed even higher through a native pine plantation, with it's on special views,  we soon found ourselves at about 10000 feet, which ended up being about a 20 mile drive down hill to sea level. Unbelievable views and scenery, mainly of cactus, but still worth the drive.

It is to get to 100 degrees tomorrow, and we will be here for 3 nights. Although it was nice to see how the Indians live out in the desert, it is so nice to get back to Western Civilisation!

I think Kenny is even glad to be out of the desert and back to his normal lifestyle, status & fame!

Rodger the Dodge has been part of teamconnorusa for 4 days and has taken us across 1000 miles already. He to is also happy to have a break for a couple of days!!!!

Love Team Connor USA