A Change Of Plans Leads To A Long Day

Changing Plans

My original plan was to leave San Diego this morning and stay in Tucson, Arizona, so that I could visit Saguaro National Park. I’d planned on visiting it last spring, but had to bypass all of Arizona when I got sick on the way. While I was looking forward to checking that box, I just couldn’t make the numbers work.

San Diego to Tucson was a 6 hour drive, plus visiting the park. That’s not so bad. The problem was getting to Chaco Culture NHS tomorrow at a reasonable time. Getting to Chaco from Tucson would require a long, long drive to northeastern New Mexico and I’d have to leave Tucson at something like 4 AM to get there with any kind of reasonable time to check it out.

After the eclipse, visiting Chaco Canyon was at the top of my list of things to do on this trip, so I decided to bypass Saguaro NP for another time and haul ass to Holbrook, AZ, in northeast Arizona. That cuts the drive to Chaco in half and allows me to get there with plenty of time to check everything out and get my campsite set-up before it gets dark.

The Drive

But, first thing’s first: I have to get through today. San Diego to Holbrook turned-out to be a nine hour drive, which was pretty tough at times. The entire path through Phoenix was sort of boring and I had trouble staying alert. Phoenix was especially aweful and I had to go through multiple traffic jams just to get through it.

Once I got through Phoenix, though, the drive became interesting. I drove through a couple National Forests and as the sun set I drove down from the mountains into the desert.

Motel Snafu

Ironically, it was last spring in Holbrook that my sickness got so bad that I decided to drive straight to San Diego. I figured I’d just stay at the same motel I stayed in last time because it wasn’t bad. When I arrived in Holbrook and pulled into the parking lot, it was full of motorcycles and wild hogs milling about. I was like shit, great, I’m going to be up all night. Then, I realized, I’d actually made a reservation in a different motel down the street. When I got there, I was disappointed there were no ground floor units and as I was walking up to my room I noticed a group of people partying outside the room in the parking lot. So, again, I’m thinking this sucks.

But, as I got to the room, I noticed the door was propped open and I couldn’t tell if it had been fully cleaned or not. I went back to the lobby to report the situation and the receptionist hooked me up with a ground floor unit on the other side of the motel which turned-out to be a lot nicer. So… sometimes you freak out for no reason.

After unloading, did the media download/logging and wrote this blog post and then to bed.