Road Trip: Cacti and North: Day Seven

Today was the day were were going to meet the other road trip crew at the Grand Canyon; it didn't happen (we knew it wasn't going to happen a couple days ago). We made the decision to spend more time in southern Arizona and delay our arrival at the Grand Canyon by a day or more. I regret nothing, Tuscon was an amazing area.

We got an early start today due to the incessant nudging of the sun's rays. South we again drove; Organ Pipes National Monument was our initial destination today. Apparently there is a really nice campground inside the park, which cost almost nothing to stay there. Since several years ago, people just stopped staying there; they were afraid of mounted Mexican bandits coming North to steal their jobs. Attendance apparently fell to nothing right after 9/11 and security checkpoints were added all over the area. Truthfully, I thought this park was as scenic as Saguaro, and because of it's remoteness more serene.

We were only able to work in a short hourish auto loop in the park before we began to head North again. We are more than halfway through vacation and time is starting to creep up on us. Our goal was to reach Flagstaff for the night.

We did make one pit stop about halfway up to Flagstaff; we attempted to do some mineral hunting from a site listing in one of the books I picked up in Tuscon. It didn't go as easily as we would have liked; the map must have been twenty or more years out of date and have little resemblance to reality. Yes there was a town by that name, and yes there was a highway by that number that went through the town, but no none of the other landmarks were to be found, they were likely there bright as day, 20 years ago, but have since been covered up by new construction.

We finally made it to Flagstaff and headed East forty or so miles to spend the night at the Meteor Crater RV park. We would have been happy as could be at a more primitive campsite, but I wanted a shower and a shave (and oh was I a happier person after the fact). We had Subway for dinner, and washed it down with ice cold Guinness. The tent was set up with the rain fly on tonight, because it was colder out, the the fly does a wonderful job of blocking cold and wind. The windows were left open, so we could look out. It was a bit colder than expected, so we closed the windows later as well as grabbed the Kmart Comforter from underneath our sleeping bags and pulled it over us in the middle of the night. It was much warmer after that.