Back online...

Sorry no update for a couple of days. We haven't had internet access. Lots to catch up on. We just had a wonderful visit with Ian's dad & Jean and now we're staying near the Grand Canyon which is amazing!

We had a very teary breakfast with Kelly & Peter before we left LA. Got some smoothies (a proper LA sendoff) and hit the road around 11:00 am. The first day was a long one but Sam surprised us by taking a 3 hour nap in the car. We were shocked! Must have been the hum of the car. So, he was quite the trooper. When he was awake he was either engrossed in his books or sqawking every time a truck would pass (often). We made it to Casa Grande around 8:00 at night. Sam was so happy to be out of the car. He had a great time running around Sandy & Jean's new house.

We stayed in Casa Grande on Monday and tried to replace some of our electronics that didn't make it on the trip. Kind of a pain.

We hit the road bright and early today and made a stop in Williams, AZ for gas. Pulling up to the pump we noticed this guy outright staring at us. We thought he was thinking we were hippies from California (good thing we took that "Impeach Bush" bumper sticker off). But once we were parked he came over and said he noticed that one of our tires looked like it was shredding. At first we thought it was a scam. Here we are in the middle of nowhere and this guy says our tires look bad and all he has are brand new top of the line Firestone tires. But he showed us the tires and we could see where chunks of rubber had fallen off. It turns out that all of our tires needed to be replaced. He said we narrowly missed having a blow-out which would have been really fun in the middle of the desert.

And the thing that makes my blood boil is I just had my car serviced a week before we left. Damn Honda. Why didn't they catch that? The guy that replaced the tires said it would have been obvious several weeks ago. Ugh. I'm going to call Lars at Honda and give him a piece of my mind.

Now I'm waiting for Ian to return with a pizza. We're all in the same room (no money for a suite after the tire fiasco) so it will be a quiet evening since Sam is sleeping just a few feet away.

We managed to transfer some of our pics which I'll post but the Grand Canyon pics are stuck on the camera until we can a digital card reader. At least I think that's what it's called. That's Ian's department.

Bye for now. Tomorrow we're off to Moab, UT. It's been a great trip so far. We're so happy to be on this amazing adventure.