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SO THERE WE WERE, the Yard Man and I, heading into the sunrise for the first time in ten days! (Of course, we weren't watching its first burst of glory, but it was still climbing upward in the sky as we headed east.) And, hurray, after studying the map over breakfast, we saw we had time to meander toward Phoenix, in spite of our time-gobbling fiasco the night before!



Our return route was south of our western route, but we saw a lot of the same types of scenery and terrain as we'd seen heading west.












Every once in a while, however, we came across something entirely new (like a serpentine road that was a map of the last ten miles we had traveled), and then I'd be frantically scrambling through my camera again...throwing out earlier pictures as fast as I could to make room for the new. It became the main activity of my day. "My goodness," said the Yard Man. "We've been to so many places where you could have gotten another media card!"


"Hmmm, I'm not sure about that. It seems to me we were miles from nowhere during much of this trip!" I responded. "But, oh! Stop the car! I haven't seen purplish-pink cactus before!"










Nor had I ever before been tempted to steal an orange --in an unripe state and straight off the tree (well, never in any state, I can honestly say). But extensive groves of citrus fruit were just too much to resist. "Please pull over," I begged my Yard Man.
"Just look how beautiful! And I'll bet they ripen off of the tree! Don't you think it would be okay to pick just one? Won't you stop?" I wheedled.And do you know what he did, that Adam (ooops, I mean that man who was driving the rental car)?! He pulled right off the road and up to the tree. He made it possible for Eve to just open her window and pluck an orange!

I have to confess, Dear Reader, it's good those oranges were not really ripe. (And perhaps it's good, too, that my suitcase was already weighted down with a bag of rocks!) Yes, we got past those lovely landscapes of fruit and vegetables sans larceny of any kind!





I went back to gushing over boulders and mountains and clouds.
Oh, those clouds!
The only thing they tempted me toward was
a false belief that I'd never seen such a sight before in my life!





It was mid-afternoon by now and we'd spent a lot of time in the car.
Sure, we weren't making a beeline for Phoenix, but neither could we get out and lollygag a lot.

It didn't much matter, there was no place to stop! That's right, there was no place at all to stop. Even the Yard Man was getting nervous when the low level gas light came on and we heard the warning 'ding.'
It was still umpteen miles to the nearest little pinpoint spot on the map that signified human activity!


Then, what do you know? Out of the barren expanse popped a shopping center! Yes,
'Salome Shopping Center,' so said the sign.
We could buy gas! (The Yard Man and I, we both breathed a sigh of relief, because--it wasn't quite like locking the keys in the trunk--but without any gas, we'd have been loitering in the desert until even the clouds lost their charm!)





We eagerly entered the shopping center
(first point of interest in fifty miles)...and
were quite enthralled! Offered for sale were: bananas, balloons, hula-hoops, garden hose, toilet tissue, ice trays and a vacuum cleaner...all in the very same aisle! And that's not all:















If one needed a little statuette, right there they were, along with the bread and the plastic flowers!









The aisles were tiny and cramped, but the shelves overflowed with most anything one could be after!

(Except for one thing, of course. "Ha!" I said to the Yard Man, "find me a media card!")







Back in the car, we chattered about the fascinating shopping center for miles.
And miles and miles.
And then we came to the tiny town of Wickenburg, where we just missed the Visitor's Center and museum (closed at 5:00, like everything else of note). But, aha, we did get something to eat at a great little Mexican restaurant where our meal was so delicious, we wolfed it down, thus eating up the last of our western vacation!



(Except for the final short stretch into Phoenix--where we spent the night, and prepared for take-off).











Adios!


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