Ughhhh.

I blinked blearily and cautiously tested movement. Ouch! Everything was stiff and sore.

Napping the the back of an HHR will do that, I guess.

Semi-trucks parked nearby happily chugged away. I sat up slowly. Just where in the hell was I?

Gradually it came back. Closed rest areas, a truck stop in New Mexico. But even more importantly, a truck stop with a McD’s. This meant I could get drinkable coffee! I glanced next to me and saw we’d been joined by a blue pickup, it’s human hunched over the wheel also sleeping.

We untangled ourselves from Hhrbie, looking like ragamuffins. I didn’t care too much. We had to get to Mesa, AZ that day to spring our van from Sleazy Jeff’s. I had sacked out in the back for a nap since I had to do the bulk of the driving that day, some of it in Phoenix.

After purchasing some liquid ambition from the beckoning arches, we pressed onward. There were interesting-looking places to explore, but alas we didn’t have time. We only had 4 days to get from up north to Phoenix and back. Someday, I will be back to hike volcanoes.

There was quite a bit of truck traffic. The decision was made to cut down though Snowflake, AZ and get off of the Interstate.

As we would further south, chubby little cacti began to peep above the brush growing taller and becoming more dense.

Chubby saguaro, waving at us from the roadside.

A person sure wouldn’t want to go for a stumbling hike in the dark around here.

We stopped in Snowflake, AZ, marveling in the 74 degree sunny weather. I picked up a Calypso lemonade and a new pair of shades for the road. I took a big swig of my lemonade, which had little bits of lemon floating in it and nearly sucked my face inside out. Holy cow. Move over Country Time, this was pucker-worthy.

Later that afternoon we reached…Sleazy Jeff’s Used Autos where our van patiently awaited us.

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 The story is going to take a little bit of a downturn here and will need its own post. I have to figure out how I want to approach this portion. Stay tuned!

Here’s a sneak peek:

That’s floor-dry. It’s scattered below the fuel-filler hose at the Circle-K where we first tried to fuel the van after picking her up.