We shook the dust of Phoenix off our sandals and took the long way to Tucson. The scenery was beautiful but desolate; we expect the scenery to be varying degrees of beautiful but desolate the whole trip.

Today was a day of up and over nameless passes from one nameless valley into another on the back roads of Arizona. The morning found us on the shores of Theodore Roosevelt Lake chatting with a fisherman whose wife showed her love by letting him slip away to fish while she remained behind at the RV with the kids; lunch was both lakeshore and al fresco; the afternoon we hiked up a hill at Tonto National Monument and later toured the Biosphere 2.

A road trip is as much about the roads you take as it is about the stops you make.

In Tucson we found our Airbnb, ate dinner, and spent vacation dollars (they only cost half of normal life dollars in our family) at Albertsons buying groceries for breakfasts at the AirBnb, lunches on the trail, and snacks on the road. We also picked up a few necessities like dark chocolate.

We start with the obligatory selfie, oops I mean usie (I learned something new from Ted Lasso -thanks Erin)
It’s amazing how you can find out where you are
Another usie with a demonstration of how beautiful engineering can be
The Roosevelt dam doesn’t look like much from the upstream side…
But it’s impressive from the downstream side. Good engineering, like good scientific theories, should be elegant.
The view from Tonto National Monument
Which looks stranger, the mask or the hat? MBH is wearing her new Cardinals mask so that everywhere we go people know we are Cardinals fans. I’m also a Cardinal fan.
I give you Biosphere 2, or at least a portion
The ark ship spins slowly in space…
Maybe not since there are no clouds in space
I leave you with this video that I just really like for some reason I can’t put my finger on. Speaking of fingers, I can’t help but think the saguaro cactus looks like it’s giving the world the finger