It shouldn't be frustrating. It should be a part of the joy of travel. The fun. But strangely enough, challenge of simple things when you're tired is just labelled 'annoying', not 'fun' by the brain.
Answer: sleep and tolerance. Maybe the other way around. Both.
8am: We've slept well in our Comfort Inn, which had excellent wifi and a laundry, which we took advantage of. Most of the hotels will look after your laundry but in the States, it has been cheaper to buy new gear at the outlets than to wash the existing clothes. Of course then you have lots of dirty clothes. It was nice to get a few things cleaned.
We're on the road in New Mexico, our 14th state this trip, heading west on the I-10. We've done over 3000 miles now, over 4500 kilometers.
We came to a US Border Patrol check point, similar to the one we saw on the other side of the road yesterday.
All west bound traffic was required to stop. We rolled down the window and the officer asked if we were US citizens. When we said 'no', he asked for our visas. Visas? What visas? We were asked to pull over and produce our passports. Which we did, with now four officers standing around us, not looking very friendly.
The Mexican border is 20 miles away to the south here. We'd only just past a prison with big signs on the highway warning not to pick up hitchhikers! And seen the National Guard out in fatigues with huge packs on a morning run through the desert.
New Mexico
From here west through Arizona to California is my favourite countryside. I love the multi coloured earth and craggy mountains, the long straight roads, velvet covered undulating hills, the tussock covered plains, the big sky, the silvery grass.
Some of the mountains are over 10,000 feet high in this area. Definitely stunning landscape.
We crossed the Continental Divide (there were T-shirts available!) which, according to Dom, means that all the rivers and creeks on this side flow down towards the Pacific Ocean, rather than the Gulf of Mexico.
We stopped at Tombstone, hoping to catch the daily gunfight at the OK Coral, but instead came across their yearly street parade. The place was packed with people in fancy dress.
We were stopped at a different border check, but this time just waved through.
We arrived at Pima Air and Space Museum in the early afternoon, and spent an hour and a half wandering the exhibits. The ones outdoors are fun to wander up close to, but it must be punishing in full summer sun. There are lots of great displays in hangars as well.
From there we drove around the 'Boneyard', the fields of old aircraft that have been mothballed. There's a tour that you can do by bus from Pima, but it only runs during the week from 10 am. We thought we'd sneak a look through the fence. It's hard to grasp just how many aircraft there are here. We're very keen to come back and do a tour another time.
We saw Hercules, Galaxies, Starlifters, Globe Masters, Orion's, KC-35's, A-10's, F-16's, A-7's. And many more. All in lines. Hundreds of each. Very impressive.
Just as we left Pima, a huge storm broke with lightning and thunder and high winds.
Having seen what we wanted to, we decided to drive on through to Phoenix (where we'd not planned to stop, but it cuts down our drive to Palm Springs tomorrow), watching the blackness envelope Tucson in our rear view mirror.
Tucson looked to be an interesting city with some cool bars and restaurants. This town goes on our 'Visit next time' list.
Yes, it's a long list.
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