Phoenix, Arizona



One of the many trains we saw crossing the west!



The elusive tumble weed!  The kids wanted to keep it!



Hard at work decorating the ginger bread train for Christmas!



One of the many Saguaro cactus.





Rain clouds building in the desert!



A beautiful evening sky in the desert!

Rolling into Phoenix the wind is definitely out of the sails!  We have driven close to 30,000 miles,been through 30 states and 6 Canadian provinces! Its getting harder to get the kids excited about seeing anything except for the couch and a T.V. and frankly I don't blame them. Once we started getting close to phoenix the family started noticing all the Saguaro cactus in the desert!  We stopped along the roadside to take pictures along with some "tumble weeds" that caught our eye! We even had the rare opportunity to see it rain in the desert.  The sky was beautiful with the clouds building and the sun setting in the west.  this made for some great colors in the evening sky!  One of the items we all were very excited about was a trip in a hot air balloon and Phoenix just so happens to have several places where we can check this off the bucket list!  Up and at it at before the sun rises and we are off to go on our balloon ride.  The weather was clear but rather cold with a morning temperature in the low 30s!  The ride went off without a hitch and the kids had fun for awhile and even in mid flight I got the question of "Dad, how much longer do we have to ride in the balloon"?  Back safely on the ground we enjoyed mimosas and joined in the Ballooner's prayer! News to me, but hey we are open all new things that come along on this trip!  After the balloon trip we had an opportunity to meet up with some of Karen's family.  Karen found out from her mother that a distant aunt and her family lived close by and would like to meet Norman and go out to dinner!  We were happy to meet up with some family along the way!  You get used to being alone on this type of trip, but there is no substitute for family, no matter how distant!  We had a great dinner with lots of good food and conversation, some of which was about Karen's grandmother, which she really enjoyed. The kids got some time with a little boy named Dominick who came along so they were self sufficient for the entire meal!  In the mean time I finalized all the details and accepted a position of Service Director at the Lexus/Toyota dealership in Greenville, South Carolina! We broke the news to the kids and they have taken it well with a commitment from us to visit their friends often!  Greenville is only 2.5 hours from Atlanta so it should be a big problem.  This means the trip now has a deadline, something we haven't had since the beginning of this trip!