I’m telling you, those crazy waffle machines they have in all the hotels now aren’t NEARLY as exciting as they were the first few times I saw and used them! Every flea-bitten (flea-infested?) hotel now advertises “Hot Breakfast” or even “Hot BUFFET Breakfast”. By now I know better; I’ll skip it and instead pull into one of the truck stops an hour into the drive and go for the egg mcmuffin and coffee. 

It’s just a few minutes out of Albuquerque and immediately the scenery changes. Before me, as far as the eye can see, extends a big valley with rocky ridges out in the distance and a ‘ribbon of divided highway’ painting a black stripe from me to the horizon. And the farther down the road I go, the better the scenery gets. I take a turn south off of the interstate at Grants and take the scenic route through the El Malpais National Conservation Area. I should have taken more photos. It’s a bit of a climb up to Show Low, Arizona where I stop for gas. At 6300 ft, the temperature here is freezing. And the ‘sleety’ rain that’s coming down limits my fill to ten bucks — that will get me ‘home’ where I’ll fill it up for real. But the best part of the ride is just ahead. The winding trip down to a thousand feet of elevation takes me through the Snake River Canyon. STUNNING! You don’t even WANT to pass the slow vehicles ahead of you because it’s so much fun to look at the cliffs on the one side and the canyon down to the river below you and the other side. The highway soon takes a turn back up to northwest, and then it’s only a few more minutes and I see the familiar and welcome sight of Superstition Mountain. I’m “home” — at least it FEELS like I’m home. I’m happy to be here.

I had emailed the rental agent yesterday to enquire about how to get access to the house — and she emailed back that she was too busy and so she gave me the access code to the community gate and told me the keys to the house would be under the mat at the front door. I made a quick stop at the Basha’s grocery store at the corner to buy provisions for the first evening and tomorrow’s breakfast. I’m still not very comfortable shopping for groceries, but I had made a bit of a list and I managed okay. Then I drove to the house — again, I remembered the area because a few years ago Sue and I had come from Palm Springs to visit our friends Dave and MaryLou who had rented a house in this same complex. I found the keys, parked the van in the garage, unloaded the groceries, and opened a bottle of Sam Adams lager. Ahhh. This will work out just fine!