Day 18: Camp Verde to Phoenix AZ

Another early wake up - 6am.  Oh well.  We ate breakfast and then proceeded to pack up or throw out the contents of the RV.  This took a while, so we didn't leave until 9:45am but at least we were done and the camper was clean.

We headed down the road to Montezuma's Castle just outside of Camp Verde.  It is a fort built into side of a hill and has nothing to do with Montezuma.  It was built around 1245 and was inhabited until 1425 when the pre-Indian tribe left for reasons unknown.  It was pretty cool and would have been an excellent place to defend as access was by ladder only.  It had a short scenic path which lead to different views of the castle and during this walk Rohan, completely obliviously, stepped on the tail of a lizard and Julian nearly stood on a beetle the side of a 20cent coin!

We left the castle and went up the road to the interstate. There was a Starbucks there, so we had our first coffee in the US and also put a pin in their world map - no one had visited from Melbourne until us.  We then had another food discussion with Julian who was starving so much he was crying.  This meant we went across the road again for McDonalds - our options were McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell or another Taco restaurant.  We weren't up for another Julian tantrum.  Thankfully he ate a bit and didn't create a scene and was his happy self again.

Back in the RV, we headed back onto the Interstate towards Phoenix.  Rohan was asleep within minutes which meant that Julian had the iPad, and we enjoyed the bliss road noise.  Normally there is music playing - Banana's in Pajamas, Big Day Out (Justine Clarke), The Wiggles or Playschool.  We can sing them in our sleep however Rohan LOVES them and Julian happily sings along which makes for a very pleasant journey.

It was 160km to Phoenix and it was a good road.   Up until this point we had had a cactus count going on for Arizona and the tally was at 3.  That was until about 100km out of Phoenix when suddenly they were everywhere and it just looked like in the movies.  We scrapped the count :)

Jane had obviously stayed off the turps last night as she did an excellent job of directing us to our hotel.  We have a 8:50am flight out tomorrow and we decided that an 8am drop off with a 30min drive to the airport didn't leave much extra for any problems, so we had booked into an airport hotel.  This was a new experience for us but so far so good.

We were staying at a Drury Inn and Suites and even though it was only 1pm, we were able to get into our room.  The room has 2 Queen beds and a BATH!  I may have been more excited than Rohan.  When we left Camp Verde it was 65F, Phoenix was 95F.  So we changed into shorts and drove to drop off the RV. I had tried calling them a number of times but could only leave messages, so they didn't know we were coming and I was worried that we would have issues.  Silly me!  Another person was also dropping off early and there were no problems at all.  We inquired after the cost of an ex-rental RV our size (30ft, sleeps 7) and it would cost $US32,000!  New they are $US40,000.  What an absolute bargin!

They called us a taxi and we waited quite a while.  Julian and I watched "The Peoples Court" and Rohan and Steve explored the RVs that were in the showroom.  The taxi driver filled us in on Cruise America - started in Phoenix by an ex-CEO of Hertz and now owned by his 2 sons.  If we had looked a bit further into the showroom we would have discovered their collection of exotic sports cars.  Lucky them.

Back at the hotel, we all had a rest which included quality TV time for the boys.  Julian was getting sick of the advertisements - "They are not letting me watch television.  I don't like them!"

This hotel has some called "5:30 Kickback" which means they serve complimentary food and alcoholic beverages in their dining room from 5:30 to 7pm.  We headed down there for a dinner of spicy chicken, tomato pasta, baked potatoes and hot dogs.  Thankfully Julian ate 2 hotdogs - yay!  It was here that I learned that Bud Light was a low calorie beer not a low alcohol beer.  Good to know.  Steve stuck with the cabernet.

We gave the boys a bath which they loved so much that they didn't want to get out - of course.  They were both asleep (snoring) by 7:40pm.

Today we said goodbye to our home of 13 nights and we will genuinely miss a lot of things about it.  It was so easy to pack up everyday and get moving in the morning.  It didn't matter what time we arrived somewhere, we were already good to go.  It also allowed us to prepare a lot of our meals, to our tastes, quite cheaply and conveniently.  We had so many lunches sitting comfortably in the carpark of a supermarket - something that we wouldn't have been able to do in a car.  However we wont miss the hard thin mattress or the tiny shower and toilet. We are very happy for this experience and we hope that Julian has fond memories of it.