We packed up and had a light breakfast and departed the Legacy Golf resort after a restful, if not uneventful week.
We took Interstate 60 out of Phoenix and hadn't gone long when we hit bad traffic, the worst we had experienced so far on this trip. We did not know if it was an accident or road work's but creeping along for half an hour we suddenly realised that most cars were on the right hand lane and hardly anybody on the left hand lane which we therefore joined immediately. It was a short while later that all the cars were going to a festival which was taking place at Apache Junction, called the Arizona Renaissance Festival and there were crowds because was also a public holiday for Presidents Day. Once we passed the exit to the festival road conditions almost improved to normal and shortly afterwards a police car with flashing lights coming towards suddenly pulled across in front of us, my god what have we done?? Only what it was is a convoy of huge mining equipment about 40 ft. wide and 50 ft. tall coming towards us, and once we had passed we realised why we had been stopped as further down the road it became narrow and there would be no chance of us getting by.
We thought that was enough fun for today and then Noel noticed that one of the tyres on the in built tyre pressure monitor was about 6 pounds lower than the others, the same tyre that gave a problem when we picked up the car. As we have quite a way to travel on roads with few services we found a tyre place and asked them to check the offending tyre. He made a note and took the car away and shortly afterwards came back and said that all the tyres are at completely the wrong pressure and it's amazing you did not have any blowouts as two of the tyres were at a pressure of 56 psi when the tyre max was 50 psi. He said the tyres for this car should be at 35 psi and I explained our earlier questioning of this problem at another garage but anyway he let down all the tyres to the correct pressure. So Bl**dy hell what would have happened had we not checked. A strong complaint will be on the way to National Car Hire.
We travelled through places called Globe, Geronimo, and Pima and stopped in a wayside rest stop in a town called Bylas, for a picnic lunch, which is in a Apache Indian settlement area. To say the place was run down is an understatement with rubbish everywhere and many of the houses were either empty or full up with old card, old bit of metals and plastic bags and generally rubbish everywhere. On the wall in Bylas were notices about if you feel like committing suicide, give us a call first. For the last couple of hours we had passed many, many RV sites mostly of poor quality where people live in poor conditions. On a TV programme somewhere I saw an advert saying that 45 million people in the USA live on the breadline or lower and you can see this everywhere here, but at least the weather is warm. We noticed a large amount of churches all in good nick whilst the Government Building was always very new but surrounded by the lower class housing. Not Good America.We drove another 90 odd miles though wide open spaces climbing ever higher so our ears were popping, and surrounded by mountains although perhaps 10-15 miles away it was really interesting countryside. We finally arrived at our nights stop in a town called Lordsburg and staying at the Hampton Inn on points.
The Hotel is the standard Hampton so you always know what you are going to get, a bit like McDonald's but without the chips oops I meant fries.
There are few places to eat in the town but were recommended to a place down the road with mixed Trip Advisor reviews but we chose a burger rather than anything else as we felt that can't really get that wrong and it was the right decision.
Tomorrow we leave for Ela Paso, not a long journey but we plan to have a late BBQ lunch, then check in to the Doubletree Hotel and later perhaps go to the cinema.
