Quickie Trip to Phoenix!

Every have one of those trips when things just plain don't go as planned!  We certainly had one of those!  It started out about as bad as a trip could get, but ended up great!

We had planned to go to Mesa/Phoenix for the Labor Day weekend so Susan could see Papa and Carlene, Amy, and Jo and Al before she headed back to school.  On Friday, though, Susan started to get the sore drainage throat.  We didn't think much about it.

Friday afternoon, we loaded the car and took off for the valley.  We had the pick-up loaded with green chile to drop off in Holbrook for Lynn and Jay.  As we hit the on-ramp, we knew we had made a bad decision as far as the freeway was concerned.  The freeway was totally void of cars both directions except for a police car about a tenth of a mile ahead who was piloting bumper to bumper traffic behind him.  Too late for us, there was no way to turn around.  Needless to say, we wound up nearly an hour behind.  However, Susan was coughing and hacking in the backseat all the way to Holbrook.

We called Papa to see if they still wanted us to come with Susan so sick.  They did want us to come, but Carlene hasn't been doing well, so we decided it would be better not to come and get her sick.  We called Amy to see what she thought, and she said maybe we should go home.  Lynn and Diane talked us into going out to El Ranch with them since we were going to be heading back home, and we hadn't eaten yet.  Just after we started out the door, Amy called and asked if we would come anyway.  We were excited to see her, so of course, we said we would!

Well, we went to the El Rancho, and wound up waiting OVER an hour for our food to arrive, and then another 20 minutes after we finished to get the check.

By this time, it was 9:30 pm, and we still had a three-hour drive ahead, with a stop in Winslow to drop off Jay's chile.

So, WAY behind schedule, we headed down to the valley.  It was late, and we were tired.  Doug finally had to pull off at a rest stop and walk around in order to stay awake.

Well, we had forgotten the Nuvi.  We discovered that while we were stuck in traffic back in Gallup.  I decided to download a GPS app on my phone to help us navigate the unknown areas of Phoenix, especially in the dark.  That GPS took us far, far away from our hotel into a quiet, dark residential area in Peoria.  We pulled up in a dark cul-de-sac, and the GPS let us know we had arrived.  Yikes!  Lost and stranded at 1:30 am!

Finally we looked on googlemaps for our address, and it took us there.  We backtracked for a very long time.  We got to the hotel at 2:00AM,  New Mexico time.

By this time, Susan's cold was full-blown, and she was miserable.

Finally with all our mis-adventure behind us, we got up Saturday morning, and all was right with the world once again.

Amy in her apartment!

We spent a lovely day with Amy.  We went to the Phoenix temple and did initiatories.  Susan stayed and did homework at Amy's house.

The weather had been HOT in Phoenix, but luckily, we hit a time it was cooling down a bit.

It was great to go to the temple with our baby girl!

 After we were done at the temple, we went back and got Susan.  We went to see Amy's school, and then we took Susan to see the temple.

The outside of Amy's school.

See her name by the door!

By her desk!  She's a real teacher now!

It was starting to get hotter by the time we got back to the temple.

But it was still a beautiful day!

I love my babies!  Later we went out to lunch with Joanne and Al, but I forgot to take pictures of that.