The day started off similar to the first day. Lots of driving through mountains; beautiful views, scarce city life - then I start wondering "Is that all there is?". I guess I tend to get bored easily. Once we got into New Mexico, the desert was more prevalent. When I stopped at a rest area for the dogs "potty time", they were baffled by all of the sand they had to walk through. There was no grass, only sand and rock. Zooey never did get used to it. Seymour did better and just followed scents, as usual.
We drove through miles of potential dust storm areas and I saw many mini tornado like dust storms in the fields. Luckily none blocked our vision of the road but it looked like it was a very common occurrence.
Finally we crossed the border into Arizona, the Grand Canyon State. We stopped at the first rest area and was surprised to see that it wasn't a Welcome Center. Neither was the second rest area. What I did see were 2 signs, side by side. I tried to take a picture but it didn't turn out. The first sign said "Pet Area". The sign beside it said "Poisonous snakes and insects found here". "Hey little doggies, romp around and enjoy yourselves!". Not! I took them on the sidewalks where I could see what was crawling around. I am not sure if Arizona wants visitors.
It was about 5 pm when I began looking for places to stay for the night. Nothing looked interesting so I looked at the Allstays app on my phone and found a number of options in Benson, AZ. When I got to town, I saw a sign for Butterfield RV Resort. Now I am not normally a "resort" kind of person but I decided to give it a try. It cost a little over $37.00 a night. It is clean and the people are friendly.
This appears to be a good time of year to travel, because camp grounds haven't been crowded. The only problem here is that a train passes very regularly, so it is noisy. But it is a nice setting.
They have an enclosed dog park where I took both dogs off leash to do their thing. Seymour loved it and Zooey just stood by me. Again no grass, but this time pea gravel. As you can see, Zooey wanted out immediately and Seymour can be seen along the fence line - sniffing happily.
The coolest thing about the park is that they have a small observatory and have a very entertaining sky shows at night. This one had a large telescope and we all viewed numerous stars and clusters. My favorite was Ring Nebuli, that looked like someone blowing a smoke ring. I forgot to mention that last night, we saw the northern lights clearly across the sky. They said there were too many lights to see it here.
Also, since Arizona doesn't do Daylight Savings Time, I gained 2 hours. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet.
I forgot to mention that the first time I filled up the camper, I got 15.2 mpg. Not great but better than the 12 mpg I got with my last camper.
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you could take a nap. great mileage. really good!
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