Always at this point in the trip we think of the old saying “the horse can smell the barn". We’ve tried at various times in the past to split the last long day home into two or three shorter driving days. We can both feel the draw if we push on a little further, we can be in our own bed tonight.
So that was the order of the day. Be up, breakfast and drive. The drive would be over 800 miles in about 14 hours. We took turns driving, we listen to books on CDs as well as played a National Parks Trivia game. We talked. We took pictures. And mostly reflected on the amazing trip that we had. Patti pulled up songs from the concerts we had heard these past several weeks. It was amazing. We were exhausted. The direction of the drive today was west west always west sometimes a little further north mostly headed south.
Near the Arizona California border we hit the hottest weather that we’ve had so far on the trip. Stopping for gas near Lake Havasu the temperature reading was 113°. It just took your breath away even getting out of the car to put gas in and running in to go to the bathroom. This crazy ,crazy hot weather is the main reason that we decided to cut our trip short. Being out even for a few minutes and it confirms: this is not the type of weather to do sightseeing.
We did make one brief stop at a historic site: Poston Japanese-American Internment Camp in Arizona. We have visited various internment camps from the World War II area throughout our travels, but had never been able to go to this one. There wasn’t too much to see here, except a couple of memorials that were dedicated to those who had suffered there. It was very very sobering and sad as we pictured the suffering that happened to these people out of fear and prejudice. We did want to take a little time to stop and remember horrible time when American citizens of Japanese descent were arrested and taken to isolated concentration camps. Although we were tired, and it was hot, hot hot, we were glad to be able to stop and remember the suffering that happened on this site. As we drove to see the memorial the land mostly looked very desolate. It was dry and hot, hot hot. We checked the temperature as we went along. It was anywhere from 113 to 118°. This would have been the type of temperature experienced by the 18,000 people who were incarcerated here. They had to deal with it for months on end, every year during World War II. We were happy to be able to leave after 20 minutes in the heat. How hard it must have been to have been trapped there against your will.
And now, time to be home. When we pulled in around 9 PM. It had been a long long day. It is always good to see our house. We went in and immediately turned on the whole house fan to get rid of the stale air. It would be great to sleep in our own bed tonight. Tomorrow will be soon enough to check the plants and really unpack. We just took a few things in and had such a sigh of relief. As the song says, “hey, it’s good to be back home again.”
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