Thursday, April 14, 2022. Chiriaco Summit to Tucson AZ
The temperatures had dropped into the 50’s during the night so we had no issues with comfort overnight. Chiriaco Summit’s dry camp was probably nicer than the crowded national park campgrounds which were also dry camps.
We stopped at the Chevron station where we had filled up last night and used the bathrooms before hitting the road. The weather was perfect with scattered high clouds and daytime temperatures in the 70’s. There is a lot of semi-truck freight traffic on I-10. There are some stretches where the right lane has developed rough pavement and a few pot holes that you have to keep an eye out for. Fortunately, vehicular traffic eastbound was light so we could spend much of our driving in the left lane, ducking into the right lane between semi’s when vehicular traffic came up from behind.
The temperatures had dropped into the 50’s during the night so we had no issues with comfort overnight. Chiriaco Summit’s dry camp was probably nicer than the crowded national park campgrounds which were also dry camps.
We stopped at the Chevron station where we had filled up last night and used the bathrooms before hitting the road. The weather was perfect with scattered high clouds and daytime temperatures in the 70’s. There is a lot of semi-truck freight traffic on I-10. There are some stretches where the right lane has developed rough pavement and a few pot holes that you have to keep an eye out for. Fortunately, vehicular traffic eastbound was light so we could spend much of our driving in the left lane, ducking into the right lane between semi’s when vehicular traffic came up from behind.
We have learned a few things on our trip so far. We could now recognize the Colorado Desert, and could also recognize when that transitioned into the Sonoran desert, characterized by the appearance of Saguaro cacti. We could also tell when we transitioned from California to Arizona by a drop in fuel prices by more than $0.50/gal.
There was a RV dump site along the route in Blythe CA that Ben wanted to check out. It was quite a ways out of town and it suprisingly enough did not have any water for flushing or potable water anywhere. That turned out to be a wasted detour. Although our grey and black tanks only say they are 1/3 full, we do need to refill our fresh water since we’ll be doing more dry camping before our RV park stay with hookups in TX.
We did find potable water at the Ehrenberg AZ rest stop. It was set up next to the curb, near the pet exercise area. The hydrant had a strange outlet under the normal hose bib, and when you turned on the hydrant, all the water came out of that outlet. But Ben eventually figured out that if you pulled down on the outlet, the water would then go through the hose bib.
The hydrant only had 20psi pressure, so it took a while, but we were able to top off our fresh water tank. While we were at the rest stop, Ben replaced the air filter with the new one we bought in Las Vegas, keeping the original as a spare. Ben was hoping to improve fuel economy with a new air filter.
We did encounter traffic in earnest in Phoenix. There are several Costco’s in Phoenix, but only one in the north part of Phoenix carried diesel. But the price of $4.399 made it worth the detour. The Odometer read 17398 and the fill up took 18.129gal (12.8mpg). The fuel economy was disappointing, but most of the driving was at 75mph.
We had lunch at In-N-Out in Phoenix, and then arrived at the Moto Sonora Brewery around 3:30pm.
Ben called a colleague who had retired about 10 years ago and was now a snow bird, living winters in Tucson and Summers on Whidbey Island. Thom and his wife Rhonda live about 45 minutes from the brewery, so we drove to a nearby Camping World to see if we could dump our holding tanks. Many Camping World locations have RV dump sites that are free to Good Sam members, but we discovered that this location does not. However, the receptionist there had a list of free and pay RV dump sites nearby. We found one very near the Pima Air and Space museum so we got our holding tanks emptied and got to see some interesting planes parked along the fence including B-28, B-36, and B-52 bombers all in a row.
Ben’s rear view camera display was staring to act flakey- shutting off and restarting by itself, so after we returned to the Brewery, Ben traced the problem to a loose connection in the compartment above the overhead console which was fixed with a bit of electrical tape. Thom and Rhonda walked up on us at the RV. We gave them a brief tour, and then we headed into the Brewery. We got caught up over micro brews and vegan food.
The Brewery has a vegan food trailer parked in the front parking lot. The food was interesting, but I think vegan bacun is a poor substitute for the real thing, while the Beyond Meat patties do taste a lot like real beef. The Brewery is very popular with a younger crowd, mostly in their 20’s and 30’s. A lot of people brought their dogs, but it is surprising how some people’s dogs are not properly socialized and growl and bark at other dogs in such a public setting. They made everyone a bit uncomfortable. It is beyond me how those owners don’t seem to realize the trouble they cause when their dogs are poorly trained, and they don’t seem to care the adverse impact their poor dog training skills have on people around them. Undoubtedly pandemic dog owners.
They have wifi in the beer garden, but it didn’t extend to the parking lot where our RV was parked. But we do have good cellular service here. The TV also scanned numerous OTA channels which allowed Janet to watch the latest episode of Midsummer Murders on PBS.
