Goodbye to Arizona and California,

On the way down we spent a month in California and over 2 months in Az. Good winter places, but way to hot in the summer, especially Az.

Both Ca. and Az. are in very bad financial state. Worse than Wa. They have both closed most of the rest stops. Very hard on travelers who need a rest from driving or a restroom. All of the rest stops in New Mexico and Texas are open. We have it a little easier because we had the RV. Arizona has also closed 13 out of 17 State Parks. That is a real shame. Where do families go for a little recreation? And tourists? The state is trying to get some cities to take them over.

The desert has a beauty in itself, but it can never replace the mountains and green trees that we take for granted.

We will be very glad to get home to watch some local channels. We have Direct TV and for us to get ABC, NBC or CBS, we get an East Coast feed of New York City or West Coast feed of L.A. There is a Republican Primary going on and we are SO TIRED of the commercials for them. The race is getting very nasty. One nice thing about the East Coast feed is that we can watch some TV shows really early since we can't DVR anything.

It has been interesting to also see different newspapers around the country. Weird where they put some sections. Most areas are really big on obituaries, pages and pages of them. Much more than in Seattle.

Arizona has really fancy artwork on the sound walls that line the freeway. Very beautiful. Alot are in different colors. Certainly a alot fancier than anything we have seen in Wa.

We have really enjoyed our first trip as snowbirds. We plan on doing this every year. This time we tried to go to different places than we had been before. So many places to see in the U.S.

Wanted to mention one more thing about Texas. No Casino's. They don't allow them. The casino's right on the border of Oklahoma and Texas are filled with mostly Texans. Alot of the people think that the state is lossing alot of revenue by not allowing them.