It's a bright, bright sunshiny day!

The skies were picture perfect as the AM sun cast shadows on the rich browns and reds of the Franklin mountains just west of El Paso,TX. Kevin could see very Clearly Now and there were no obstacles in his way (see song reference :).

The ship made an early launch at 8:30 with an immediate fueling stop. Exiting that it was open roads with very little traffic and only a few tumbleweeds rolling across the freeway to cause any interest.

The destination was 250 miles on I-10, Kevin was so possessed and obsessed he completed the entire drive in 4 hours non-stop, passing thru 2 state borders and into Mountain time zone! Theresa offered to take a turn but was promptly turned down not to mess with the groove, so she continued knitting.

 The Butterfield RV Resort, just 30 miles east of Tucson, AZ, claimed to be '3 Time Arizona Park of the Year'. Reservations were made here for 5 days as plans were to stay off the road and do a little work from here before making the final 2 day push into Hemet, CA. One of the unusual features of the park is that it has it's own observatory!

Since such and early arrival was made Theresa had made an appointment with the Tucson Apple store to get Kevin's iPhone repaired (see early post on how that happened). That meant another 1 hour drive (one way) into the city past the University of AZ, up Skyline Dr to the La Encantada Mall. The repair was scheduled for 5pm so that would leave time for dinner and maybe some Xmas shopping :)  The Apple store was packed as usual, but with an appointment the priority was escalated (at least that is what they make one think). Since Kevin had Applecare on his iPhone the repair would only be $79 and they would just be replacing the glass front of the phone so no data or back up/restore would be needed. Yeah!

The evening temp started out at in the 60's, but as the night progressed it dropped well into the low 50's. Several times in the night windows that were left open were closed in hopes to keep some heat inside the RV. An unpublicized feature of this park (as every other RV park) is that it is located adjacent to a highly utilized railway track. Trains not only roared by but insisted on blowing the whistle just as they passed the park. This was an hourly occurrences all thru the night, so only snippets of uninterrupted sleep could be accomplished. Perhaps ear plugs were in store for the following night or maybe folks just get used to it...

Monday thru Friday will be focused on work, provisioning, following up on family calls and maybe some site seeing. The park observatory is a must and then there is also the Kartchner Caverns and Tombstone near by.

Friday will be the penultimate travel day, the finish is in reach.