MARCH 15TH -ARIZONA & AIRSPACE

Another morning with no water and a lot more YouTube videos and phone calls to area businesses asking for ideas for solutions to this most annoying problem.

We give up.  Off to Kenny's we went for showers.  Why is it when I'm home, I can usually get two decent days after I wash my hair but when we're "camping" and we have no water for a proper shower that I wake up like this.......

After showers and a nice visit with Kenny it was time to get our day started with errands we have to run.

First order of business was new sneakers for Walt.  Famous Footwear was our first stop and he found exactly what he was looking for but there was only one shoe in the box and store personnel didn't have a clue where the other one was. And let's not discount the fact that he always buys two pairs and they only had one.  On to Penney's.  He found a pair he liked in his size and even a second pair.  /Now these Skechers were $95.00 which practically made this Queen of Cheap faint!  It almost killed me, but I talked him into getting the two pair.  I know!  I can't believe I did that either!!!  However, there is a method to my madness.  You see, I had a 35% off coupon that started on the 16th. I told him we would return one pair in Mesa and buy it back right away taking that 35% off and we would repeat that in Show Low store.  Always thinking, I am!  He also found 2 golf shirts and two pair of shorts.  I bought NOTHING for me!

Next stop was Walmart for a SDHC card for my camera.  I've taken thousands of pictures with the one I have and figured it has to wear out soon.  Walt found two more pair of shorts he liked and another golf shirt.  A few more things and we were out of there.  But did we ever see some sights while we were there!  My first "Walmartians".  I whipped that phone out so fast!

Do these people not own mirrors?

Back at the Elks Lodge we had lots of stuff to do.  You see, we aren't just here at the Lodge for any run of the mill reason, we're here to leave the travel trailer here while we take off in a jet plane!  This trip has been planned for a while and we told very few people of our plans.  Only two in the park and three outside.

We loaded up the truck with our luggage and headed to the parking lot where we'll leave the truck for a week.  Thanks to our GPS we found it with no problem.  Our ride to Sky Harbor airport arrived quickly and off we went!  Now Walt isn't crazy about driving at night anymore and especially in unfamiliar territory.  Did I mention we left Apache Junction around five and our flight doesn't leave until 11pm?  It's a good thing we like to people watch!  Got to the airport and checked our two large suitcases.  Found our wheelchairs we had reserved and headed to TSA.  (These are needed because Walt is waiting on his next roto-rootering of his legs and I'm having breathing issues.  It doesn't hurt that it affords us early boarding too) The line was long but moved quickly.  I should explain here that when I printed our boarding passes, and luggage tags the kiosk computer asked if I wanted to check a third bag with no extra charge.  Since we had two carry-ons within the size parameters I clicked on NO.  BIG MISTAKE!  Did you know that you now pay $40.00 per bag?  What a rip-off!  So, we put all of our electronics and metal things in the plastic boxes and laid our carry-ons on the conveyor belt.  Walt made it through x-ray with no problems, but I had to be patted down. Then we got the word that TSA wanted to talk with us.  You see, I knew we would be cooking this week, so I packed a small Mayo, Mustard and Ketchup, small bottles of our favorite salad dressings and I got busted because they were too big.  Not to mention all the sunscreen.  They would confiscate them or I could check the carry-on.  THIS  QUEEN OF CHEAP WAS NOT GOING TO THROW AWAY PERFECTLY GOOD STUFF!  So back downstairs we went.  I explained to the lady that I did in fact want to check that third bag now at no charge.  She explained to me that the opportunity for that had passed. Oh NO, I did not want to hear that.  She sent me to a supervisor to see if anything could be done.  That lady sent me to another lady who was higher up in the chain of command.  She sent me to another but did tell me that I should tell her that I did indeed say yes but the machine only spit out two luggage tags!  It worked!  I was a happy camper!  three pieces checked for the ridiculous price of two.  Back upstairs, through TSA AGAIN, patted down AGAIN and we were on our way to the waiting area.  Now all this took a considerable amount of time and we hadn't eaten yet.  Some of the nicer restaurants were closing for the night and the ones still open were crazy busy.  No dinner for us.  Our flight was called and we boarded.....hungry.  It was 11pm and we were headed to Charlotte, NC.  This was the first. leg of our trip.  We were glad when this day was over!