A Phoenix that really rises from the ashes...

So who's keeping an eye on the schedule, dang!! We arrived into Phoenix today around 3:30pm after a couple fo great days cruising through desert, mountains and country towns to find the start time of the game was 2pm. It's a damn good thing we decided to check out parking at the "Jobing.com Arena" (voted by Art and I to be the worst 'sell out' name to date) and to our surprise the parking lots were pretty full. We quickly pull over, I get the laptop out (the laptop knows all) and check the start time...yep, 4pm EST. I drop the hammer on the RAV and we squeal into the parking lot on 2 wheels, pack away all the valuables and then race over to the rink. Third period just getting underway, 3 - 2 for the Coyotes (they played the Blues).
The stadium is only 4 years old so it was pretty nice and there was heaps of standing room up the back so instead of going to our seats (becuase how much of loser are you if show up in the last period) I hung out there while Art starting chatting with the Usher - Fred. How does the line from the Cape Breton Review go.."I swear to God when he dies we'll have to beat his mouth to death with a stick!" (I think it's supposed to be a "she" but it works the same way).



By the time Art and I got ourselves leaning on the standing room ledges, they had shut down the beer taps...uh oh...Chris was going to lose it! It's a good thing the third period was pretty entertaining and since it was kids day all the cheering was extremely high pitched. The Blues tied it up and then both teams traded goals to end up tied. The overtime was all Coyotes, or as the fans cheered..."Ki-oats" as in "Let's go Ki-oats" - they out shot the Blues 7 - 0. I'm sure these details fascinate you all!! Anyway, the shootout went to the 4th shooter and Nagy won it for the Coyotes. End result: 5 - 4 (see photo above).

Go get the atlas out and I'll tell you our route. We took route 78 from Anaheim, through Brawley up to Blythe and then took route 95 to the 72 and over into Arizona to Parker for the first night stay.

Rolling rock hills:




From here we took route 95 onto the 40 until Kingman and then route 93 into Phoenix. If you stay off the big interstates, you get to see so much more - like dirt farms as well as sand farms and rock farms.

I think this is a Joshua Tree:


Staying in Phoenix tonight, the city with a mall on every corner, an RV (ie: Caravan) parked in every driveway and an average age of 69! We have 5 days until we're due in Denver (already checked the start time of the game) so the Grand Canyon, National Parks and hopfully a day of skiing are on the menu.