August 2nd, 2006

August 2nd: Left New Mexico and rode into Arizona. We got to the Painted Desert (and Petrified Forest) at about noon. It was hot and dry as we rode through the park, and it was 3pm before we stopped for lunch.

Riding into the afternoon, we stopped at Meteor Crater, where a huge meteor once impacted into the desert. We then rode to Flagstaff, where we got a campsite for the night...

Camping is nothing like I remember it from when I was younger. Our campsite offered Cable TV and Internet Access. More than half of the site was occupied by RVs and camper-trailers. Since we had just a small tent, we were given a little ghetto spot. There was no grass inside our 10x10 patch of rock. No campfires were allowed, and the entire site was on a slope. We set up our tent, and then rode 3 minutes to the mall, to pick up a long-sleeved light shirt for Kathleen, and to get dinner. Camping at the base of a mountain shouldn't have a mall 3 minutes away, nor internet access.

After the most uncomfortable night ever, we decided that if this was how camping was going to be, we'd had enough of that. We boxed up our camping stuff and mailed it home, to cut the load on the bike for the rest of the trip.

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