Yuma Day 3 and Tucson

  • Slept fairly well.  Hot, needed to use ceiling fan until early morning.  Breezy outside this AM.  Considering sleeping at some camping area in Tucson, then move out early towards El Paso.  Not being able to get online to check things out has been a hassle that either I’ll need to get used to or find another way.  Should have been easy here at Aunt Rosa’s house, but turned out to be a non-starter with the internet access.  Will hit up a Starbucks along the way to check email, campsites, road and weather conditions.
  • Drove through Ajo, AZ, which I’ve always wanted to do.  Not much here except old copper mine and lots of old hippies.  Most of the restaurants are closed up.
  • Drive from Ajo to Tucson was nice.  Lots of desert landscape as I remember it.  Highway was quiet and peaceful, since most people don’t drive this section going through the Indian reservation.
  • There was a lot of construction on the highway going towards Tucson, just west of Robles Junction.  The wind really started to kick up west of Tucson and didn’t seem like a very time for camping, much less cooking.  So I stopped at the Karichimaka restaurant, picked up some food to go and headed towards the airport to find a hotel to stay at.  Going into the Karichimaka seemed like going back in time, to another part of my life.  Yet I still felt pretty detached.  It was somebody else’s restaurant, somebody else’s problem, somebody else’s life.
  • Drove around the airport area hotels for about twenty minutes looking for hotel with vacancy and a parking spot big enough for the truck and trailer (where I could monitor from the hotel window – this area of Tucson isn’t that great).  Ironic that the only place that I stayed at a hotel on this trip was my hometown of Tucson.  The only family that I have here now is in the cemetery…
  • Hotel was decent, not cheap, but not expensive, and had internet.  Ate the takeout food from Karichimaka (which was very good) and did some research on places to stay in the next several days.

 

Yuma – Day 2

Ambrosio Barrios was A.Rosa’s grandfather on her mother’s side. She has vivid memories of him sitting in rocking chair, white beard, dressed in suit, waiting to give them candy after they returned from school. Not much is known about his background. He may have been adopted. He married A. Rosa’s maternal grandmother (also a Barrios, but a different family). Ambrosio had a son that died while A. Rosa was in secondary school.

Aunt Rosa Luz was born in San Miguel, Sonora, Mexico.

Tia Loreto’s brother lived in San Miguel. A. Rosa tells story of when she visited San Miguel and met widow of her Mom’s brother, who spent the remaining six months of her life as a recluse in her own home, leaving orphaned the two sons and four daughters. The youngest daughter is now the grandmother to one of A. Rosa’s current neighbors in Yuma.

Alicia and Enrique were born in El Tigre, which was a copper/gold mining town operated by an American interest. Tio Juan had a truck that he used to haul ore to the smelter in Douglas, AZ when he was working/living in El Tigre.

There were other uncles that maintained a close relationship with the family (Tio Mateo, Tio Octavio, etc.) and some of these old timers did show up at the family reunion back in the 1980’s.

  • Alicia visited for a short while this afternoon. She looks the same.
  • Took nap for about an hour, then sat outside chatting, after the sun went down. Took three aspirin to kill off the stiff neck from driving yesterday.
  • Tulita and Kevin arrived at close to 11:00 PM. Chatted briefly, then to sleep.
  • There are pictures of older relatives at Tulita’s house, but will need to see these some other time in the future.
  • Kevin spent about 15 minutes looking for the WAP access key. Maybe Melissa knows what it is. I recommended that if they need to know what it is, they’ll need to hard reset the wireless router and then set a new password (I doubt any of them know how to log in to the router), and I didn’t want to spend my vacation time trying to figure it out.

Departure Day & Yuma

 This is the first post of the 2014 Drive Across America road trip

  • Up at 4:40, without alarm going off. Slept well enough
  • Jim helped me load truck
  • Ate two bowls of oatmeal and chatted with family
  • Ice tray had not frozen thoroughly overnight
  • Goodbyes and well wishes
  • Took almost ten minutes to get out of the driveway. Down the road by 6:10
  • Stopped at Safeway for quart of motor oil, since truck was about that low on oil. Leak somewhere?
  • Also stopped at Chase ATM to deposit Silicon Sage check and get $400 more in cash
  • Finally on the road by 6:40
  • Foggy through first part of Hwy 152
  • San Luis reservoir was pretty low
  • Air quality much better along I-5 compared to back in January
  • Traffic along I-5 quite reasonable
  • Stopped at two rest stops and two gas stations before getting to I-210
  • Odometer stopped working on early part of I-5, just about the time that I began using cruise control. Coincidence? It was also rolling over from 12099 to 12100 when it stuck. Trip odometer also quit working. Hmmm.
  • Nevertheless, it appears that I’m getting between 25 and 30 miles per gallon with cruise control, 60mph (indicated) and 2500 RPM.
  • OAT near Indio got into the 90’s
  • Huge backup on northbound Hwy 86 between Salton City and Brawley due to Border Patrol checkpoint
  • Car wreck along desert stretch of Hwy 86 before Brawley. Pickup truck belly up, cab crushed. Lots of emergency vehicles