We left Arizona on Tuesday...haven't been missing the heat but sure have been missing the pool! Oh well. We took a different route home this time because we planned on going through BC and visit with daughter Mary, SiL Greg and grnadkids Layla and Baron. This made for an interesting trip.

First stop was Laughlin, NV. Lloyd had been there on a golf trip a couple of years ago and ever since then he's wanted to take me there. Laughlin is an interesting town, across the river from Bullhead City, AZ. It markets itself as the 'new Las Vegas. It's a beautiful little city built on the banks of the Colorado River.

This beautiful riverboat is actually the Colorado Belle casino. We stopped here for lunch at their buffet.

Of course, we had to walk through the casino to get to the restaurant. My eye was caught by a slot machine called Early Retirement. So, I put $20 in and decided to have some fun. Ten minutes later I quit, having doubled my money and made enough to pay for dinner. Not early retirement but a win anyway.

The Aquarius is where Lloyd and the guys stayed when they came for their golf trip.


The welcome to Laughlin park.

From Nevada we drove north through Utah and Idaho, stopping overnight at Beaver, UT. And on through Idaho and into Oregon and then Washington. I didn't take many pictures because we didn't stop very much. We travelled through beautiful country, mostly up and down mountains, but not sharp rocky mountains like we have in Alberta but softer, rounder, friendlier mountains with beautiful canyons and rivers. Lloyd did most of the driving because those edge-of-the-mountain roads were a bit scary for me and Lloyd handles them so much better than I could.

Finally I couldn't stand it any more and when Lloyd asked if I wanted to stop and take some pictures, I jumped at the chance, knowing that the pictures wouldn't do justice to the absolutely gorgeous scenery we were passing through.

This was just north of Moses Lake, WA. There's a beautiful chain of lakes up there that haven't been overdeveloped with vacation homes and camps. The one above is Blue Lake. I was impressed with the large house tucked in there.

Then, further along, there was this view point. This is the site of what was, thousands of years ago, the largest waterfall in the world. It was enormous. Just a bit of water remains in the basin.


Here's Lloyd standing on a lookout over it. It gave me butterflies in my stomach to go out there on that bridge...scary high.

Then, almost to BC, we came to the Chief Louis Dam on the Colorado River.


And then we were finally back in Canada. Osoyoos is just two miles from the border, and that's where we're staying. As much as we love travelling it's always a relief to be back home in Canada again. It's amazing driving through our two countries - the scenery changes mile by mile, as does the weather, and there's so very much to see. I'm glad to be able to see the part of the world that we live in.

Arizona - Day 1

Well, here we are...three days on the road travelling in a steady southward direction. When we arrived here in Surprise yesterday afternoon it was 110F (43-45C), bright and sunny. The water in the pool was too warm for a refreshing swim so we waited until after dark when it cooled down a bit and then spent an hour or so in our little bit of heaven on earth.

It's not often we travel down here by car - it's a long drive - but the scenery is absolutely stunning. From Montana down we're in the mountains - all types of mountains - from the craggy high stone ones we're used to in Alberta, to the lower, red-striped ones of the US south. If we had stopped to take pictures of everything I wanted to, it would have taken us a week to drive down here.

We drove 5 hours the first day - from our home in Edmonton to our retirement home in Lethbridge.

Day 2 was our hard day - 12 full hours - but we always want to put the dreaded Salt Lake Valley behind us before we stop for the night - that's the very worse part of the drive - the freeway through the valley has very dense traffic and always construction in parts - very stressful driving.

The drive through Idaho was lovely though. I think if I was a student I'd like to go to the Idaho State University in Pocatello - such a beautiful little city in a magnificent setting. So we bombed through the Salt Lake Valley and spent the night in a motel in Nephi, UT. Yesterday was just an 8 hr. drive through southern Utah and Arizona.

It's amazing how the geography of Arizona changes mile by mile. We entered AZ through Page and the Powell River Dam in the north






- all high desert with miles of red rock - flat as a board until...the HILL. What a scary drive. You descend from the high desert to the valley floor in about ten minutes on a very well maintained highway etched into the side of the red cliffs. There's a couple of scenic stops halfway down. We pulled over at one of them where we took a few pictures.





Then we drove through the Navajo Nation over by Tuba City and then started climbing a mountain again. In a matter of an hour or so we were at an altitude of 7000 ft, in pine woods and cooler temperatures - just like home. Then on through Flagstaff and down the mountain again until at 3000 ft it was low enough and hot enough for the saguaro cactus to grow.



And then down, down, down until we were in the Valley of the Sun, and Surprise. It's good to be here and with air conditioning in the house, cars, stores, banks, etc. we should be able to tolerate the excessive heat quite well. After all....it's a dry heat...:)