We had an uneventful and restful night’s sleep at Wal-Mart and got washed and dressed in the RV so we could head over to GOODYEAR TIRE. I forgot to mention that when we got into town last night we saw a lot of people and cars along the sides of the road and asked someone why everyone was milling about, setting up chairs and tents. It turns out that there was a huge American Indian parade today, and there was also a carnival in town last night and today, right outside town. If we weren’t so concerned about the tires, we might have gone to the parade, or the carnival, but we were focused on the RV. We called GOODYEAR to make sure they could do the job. Turns out, no one had turned up for work, because they were all at the parade. Can you believe it?
They recommended a few other places and we finally ended up at TREADWORKS TIRE AND SERVICE CENTER.
There was a Laundromat across the street, so I decided to go across and do two loads of laundry while Eric waited for them to put four new tires on the back of the RV. They did a great job (and so did I), and we were off by noon.
We had noticed a nice strip of stores and restaurants on Main Street, so we went back there and had a nice lunch at TJ’s DINER. The girls there were all very interested in our trip, our RV and our previous lives in New York City. They were all so friendly.
After lunch, Eric stayed in the RV and made phone calls while I went into a fabulous place called OLD FAITHFUL, INC., which sold antiques, camp & cottage décor, gifts, vintage clothes and books. It had everything arranged so beautifully, and they had such a wonderful array of collectibles, linens, clothing, ephemera and furniture. I loved it! I spoke to one of the three owners and told her about the shop I had in New Hyde Park. I know all my customers would LOVE this store! Too bad it’s so far away.
Finally, we headed out of town. I was exhausted, so I took a nap in the back while Eric drove. I woke up when he turned off the engine, thinking we had arrived, but we had only gone about 10 miles. He had turned off the engine, because traffic had come to a complete stop. Turns out that, because of the parade and the carnival, there was bumper-to-bumper traffic going south on I-64 (the direction we had to go) and it ended up taking us two hours to go about 15 miles.
Once we passed the carnival, the traffic cleared and we made it out of New Mexico and into Arizona (again) by 6:00pm.
We had had another three-state-day yesterday (even though we had been in FOUR states at FOUR CORNERS!). We went from Utah to Arizona to New Mexico. Now, we drove back to Arizona to go to Holbrook where we would stay for the night and go to the Petrified Forest tomorrow.
We got into town at about 7:30pm, but we didn’t realize we had entered Pacific Time, so it was really 6:30pm!
We were hungry, so we looked for a restaurant in town and saw a Chinese restaurant. We haven’t had Chinese food since we left New York! We had Thai food in Chicago, Sushi in Tampa, and Vietnamese Food in Denver, but no Chinese, so we decided to stop. MANDARIN BEAUTY RESTAURANT (specializing in Chinese & American Foods) was very busy, but there was only one young man waiting on all the tables, so service was very slow. The food was okay, but after living in New York all our lives, it wasn’t what we were hoping for. They brought us noodles and we asked for duck sauce and he had NO idea what we were talking about! Can you imagine? No duck sauce? What’s up with THAT?
After dinner we came to the HOLBROOK/PETRIFIED FOREST KOA campground and had our fingers crossed that it would be nice. We were not disappointed. Laura, who greeted us in the registration office was SO lovely. They had a great store where we purchased batteries (for my camera), ice (since the fridge isn’t working so great), ice cream (since we didn’t have dessert at dinner), and Arizona post cards. Laura informed us that there is an “All You Can Eat” pancake breakfast every morning for $1.99. You can’t beat that! They also have a Cowboy Cookout every night from 5:30pm – 7:30pm. What a place!
We headed to our site, which was very close to the showers. Eric hooked up the electricity and the cable and we immediately took long, hot, showers and felt SO much better!
Then, we had some ice cream and watched TV. Tomorrow we are off to the PETRIFIED FOREST.