Road Trip - April-May 2026 - #5 - Friends

April 22, 2026

We’re in our campground in Tucson. Made it!

We visited our friends Bill & Smidty in Phoenix. We stayed there two nights and one full day. It’s always great to spend time with them. Bill was Randy’s roommate at Calvin. They were adding up the years they’ve been friends. Somewhere around 40!

It turned out Luke was on a business trip to Phoenix so he came over for dinner. Bonus! It was great to see him, too.

Cori will arrive tonight (God willing—her first flight already had a delay). She is staying in a hotel not far from us. Joel, Tricia, and family will be arriving in a few days. The wedding is Saturday. It’ll be great to see everyone.

More of the long road. Made me think of Bilbo’s poem (The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings) which begins:

The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,

We drove beside the Hoover Dam but somehow I could not catch the dam itself with my phone camera from the car.

The Goodyear Blimp was flying over the dam.

A long section was labeled “scenic route,” and it was beautiful. The Saguaros were impressive.

More cacti and vegetation.

Obligatory selfie.

We sat outside for lunch at a restaurant and quite a few of these birds enjoyed themselves in the fountain. Bill looked it up and thought it was a great-tailed grackle.

After lunch we went to Lake Pleasant. It was very pleasant. Har-har. Beautiful blue water, and a nice cool breeze.

There are lots of wild burros in the land near Lake Pleasant. We saw two of them on the road leaving the lake.

Sitting on Bill & Smidty’s back patio we saw bunnies, quail, more grackles, and hummingbirds.

At one point in the trip, I looked all over for my sunglasses, including patting my nose area to make sure I wasn’t wearing them. This is what Randy saw when I turned to him and said, “I can’t find my sunglasses!”