Jan 13 Holbrook AZ

Home to Arizona

Route from Almonte , to Windsor, St Louis, , Elk City, Holbrook

We have arrived in Arizona. Overall a good trip, a bit of snow for about 1/2 an hour just past Perth, and again between Peterborough and the 401. Our plan was to make our usual overnight stop at Caesars Palace Casino in Windsor, as they have always had free overnight parking and would even offer us a complementary plug in. New rules this year, no overnight parking unless you have a hotel reservation.

Checked out Walmart , but the city has ruled that there is no overnight parking allowed in any of the big retailers spaces. This policy has been adopted by many cities since the last few years and is expanding quickly. The issue is not overnight stays by travelers, but the growing homeless problem throughout North America. People buy an old car or van and move onto public areas and even park on residential streets. In many cases they leave garbage scattered around and it becomes a terrible situation. I understand and agree with the policy, but it just makes it more difficult for travellers looking for a short over night stop.

We stayed overnight at the Flying J truck stop. The next morning when we went to leave my Google maps wouldn't work with the US AT&T sim card  until we crossed into the US, and we had cancelled our Canadian phones as of that day.  Back to the paper maps to get across the bridge.  No issue , just different.

Light snow for the 1st hour, but not serious problem. Great roads until we got to Indiana, their roads are as bad as our Quebec roads.

We overnighted at the Home Depot in Collinsville, just out side of St Louis. It was like coming home as we have probably stayed there half a dozen times. A bit of fog for an hour or so Thursday morning, but not an issue. 

Gas has cost us between 86 cents and $1.05 per liter Canadian .  Oklahoma and Texas are the cheapest as usual.

We left Elk City early the next morning and for about 50 miles before Amarillo until about 50 miles past, no matter what direction you looked and as far as the eye could see in the night sky, it was filled with the flashing red lights from the wind turbines, and this is pretty flat land .  Texas has over 15,000 wind turbines. Texas wind power surpassed nuclear generation in 2014, and coal in 2020. Natural gas is still the largest generator.

We arrived in Holbrook around 3:30 . This is where we de winterize and load up with water each year.

There is a free water tap at the municipal building in the center of town. Another interesting change.

There was a sigh posted that as of Jan 24th 2024 you have to buy a ticket from the city hall to use the water. When we pulled up a guy was filling a 200 gallon tank on a trailer. He inquired if we had filled up there before and we told him this was our annal  stop on the way to Yuma. Turns out he was a city councillor getting water for his horses. A very interesting fellow. When I asked him where I could buy the ticket for the water, he informed me that the offices are only open Monday to Thursday.

I commented that we would be leaving tomorrow morning, and that it was rather unfortunate that we wouldn't have any water. I suggested that I give him some money and since he was a city councillor he could give them the money the next time he was in town. That was a non starter but he left the lock off the tap when he departed on the condition that I relock it and change the combination. We always meet the most interesting and generous people on our travels.

While we were filling with water I noticed that we had a flat tire on the outer right dully. It must have been flat for a few miles as the walls were pretty badly damaged. No tire shops open on a Saturday evening. Future Tire Shop has a stack of truck tires in the window so I think they will be able to help us.. I guess we are here until Monday Morning. Not such a bad plan, as a day off from travelling is a pretty good idea anyway.