Day 20

OMG!!!! I may spontaneously combust. I have never been so hot in all my life. It feels like we are sitting on the sun. This has been the hottest July on record in Arizona ever. The high today was 114. The thermostat on the truck, which is a few degrees off when it is sitting still, registered 128. We are in Avondale Arizona, just beside Phoenix. I took Sparkle for a very quick walk and the asphalt burned her little feet and made her yelp out loud. There is no grass so she had to do her business on gravelly rocks, which were also hot. It is absolutely miserable here right now. I don’t know how anybody stands it.

On a better note about today………I have a friend, Debbie, who I worked with at a crappy transcription company that will remain unnamed here, who lives here in Phoenix. We have never met before but I promised if I was ever in the area I would call her. So I did and since our next load does not pick up until tomorrow morning, we made plans to go to dinner. She and her mom, Donna, picked us up and took us to Glendale to Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville. It was in the coolest outdoor mall (not like any mall I have ever seen!) with a pretty fountain and cool shops and restaurants and the road runs right through the middle. Margaritaville was SO much fun. It was very colorful and lively with great music and a man on stilts making balloon shapes and lots of cool stuff to look at. You could sit in a boat/booth with your own little TV playing beachy music videos. I had an enormous plate of nachos that I swore I would eat all of and did not come close and everyone else had some variety of Cheeseburgers in Paradise! We had a great time visiting and getting acquainted face to face after the many hours of talking on the phone over the last year or so. She was so generous to take us to do something so fun and special and to treat us to a great dinner with awesome margaritas! Afterwards, we walked around a little and went to the Smuggler’s Hold gift shop in Margaritaville and I got a pretty T-shirt and a magnet to commemorate my visit to the Valley of the Sun. It made my HOT trip to Phoenix very COOL to be able to spend time with my friend and be a tourist for a little while. Thanks, Debbie for a wonderful time.

After a big night out, I am pooped and am calling it a day. We head to Tempe Arizona in the morning for our pick up and our destination is Carthage Missouri. I am excited to see Arizona tomorrow, since it was dark when we came into the state last night. Should be another good photo day!

There is absolutely no excuse for it to be this hot!

Home of the Arizona Cardinals NFL team......

and host of the Super Bowl a year or so ago.

Probably a cool bar to go to. I liked the name.

Our destination!

A very cool restaurant on the same strip as Margaritaville.

More of the outside of the Saddle Road Chop House.

Inside Margaritaville.

My Volcano Nachos........

On the ceiling.

Me and Debbie on the Margaritaville bench with mom on the side!

Me and Bigfoot on the Margaritaville bench!

Me and Bigfoot on the Margaritaville bench!

Gift shop at Margaritaville.

It's US!

Me and Debbie, the Arizona hostess with the mostest!

The main drag through the "mall".

Bigfoot watching the fountain water dance.