Day 3 Week 1

Saturday 17th of March (St Patricks Day)

Had a pretty quiet day today. I went out on my own this morning to do some shopping and get a bit more familiar with the traffic. I figured I would just throw myself into the deep end and swim. Deep immersion treatment did the trick. I reckon I have this driving thing pretty much down pat. Taking on busy Saturday morning traffic worked a treat.  

I bought some Twinkies for Al but I don’t think they will last so I had better eat them.

In the pharmacy of this huge supermarket called Fry’s, I found a bottle of 1000 Iboprofen tablets for $7.99. I took a couple for my knees and they worked really well. I might go back and get some more.

My steady diet while I am here.

I have finally gotten my bearings in relation to where the sun is in the sky. It is exactly as different as I thought it would be. I have been really thrown off by the Sun being in the Southern sky.  I really felt discombobulated not having my bearings for the first couple of days but I walked outside this morning and looked at the Sun and thought, Hhmm, it is 10.30, the Sun is there,I looked around and said to myself ”That is South”. I pulled out my compass and sure enough, it was spot on. I feel much better now. This is one of the things I really wanted to experience and feel how different it is being in the northern hemisphere and a lot further away from the equator.

I went over to Dave’s about lunch time to show him some pictures on my laptop. We ended up going out to Walmart so I could buy my Esky (Cooler) and a Dooner (Comforter) and Pillow (Pillow). They thought our names for things was so weird I was going to tell them we call pillows something like ‘head sponges’ but they probably would have believed me.

After this we returned to Dave’s for a lovely dinner of Barbecue chicken and salad.  Barbecue meat here is nothing like what we consider BBQ meat.  Their BBQ meat, whether it is beef, chicken or whatever, is cooked in a crock pot for about 7 or 8 hours in a lovely flavoured mix. By then the meat is so soft it is shredded with a couple of forks and stirred through the juice. It is absolutely spectacular. I will be making this when I get home.

I will be heading off in the general direction of the Grand Canyon tomorrow. I will be going through Tucson, stopping at the Pima Air Museum and seeing the Aircraft Boneyard. Then on to Phoenix and then Flagstaff.  Not sure how far I will get but we will see.