Day Three & the First Part of Four

Friday began well - got up, got some work done, ate left over pizza and once the checkout time had passed, worked in the breakfast room of my hotel. Then the shop called and Kels was ready to go an hour and a half earlier then expected - great news!

I was back on the road by 2pm heading west. The shop, Aguierre Motors, replaced the split upper rad hose and also the thermostat as there was a pretty good chance that it wasn't working properly. About 100 miles later, the now working temperature gauge started to spike and I found a place to pull over. After a few phone calls with Jon and Jayson from the Arizona Land Rover Owners Assoication, I got back on the road and headed on to Lordsburg, New Mexico, hoping that topping up the coolant would make a difference. Well, it got me there.

I decided to stay in Lordsburg for the night and make an early start in the morning. If given a choice, I would rather break down at a time when the wait for the shops to open is only a few hours at most, not ten.

Since it was only going to about six hours before I was back on the road, I didn't want to spend much on a hotel. I found the cheapest motel in town and stepped into the lobby. The place was a dive but I decided to have a quick look at the rooms before passing judgement. There was an elderly man behind the counter who quickly started telling me his entire life story as well as a long gab about how polite Canadians are and how so many big city people have lost their manors. When he offered me his best room - his 'special' room - for the same price as a regular room, I figured it couldn't be too bad, could it?

It was more then bad - I should have taken a picture of the dead cockroach or the food I found in the fridge that wasn't plugged in. Nice place. Couldn't even shower since I didn't feel like sharing the small space with a inch long roach kicking up all eight legs...six legs? Roaches are insects so he should have had six but I didn't stop to count as he was pretty darn gross. I am not squeamish but what got me this time was not the roach, it was the fact he was dead. The copious amount of chemicals needed to kill a roach that big were more then this chick wanted to face! So I just left at 3:30am deciding I would find a shower at some point during the day.

Thankfully Kels co-operated and we made it to Phoenix in one piece. She didn't start to overheat until we hit the hill part of Fountain Hills where Jayson lives. Beautiful area and the name comes from the local park having the tallest fountain in the world which we drove by but it wasn't fountaining at the time - no pics.

We spent the rest of the morning getting ready for the off-roading that evening but that is an entry for another day. Enough for now!