Pinal County

Super early departure from the house at 345am! Not our preference, but inexpensive flight costs and a short travel duration swayed us. The quick transfer at YVR also included rescreening at security/customs. Wee! Journey was smooth and some great views of the country below us, including The Grand Canyon 😊. Seeing the Phoenix area from the sky revealed how sprawling of patchwork-quilted urban reality it is. Similar to a video game building a city to include all the right aspects.

The car rental line moved quickly. They offered an upgrade for an additional 60% of what I paid, so I declined. I misunderstood the agent's insurance question and had to get him to adjust it after the receipt was printed 🙃 To our surprise when we exited to the parking lot they didn't have our category of car and "upgraded" us anyway to anything in the Intermediate row. It will cost a bit more in fuel, but those are the breaks. The Toyota we considered could not link to our phone for navigation, so we switched to a Malibu before checking out of the parking lot. It should be enjoyable enough for the week.

Lunch was at a nearby Mexican restaurant. Nothing fancy, but delicious for our empty stomachs. Before getting to our accommodation we did a quick grocery shop at Fry's. It reminded us of the Superstore chain back home.

Roads are nice and easy to navigate to Goodyear where we were staying at J's Aunt's place for two nights. Dinner was a massive BBQ T-bone steak to share with salad, mushroom caps, and corn 🌽🥗🍄😜Read more