Lake Havasu City, Arizona

Hello all. We're here tonight in Lake Havasu City, which is right on the western border of Arizona. Today we drove across half of the state of New Mexico, and all of Arizona. Now we are just minute away from being in California, our new home state.

Lake Havasu is an interesting place. Our waiter at dinner tonight said that it is mainly made up of "people who want to get out of California, gamblers, and fuel junkies." Huh. I'm not too sure what that all means, but there you go.

We didn't see any interesting signs at all today. I did think I was seeing one for a moment - I thought it said, "No jail breaks allowed", and I was really intrigued and excited in a frightened and dubious kind of way about that one. However, it really said "no jake brakes allowed", which seems to be a different thing all together.

We did stop at the Petrified Forest National Park today, and that was interesting. We did not, however, pick up any souvenirs (off the ground, I mean). They really frown on that kind of activity. In fact, they hand you a form when you go in where you can fill in all the juicy details of when and if you do indeed see someone take or deface anything in the park. I'm kind of surprised that they don't hand you one of those disposable cameras when you go in, too, with which to photograph any devious park activities. Kind of like a wedding reception, but in a citizen's arrest kind of way.

After four long days of travelling, I have discovered a pattern to my tiredness at the end of each day. I usually feel okay when we are pulling into our end-of-the-day destination - weary, but okay. However, as soon as we park and start getting things out of the hotel, the overall exhaustion hits. It soon seems to be an almost insurmountable task: getting the two kids, one dog, and various suitcase paraphernalia into the hotel. The dog won't go where we want her to go (it's like she's never even been to each of these hotels), and usually runs in a circle around someone, threatening to trip them. I can't roll my suitcase in and hold the dog at the same time. And the boys (also very tired) inevitably are at these moments either extremely cranky or completely simpled out. I inevitably am very irritable and short-tempered.

However, all four nights we've managed to get everyone and everything in. And then, just a few hours later, we all get to fall into bed and rest of for the next day. In fact, I think I'll do that very thing right now...