And... we're off!

We woke up to balloons visible out our window at National Indoor RV Center this morning:

 

Carl asked me if we had relocated to Albuquerque overnight!

We didn't have any specific plans, but decided to head "north", up I-17, and then see where we might want to go next.

Miss Kitty definitely relaxes when we're driving!

We needed fuel, and had checked our TSD Fuel Card application for a station with good rates. There was one in Flagstaff at 2.63/gallon, but... when we got there, a number of their pumps were out of service, and after waiting a long time for one of the open pumps, it indicated "out of fuel" when we got to it. We headed over to Sam's Club, not exactly an RV-friendly fueling location, and were able to get about 2/3 of a tank of fuel (2*$100 at 2.94/gallon -- the pump or credit card only lets us pump $100 at a time and the credit card only allows us to use it twice in a row). We went over to Walmart and after a rather harrowing experience getting into the lot (it was not an RV friendly entrance with curbs on both sides), we got parked and were able to get some shopping done. We are planning / hoping to be heading out into less populated areas and we're not sure how many full service grocery stores will be available, so wanted to stock up.

We decided to head from Flagstaff toward the Grand Canyon. We weren't planning to visit there this year, but... it wasn't far out of the way, and we had found some US Forest Service areas where we might be able to boondock. Unfortunately, with the delays we had in Flagstaff for fuel and shopping, we were going to be arriving just an hour or so before sunset. So, we decided to stop at a campground just outside the south entrance of Grand Canyon National Park and check out the boondocking areas when we'd have more time. We are also a little cautious about parking in a boondocking area and then leaving the coach for many hours of touring... that may not be the safest thing to do.

We've stopped at Grand Canyon Camper Village in Tusayan, AZ for a few nights.

We plan to head into the National Park and find some beautiful views and hiking while we're here, and maybe do some more planning into where to go next!

p.s. we have NEVER had the problems that we experienced fueling today. We figure it took us over 1.5 hours total to get the fuel that we got... and we later stopped at a Pilot station to fill up so we would have plenty if we were boondocking and needed to run the generator or Oasis for diesel-fueled heat. We are not even sure what we learned from it... other than if you arrive at a station where many of the pumps are out of service, just keep driving on by rather than waiting and hoping you are lucky and get to fuel at a working one!