My God it's hot in Phoenix. Stepping off the plane from foggy San Francisco was like stepping into an oven. We took a cab from the airport over to the RV rental depot, eager to get on our way in our Tardis. I'm calling her a Tardis (even if everyone else has yet to agree on her name) because ironically she seems smaller on the inside than on the outside.
Our RV adventures didn’t get off to the best of starts. Cruise America’s system seems to be pretty much first-come last-served and we waited in their, thankfully air-conditioned, offices for close to five hours before our ship materialized in front of us. And what a ship. As long as an ocean liner and just as maneuverable. One-hundred yards out of the car park and I was already beginning to regret the idea of sailing her along the highways for three-thousand miles.
With the hour getting late, we decided not to head to the local Wholefoods store for some wholesome foody goodness, but headed instead to Wal-Mart for some Arizona travelers’ essentials: Water, beer, Cokes and a microwave lasagna. I steered the Tardis to a remote part of Wal-Mart’s car-park to avoid coming into contact with any other road or space-faring vehicles and amazingly didn’t exterminate anyone in the process. From there we took a roundabout route, on thankfully straight roads, to the RV park at the gloriously named Apache Junction.
Having watched the orientation video about fifteen times in five languages while we waited in the rental company offices, Alex and I were pretty confident that we could hook up the mains power and water without too much bother. Still, we did manage to blow a circuit breaker five minutes later by switching on the air-conditioning, microwave and every light in the Tardis all at the same time. As Alex said later, I hope that’s all the glitches ironed out in the first day.
To be honest, I am really beginning to wonder if I have made a terrible mistake in attempting to drive this mother of a mother-ship across six states. The biggest thing I’ve ever driven before was a Ford Transit and I managed to crash my motorbike too embarrassingly soon after to buying it. Maybe time will tell, we’ll probably have a great time and I’ll probably end up loving every mile. But right now I’m hot, tired and my confidence in my driving abilities is at a real low.
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