Day 12: Scottsdale, Arizona - Santa Clarita, CA. 416 miles

​Ring around the sun (ice crystals) just outside Scottsdale.  That usually means a storm is on the way.

Cue overhead camera:
"NOOOOOOOOOO!"

​After. ​ We've been carrying salt from Cape Cod for some 3,705 miles, plus everywhere else along the way. It's time (!) to wash the car.

 

---

---

Saguaro cactus. They can live up to 200 years. In Arizona it's a Class 4 felony to steal, kill, deface, or shoot (!) one (max. sentence four years.) This landscape made me think of what someone told me about the Nova Scotia landscape: "God created it, and then threw rocks at it."

---

At a truck stop in Arizona. We actually backtracked 15 miles because we were running low and the next station in our direction was nearly 50 miles away.

---

"Hmmm... I'm not sure about my friend Aidan's data crunching on this - I LIKE the yellow ones."

---

Approaching the Colorado River. The same one that marks the border between Arizona and California is the one that runs through the Grand Canyon.

---

"Welcome to California. Any fruit to declare?"

---

Wind turbines at Twenty-nine Palms, CA.

---

California sunset.

---

When Ben saw our IDs at the hotel check-in, he was excited to see the Massachusetts connection: he's a composer who studied at Berklee (hotel management is a night job). This orchestral piece he composed was performed by the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra. (Click on the photo if you'd like to watch it.)

---