We planned to leave early for this trip but for some reason, we didn’t get out until 9 AM. Then, after we drove for about a mile or so, my husband realized that we didn’t have the blankets, quilt, and pillows so we looked for a place to safely turn around on the freeway and headed back home. I was so busy packing food and other stuff, I totally forgot the beddings, too. He suggested that we buy them in Wal-Mart, instead of driving back home, but I didn’t fall for his idea as it could add up. It was a good thing because not only did we forget the beddings, he forgot his wallet, too. Could you imagine going on a camping trip without your wallet and your driver’s license? That meant I would have to drive the car the whole trip or he would have to drive carefully to avoid getting pulled over by a cop. Anyway, glad we came back although we wasted quite a bit of time.

After a series of bathroom, shopping, meal, and photography stops, we arrived at the camping site at 4 PM. It was a little too late to take pictures as the sun was going down already. It gets dark there quickly because of the mountains. But we took some pictures of the view on the way in. My husband immediately got situated by looking for the best camping site before it turned dark.

Here are some pictures of the camping site:

I didn’t waste time either fixing our dinner. I cooked salmon, and heated up chicken adobo and pansit that we brought from home. Mango had to come, too, because we didn’t think it was safe for him to be home alone for 3 days.

See how quickly he found a spot inside the car to perch on? He didn’t want to stay in the cage when we were traveling. Here, we were heading to a Mexican border called Agua Prieta to do some shopping–and at the same time, a chance at improving my spanish skills. We parked on the US side, which is Douglas, AZ., and crossed the border. We didn’t want to get tangled in the traffic there which we found out later was at least an hour wait for the cars to get through the border. Didn’t we do the smartest thing? We looked for the pharmacy, and there were several of them. We chose the one that this english speaking woman recommended in exchange for a dollar. She said she needed help for her medication so my husband unhesitantly gave her a dollar.

Conversation inside the pharmacy:

Me: Hola!

Lady: Hola!

Me: Tienes medicina como esta? (Do you have medicine like this)

Lady: Si!

Me: Cuanto cuesta cada pedazo? (how much does it cost per item?)

Lady: 5 american dolares!

Me: muy caro! (expensive), si compro 10 pedazos , no marka?(if i buy 10 pieces, no discount?)

Lady: No!

Me: Hay otros lugares que venden esta misma medicina? (are there any places selling this same medicine?)

Lady: Si, pero los precious son el mismo. (the prices are the same.)

Me: si, compro 20 pedasos, me darias un descuento? (if i buy 20 pieces, would you give me a discount?)

Lady: No! pero cada Lunes, tenemos 25% descuento. (no! but every monday, we have 25% discount.) We were there Saturday.

Me: okay, dame 20 pedasos y tienes el bano? (okay, give me 20 pieces and do you have a bathroom? )

Lady: No bano!

Me: sabes un bano que podemos usar? (do you know of any bathroom that we can use?)

Lady: Si!

She directed us somewhere inside a certain restaurant which required some left and right turns on a busy street so we bagged it and decided to cross back to the border– to the US . My husband, who has absolutely no knowledge of spanish, by the way, was impressed with my spanish. “How do you know I was saying the right thing,” I asked him. He said, he was looking at the girl and she didn’t look confused at all and understood at what I was trying to say.

On our second day of our camping trip, we stayed under the spread of the sycamore trees. We owned the place to ourselves for the night. I quickly started the fire because the fire pit and woods were already available — leftover from old campers, possibly. We had enough woods to last us through bedtime. Don’t you just love the sight of the camping fire? I do!

Cozy place, huh? Mango was inside the car as he was complaining about the fire smoke. We went to bed at 9 PM because we ran out of things to do, besides it was getting chilly. My husband extinguished the fire before bedtime– a smart thing to do. I was a little bit scared not of the invisible things but of the wayward people that might harm us. I had the flashlight next to me, just in case. I constantly peeked through the window making sure that there was no one lurking around. At around midnight, I heard soft knocks and so did my husband. I sit up promptly trying to decipher where it was coming from. The noise quit. Then I would lie down and it would start again. I would sit up and the noise would disappear. Weird! I looked through the window watching for animals or anything. Nothing! My husband was not bothered at all and was sleeping soundly. He told me earlier that the noise could be from the car cooling off the engine or from the air mattress. Whatever!

I got tired of sitting up that I finally went to bed. I slept through until early in the morning when my husband couldn’t sleep anymore because he felt he had enough sleep already. He got up, turned on the lantern, and heated up some water for tea. While sipping a hot cup of tea, we put away our camping stuff to get an early start. We left the camping site at 5:30 AM heading to Tucson.

Our next destination was Sierra Vista where we used to live. My daughter Lexi asked me to stop by at our old house and take pictures. Evidently, she misses the house and its surroundings.

My husband built that shed behind the tree.

Our next destination was Phoenix to do some oriental grocery shopping and to eat at our favorite restaurant and then we drove home.

Stand by for our next camping trip to Puerta Penasca.

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