Sunday, October 11 2026

Road video and map

The final day on the road has a similar excitement level as yesterday, i.e. very low. I did go back to the location I took the picture of the Colorado flowing from the USA so I could take the picture I wanted – which was the Colorado flowing away into Mexico.

Again, I was hard pressed to find anything that made me want to visit along the route. When this happens on most trips I simply consult the AllTrails app on my phone and quickly come up with a walk that sounds interesting or, at least, healthy. However, in this part of the world, with typical temperatures in the 100s F (40s C) and, for the most part, scrubby desert terrain even that does not deliver. Another complicating factor was that tropical storm Rachel was lashing the area. We had a power cut overnight at my hotel and, along today’s drive to Phoenix, there were several heavy showers with very gusty winds.

I decided to try a photo stop at Historic Gillespie Dam Bridge. This is an interesting old, rusty steel bridge that, when it opened in 1927, was the longest bridge in Arizona. However, it’s most distinguishing factor is that it is still here after 99 years. It bridges the Gila river, which this afternoon was a dry river bed, just downstream from the location of the Gillespie Dam. The Gila river valley is known for unpredictable water levels and the constant floods and droughts and soft, sandy soil make building roads and dams in the area difficult. In 1993 a catastrophic flood on the Gila river caused the dam to fail and the lake behind it washed over the bridge. Although the huge surge of water caused some of the bridge piers to settle it was strong enough to survive.

In 2012 Arizona constructed an interpretive plaza and roadside pull off but the plaza was covered in graffiti and no information remains.

Monday, October 12 2026

I decided to spend a day in Phoenix before flying home to see a show in a new, state of the art, planetarium at the Arizona Science Center and to walk a couple of trails in Papago Park, which I had not visited on previous stays.

The science center is normally closed on Mondays but, because today was the Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples’ Day holiday it was open. The name of the holiday depends on the political leanings of the locality. The city of Phoenix officially recognizes Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the state of Arizona celebrates both and the Federal government calls it Columbus Day. Another example of the political divide in this country.

I normally avoid science museums, except if they have a specific focus and/or are run by higher level educational institutions, because the science is typically simplified and, often, focused on entertaining children. Don’t get me wrong, I consider that attracting children to science is important and, as long as the simplification is still scientifically accurate, I’m all for it. However, I do not expect to learn anything from such a visit.

For the most part the science center is simplified and entertainment and, being a holiday, was packed with young children. I did find this exhibit entertaining – it was iron filings “dancing” to music. Unfortunately, you cannot, for the most part, hear the music due to the excitement of the people around me.

The presentation I came for was on the history of our understanding of gravity and it was excellently explained, scientifically accurate and beautifully presented with images, video, animations and cosmic displays. Unlike older planetariums the visuals are not projected onto the dome but the dome itself is embedded with 33 million tiny LEDs so it is much brighter, higher resolution and more colorful than any I have seen before. It was like I imagined The Sphere in Vegas to be but on a much smaller scale.

Next, I headed for Papago Park with the intention of walking the Hole in the Rock and Double Butte Loop trails. The weather was not my friend as, by the time I had finished the Hole in the Rock trail, my weather app was predicting heavy rain in 30 minutes which was the time it would probably have taken to walk to the next trailhead. I therefore headed back to the hotel.

There is not the normal road video today because I never used the car. Phoenix was the first city in the world to offer a commercial driverless taxi service to the public in 2018 and I used the Waymo driverless cars to get everywhere today. I loved the service. My wait times after booking a ride in the app were between 4 and 13 minutes, there is no driver to tip so the price you are quoted in the app is the price you pay – and it seems noticeably less than Uber. The cars are known around Phoenix as the most polite and safest on the road. I started off by videoing the experience but, by the end of the day, was mainly just looking out the window, enjoying the ride. I uploaded a short, edited clip of some moments from the trips to YouTube if you are interested to watch.

The rain started as I arrived back at the hotel as can be seen at the final drop off in the video and got quite heavy later in the afternoon as tropical storm Rachel was having her final fling.

I fly home tomorrow and consider the trip was worth waiting for. According to the car I drove a total of 2,711 miles (4,363 km) over 68 hours and 51 minutes. Thanks for following along with me. I really appreciate it.