Tempe, AZ

Extended Stay of America in West Mesa feels like a palace after 5 days in George's converted garage. It has a bathroom sink too! George and Julia were swell, but I can't say the same thing about their inconvenient converted garage. And I keep getting Extended Stay when I book the express deal on priceline.com. How lucky is that? At $40 a night, it is saving us tons of money on this trip. And we get to eat our own food, not burgers.

I returned the Versa from Budget and rented a one way from Hertz at the Flagstaff airport. The compact I reserved wasn't available, so they gave me Sonata. Frankly, I preferred Versa. It was such a comfortable car with lots of utility.  The passenger liked the "full size" though. Two and a half hours later, we were at Tesla store in Tempe. It's a surprisingly big 3-in-1 store. The wheels for my car have not arrived yet, so it's still seating in the corner. Joules, the Tesla Service Adviser at the store, thinks they'll arrive tomorrow morning and the car should be ready by the afternoon. That means we'll have to stay here for one more night -- I'm not going to set out on 9 hour journey to Albuquerque in the afternoon. No matter, we get to explore Phoenix area a little.

It turned out that I could've come to Tempe with the car on the tow truck and Tesla would've given me a loaner. I forgot all about it and rented a car at my expense in Flagstaff. It probably had to do with fatigue after 12 hours drive and not wanting to be on the road for another 2 hours. Anyway, live and learn, I guess.

Other than for the financial hit -- the total bill including the car rental came out to be about $2600 and the insurance will cover $1500 -- the accident was a blessing in disguise. We got to explore Flagstaff area, Sedona in particular, more than we planned. We blew past it at night after Red Rock state park on the way coming up. We went back yesterday during the day time, and we found that we missed a lot. Not just Sedona itself, but Slide Rock state park and Oak Creek.

Slide Rock state park

Oak Creek Canyon

Sedona Town

Sedona was similar to Yosemite: it lets you look up the cliffs from within the canyon, unlike Grand Canyon where you look down from above. And yet it is different from Yosemite, not just in that rocks are red rather than granite grey, but also in that it is more commercially built. Not in a bad way though. It was a small tourist town. Quite pleasant, in fact. I wouldn't have minded renting a house there and staying for a month. I was planning on it in fact, if the car repair took long. But the car is done and so we are moving on for now.

Oh, and I'm still doing well health-wise. No post-exertional sickness despite taking 8000 steps yesterday. That after 9000 steps in Grand Canyon 3 days ago. Dialing down activity every other day seems to work well so far. Cross my fingers.