And the trip is on!

I left Lansing for Tempe this past Tuesday with the idea that we would be attending a play put on by the Phoenix Theater Company – The Marvelous Wonderettes – on Wednesday night and then head south on Thursday. When I got into Phoenix, however, Ken insisted the play was Thursday night and we were leaving Friday. Things then turned into a real comedy of (timing) errors. The play tickets were for Wednesday night so we thought we just had an extra day to prepare. Then this morning over coffee we were discussing the first couple of legs and I mentioned that the longest one between Chihuahua and Saltillo was Sunday. Ken was sure it wasn’t – but it had to be if Douglas was Friday night and Chihuahua was Saturday night! He then checked the hotel reservations he had made and they were all made as if we were leaving Thursday.

So, rather than change all the reservations, we did. It was a bit frantic running around doing laundry, updating the Garmin GPS, and doing shopping I thought I had all day for. (I brought the computer mouse but forgot the UBS adapter so now I own another mouse.) Plus Ken dropped the Tahoe off this morning at the auto shop because the check engine came on and we didn’t have a car! But everything all came together and we left Tempe around 1:30pm in the Tahoe. (A wire to the oxygen sensor was loose.)

Packed and ready to go!

The trip down to Douglas was pretty uneventful. We arrived at the Gadsden Hotel a bit after 5pm, checked in, and rushed outside to take some pictures. The outside is nothing remarkable but the lobby is quite amazing! This hotel was built in 1907, burned down in 1928, and rebuilt in 1929. The stained glass windows are original Tiffany and the column capitols are gold leaf. The rooms are certainly not modern, but good enough for one night.

Other tidbits of interest about the Gadsden is that Pancho Villa rode his horse up the grand staircase, “The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean” was filmed here, and past guests included Eleanor Roosevelt, Lee Marvin, and Shelly Winters. It’s kind of neat.