Happy valentine's day!

We got up, showered and dressed and everything. We were going to try and tackle a couple small things, not really "issues", with the van, but we realized we only had an hour to check out and didn't want to have to rush. We walked down to the lake instead. I went for a swim. By "swim" I mean I went underwater and immediately got out. That's all you need when it's that cold. Loki wouldn't go in above his toes.

Lake Roosevelt was FRIGID in February, but Rob went in anyways. Loki got only his ankles wet.

After a pitstop in Punkin, AZ to make breakfast, we began making our way back to Prescott, since Mandy had work the following day. She rerouted us along the way, to Tonto Natural Bridge. She took a left off the highway and we plunged deep into a valley. I think the sign said 16% grade? I still don't know how grades are measured exactly, but I don't think I've seen one that steep, ever. Eventually we got to the bottom of this hole. Neither of us knew any more about the site than what was on the signs. That is, it's a natural bridge. Expectations were zilch. We were prohibited from the hiking trails because we had Loki with us, but we were allowed to get to all the observation areas at ground level. What a cool site! It would have been awesome to hike down into the crevasse formed below the bridge but the views from ground level were very cool. If you're ever near it, check it out. It's hard to explain how interesting a landform it is, and it's hard to convey in a photo, too. And we apparently took none.

We made it the rest of the way back to Prescott and parked downtown on historic Whiskey Row for the night. While Mandy was working Monday, I fiddled with wiring up our cell phone signal booster to one of our batteries. In doing so, I got lazy and didn't use the correct tool for the job, and I accidentally shorted the positive post to the van chassis. In that instant of electrical short, the battery's safety kicked in which disconnects the posts from the internal charge, putting the battery into a "safe" or "sleep" mode. Crap. Everything was completely dead on the house side of the van. I panicked at first, and tried a bunch of things that didn't make sense. After a breath and some thinking, I realized we should get somewhere that we could plug in our shore charger, and hoped that would work to "wake up" the batteries. When Mandy got out of work, we went to the only campsite in town that had electrical hookups. It was $50 for a night, which we reluctantly paid. We needed to plug in the van for only an instant, and that was enough to wake the batteries up and everything began functioning as normal straight away. It had been a tense few hours, not knowing if it would work. The relief when the systems came back on was huge. We made dinner and worked on destressing the rest of the night.

Although the campground wasn't ideal, the landscape around it was pretty interesting!

Tuesday was not super interesting. Loki and I dropped off Mandy at work, and then we took a couple hour ride down to Phoenix. We spent pretty much the entire day at the Mercedes-Benz dealer in North Scottsdale. It was time for its first oil change and the rest of "Service A" at 20,000 miles. I think the bulk of the work is fluids-checking and other inspection points. But we also had a small stack of recall notices to address. The team there handled everything all in one day, which was fantastic. It was a long day for us, but Loki was pleased to be welcome inside the lobby and found himself a nice cushiony chair to sleep in for most of it.

Loki was such a good boy at the Mercedes dealer and everyone loved him.

Thursday we had a little bit of a mishap on the way to drop Mandy off at work. The grey water tank, which we knew was mostly full, backed up into the shower and spilled out onto the floor. It was a result of specific driving conditions, I think a right turn while braking; because of the way the plumbing is arranged. So that was the project of the day. After drop-off, I cleaned up the floor and dumped the grey water tank. I ordered a check valve for the drain pipe immediately after, and we made a note to ensure we don't let the tank get over half full until it's installed.

With the plumbing issue resolved as much as it could be at the time, I set to work figuring out plans for the weekend. This is something of a process which we're still ironing out. But we're definitely improving and getting more efficient. There's a lot of points to consider! First, we have a list of destinations recommended by friends and family, as well as places we want to see. There's a lot of overlap there, which is good. Then, there's weather to consider; will it be too hot or too cold? Any rain or high winds? Some destinations, like lakes, for example, we want to visit when it's hot on purpose. For swimming. The desert spots we want to visit when it's cooler, because the desert can get incredibly, unforgivably hot. Then, we have to consider where exactly we'll stay at a given destination. Is there a place to park for free, or should we get a campsite? Do we need reservations? Is there anything available? Then we have to consider the route. Can we get there in one shot on a Friday after work, or is it better to break it up? Can we pair it with another destination that's on the way, and do a two-for-one deal? All of that stuff is the figuring. Then, there's also prep work. Like ensuring the grey tank is empty, in case we don't see anywhere to dump it. Fill the fresh water tanks, in case we don't pass any fill stations. Make sure the fuel tank is full. Get groceries for the weekend. Even though we're ostensibly "ready to go", there's still a lot to be done.

This took us Thursday and Friday to complete, but we came up with a solid plan we were excited to execute. We'll tell you all about it in the next one!