March 14 – Payson to Petrified Forest NP

After spending the night in the Walmart parking lot, we woke up and were excited to toast some bread and bagels for breakfast. We had added the smallest toaster we could find when we were back in Phoenix because our family loves carbs, especially if it comes out of a toaster. The toaster was “stinky” with burn off with it’s first operation, so Jen hooked it up to our extension cord and was going to run a cycle with it outside the van. That’s when her foot caught the cord and down the toaster fell, ending it’s serviceable life and our hopes of a toasted breakfast. That is unless we still happen to be parked in front of Walmart 🙂

Toaster down, guess this one didn’t want to travel the country 😉

The irony that we were parked at Walmart ( a big player in reducing the price and quality of goods ) wasn’t lost on me.

The smallest toaster was still the cheapest, and we were back in the toasting business.

We had a great “toasted” breakfast and then set our sights for the Petrified Forest National Park. There’s a museum / gift shop just in front of the park where they have some spots to camp for the night. No services, but they do have a bathroom in the gift shop and plenty of room for the kids to play.

Amelia bought a rock and Henry bought a rubber band gun.

There was another family that pulled into the area about the same time as us. As the adults were setting up dinner, the kids started to play. They played until just before dark, we waited to call them in for dinner, because there’s nothing like meeting new friends and you never know what the friendship will turn into.