We left Las Cruces at about 7:45AM Mountain time and crossed into Arizona at 11:19AM Central time (using central time as a standard) ,,, crossed into California at 5:20PM CST so about 6 hours to cross Arizona.

We stopped in Tuscon for a bite of lunch and then right back on the road .... not much to say about the scenery ... Carolyn made me pull into a rest stop so she could take pictures of the big Saguaro cactus ... MOST of the speed limit thru New Mexico and Arizona was 75MPH it turned to a sorry 70MPH in California ,,, damn liberals!!!

In Arizona we came upon a fairly horrific site ... MANY emergency vehicles (fire & ambulance) in the center median where it was pretty evident a driver had fallen asleep or some such and crossed at a high rate of speed into the very wide and rocky median ... I couldn't see any other vehicles involved but debris was scattered over a large area and the car was in bad shape .... ugh!!!

THEN ... JUST as we crossed the California border and where the traffic was being slowed from 70mph to 45mph and then a full stop for a border check point ... RIGHT IN FRONT OF US ... at about 45-50mph a "mini-van" type vehicle rear ended a semi with trailer and broke the min-van pretty bad ... fortunately I along with others were slowing for the upcoming checkpoint and no other vehicles were involved ... it was literally one car in front of us ... WAY too close ... I think the mini-van driver didn't realize the truck was slowing WAY down and pulled into him changing lanes ... Carolyn called 9-1-1 and reported the incident, there were other cars stopping and we saw both drivers walking around so we proceeded on thru the checkpoint (less than 1/2 mile from the crash) ...

We pulled into Palm Springs right on schedule at 5:20PM PST (7:20PM Central) so it was a pretty long day ... we drove to downtown Palm Springs for dinner at Ruby's Diner ... lottsa folks walking around downtown ... seems to be a sort of RiverWalk without the river ... very dry air and pleasant temperature.

Up early tomorrow AM and 5 or so hours drive to San Luis Obispo ...