Nothing says screams that you’re out of California like refueling the gas tank. The day before leaving San Diego, I filled my gas tank to a “delightful” $6.00 per gallon. I will not miss those prices.

It was a welcome relief to see the gas prices in Arizona that, of course, I had to take a photo. HELLO $4.349!!!

After filling up, it was time to document the arrival into Arizona. I just love their state signs. They are so pretty. Spoiler alert - I stop for state signs. LOL. San Diego to Yuma, AZ (state line) is about 173 miles or 2h 42m of drive time. I can’t actually go by the drive time as I stop for views and photo ops. From this point, I still had 239 miles (3h 14m) left to finish today’s route and to reach tonight’s accommodations in Tucson, AZ. The drive was uneventful as far as views. It was very desert. Rather than bore you with the video footage, just know that I had a great time singing my butt off to songs via SiriusXM. My energy level was still high and the weather was great for today’s drive.

As I reached Tucson, the sun was getting low and I thought, how this would be a great time to visit Saguaro National Park - again. Though, I’ve been there before, each day and time presents new opportunities when it comes to photography. Driving towards the park, the saguaro cacti were all over the place and so very pretty with the warm tones of the sun. It occurred to me that the road I was driving on was so curvy and nothing was around. What’s a woman to do in this situation? Find a spot to safely park and put up her drone. Duh! LOL.

I’m not a fan of rushing images, as I still wanted to get into the park before the sun disappeared into the horizon. There were a couple of spots that I found to be interesting and that screamed “CAPTURE ME!” I found a spot to park and walked around. I wasn’t ready nor quick enough to capture a photo of a roadrunner that was merely minding it’s business in an area that was all to it before I arrived. I stood still and looked around to find my compositions.

The moon was over the diagonal flow of the mountainside had a yin-yang vibe. That’s what I saw. ;-) I took a few images and settled on one. Then, walking back to Snazzy J, the sunburst, saguaro, and Snazzy deserved a photo.

I hung out for a bit longer before having a vision - go back outside the park and capture an aerial image of the sunset. It was a challenging image as the side of the mountains closest to me was pretty dark. But, I had my vision and dangit, this was the moment to make it happen. It was a great day and my energy level was alerting me that it’s time to go. This was still the first day of the road trip to my new city. I need to eat and rest for tomorrow would be approaching fast.

To my readers/followers: Thank you for hanging in there with me. I know I’ve been pretty off/on; all for valid reasons. With some serious prompting from very dear friends, the time has come to share these experiences. Maybe, my journey inspires someone, maybe that little girl that I once was, to not listen to the naysayers and create your path filled with what brings you joy and passion.

~Angela