The Cactus Trip Diaries

We had to check out of Motel 6 by noon, but by around 11:30 we had enough of sitting in the small room without having had breakfast. Angie wanted to find a Columbia shop to buy some more lightweight – easy washable etc shirts and via the internet we learned there was such a shop at the Anthem Retail Outlets, 39 miles from the Motel. We had plenty of fuel left in the tank; our Platinum deal with Dollar meant that we could return the car on empty.

At least the shops were airconditioned but once again, the desert air was scorching at 96 F. I couldn’t resist a couple more shirts myself – they are so much cheaper in the US, especially in these out of town Outlets.  The Columbia cash desk recognised my name from last year in Palm Springs and gave me another $14 discount as a result of reward points collected on that occasion. Thank you – that covered the cost of one of my shirts!

The rental car pick up and drop off points for a comprehensive range of rental companies is found in its own ‘terminal’ with shuttle bus services from each of the four flight terminals to it. Very well arranged! It’s the first time that we’ve come across this – well done Phoenix!

Mileage at the drop off was 17,652. That means that with a mileage of 14,468 miles at the pick up, we had driven 3,184 miles during 20 days, so averaging just 160 miles per day.

We took off as the sun was setting, but the windows on the plane were not clean enough at this stage to take any worthwhile pictures.