Just as soon as I was back from my last work trip for a few days, I had to fly down to Arizona for a shoot up in Sedona. The forecast predicted temps north of 105 degrees. For the first time since I went to Saudi Arabia  (that was only 4 years ago, but feels like ages ago) I got to test out the theory that a dry heat ain't too bad. When I landed at Sky Harbor in Phoenix it was about 110 degrees. It was in fact hotter than Hades. I got my rental car, maxed out the AC and drove up to the north side of Phoenix to get some grub at Dilla Libre Uno . Fantastic nachos and good vibes. This was my first time in Phoenix, having only been to northern Arizona, but while the temps were inane, you could see what some folks love about this sprawling suburb of a city. Some folks like the hot, hot, heat and suburbia, I guess.

Day 1: Minneapolis - Ozawkie, KS After last years awesome, but incredibly expensive San Francisco to Portland campervan vacation , I didn't think we'd be doing one of those again for years. But then Brooke had a work trip to Las Vegas and wanted us to tag along. That didn't quite work, but while researching a weekend campervan rental, I found a great relocation deal from northern Iowa to San Francisco during the kid's spring break. It didn't take much to persuade Brooke. Since our West Coast trip with  Escape Campervan 's we found out that almost all of the campervan and RV rental companies need vehicles moved from time to time. They often offer 90% or more off normal rental rates. But we didn't realize that every spring many of the campervan rental agencies also need vehicles moved from mostly Midwest factories to all over the USA and Canada. Lucky for us the Winnebago factory in Northern Iowa cranks out a bunch of rental vans. We had three proposed routes ...