Raiding Arizona – Part I – Intro

February 05, 2010Raiding Arizona – Part I – Intro

At the beginning of the year, I went to Arizona.

A part of Arizona

The idea was complicated, not simple. My grand-mother used to live in Phoenix. She moved recently to be closer to the family. She still has her home and car there. The car however, was not running properly. My Dad brought it to the mechanic's and was given an estimate of 5 000$! That's a lot of money. Especially for a 20 year-old car.

As luck would have it, my cousin Frank dropped by one day and we started discussing the problem. I was eager to get his feedback as he's already taken a Toyota 4Runner apart, only to rebuild it. This, in my book, makes him a car expert.

This is what a car expert looks like

He said we were getting taken advantage of and that everything that had to be done was rather easy and the parts plentiful on the internet. With my family, we concocted a plan to go over there with him and have him do the repairs. Yes, it would cost less to fly him over 3500 km than to go to the garage. Not only that it was a great quid pro quo. We'd save money on the car and he'd get a free trip! And anyways, spending time with the family is always a good thing.

It turns out that it cost less than 1000$ to fix the car, plane tickets included! It took Frank about a day and a half to do his job. With the car fixed, there remained only one option: ROAD TRIP!

You sometimes take pictures like these on a road trip

And thus we travelled Arizona from North to South. In between we visited Sedona, the Grand Canyon and Mexico. Since we were based in Phoenix we also got around there. Join me as I take a look at the state of Arizona. Part of a weekly mini-series, we'll start off next week with Phoenix, metropolis of the state.