We planned on traveling to Branson Missouri for the Roadtrek Corporate Rally, John became a realtor and decided to stay home and work..his first deal. Janice is now on the road and added another stop to the trip, not exactly on the way, but decided to visit Marty and Jeff in Cottonwood Arizona, Marty is Janice’s oldest and dearest friend, they went to high school together!
This is Janice writing the blog, I am usually only the photographer and John is the writer so you may find the blog not as well written but I hope you find it interesting.
Janice left Flagler Beach on Saturday morning around 7:30 am, here first destination was Biloxi Mississippi and her plan was to camp at the Walmart. 
The drive through Florida, taking the byways and not the interstate was beautiful. The wild flowers were in full bloom along the way. Of course we all know Janice cannot pass up an opportunity to gamble so upon arriving in Biloxi after about 10 hours of driving she immediately went to the Beau Rivage Casino and played a little Roulette. It started out a bit shaky and Janice was afraid she might loose but the gambling gods came her way and she ended up $100 and smartly left the casino for the Walmart. One would assume sleeping in a parking lot would be uneventful but at 3:30 am the parking lot cleaning crew and many street cleaners showed up so by 5 am Janice was on the road, next destination was San Antonio.
Leaving San Antonio the next destination was Las Cruces New Mexico, again taking the by ways and not the interstate. 
There was some excitement when she did not fill the fuel tank and the town she was targeting for fuel no longer existed. Thank goodness the next town was open with gas stations, looked like she was down to about 2 gallons left. Driving in the desert there were few vehicles of any kind, mostly Border Patrol. 
While crossing the El Paso River I looked at the beauty of the river.
After driving for over 100 more miles seeing only about 10 cars, Janice saw in the distance a white object, as she got closer it looked like a small white blimp then I saw the sign
” US Airforce Tethered Aerostat ” facility. Janice had to look it up and found that aerostats are large fabric envelopes filled with helium, and can rise up to an altitude of 15,000 feet (4,600 m) while tethered by a single cable. The primary mission for them is to provide low-level radar surveillance along the southwest border of the United States and Mexico, the Straits of Florida and the Caribbean in support of federal agencies involved in the nation’s drug interdiction program. The secondary mission is to provide North American Aerospace Defense Command with low-level surveillance coverage for air sovereignty in the Florida Straits. These have been around since the 1980’s..a little scary since they can zoom and and she your face!
Well Janice finally arrived in Las Cruces, spent the night and took off the next morning for Marty’s in Cottonwood, again taking the by-ways.
One of the beautiful parts of the drive was Tonto National Forest and Roosevelt Lake.
The National Forest is a Cactus forest. 
A beautiful desert. Both the reservoir and the masonry dam that created it, were named for U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt who dedicated the dam himself in March 1911. Roosevelt Lake is the oldest of the six reservoirs constructed and operated by the Salt River Project.