After saying goodbye to Scout, we
pointed our jam-packed (also cookie packed, New Glarus Spotted Cow
and Potosi beer packed) rental car west last week and started another
adventure. The primary objective of our trip was finding some warm
weather in Arizona. We also planned on stopping along the way in Iowa
to visit our friends Tom and Jane Downs and then on to brother and
sister in-laws Tom and Jan Hauk's in Buckeye, Arizona. We planned on
watching the Brewers in spring training, and then visiting the Grand
Canyon, plus rolling north through Monument Valley to see our
Colorado mountain kids.
As always, it us great to see Tom and
Jane. After cocktails and catching up, Tom and Jane fixed us a nice
dinner with the center piece of fresh slabber bluegill filets he
caught through the ice on an Iowa farm pond. We settled in to watch
the big academy award winner film, “Birdman.” It was interesting
if you like lots of odd angles and sort of realistic lighting - maybe
it was shot with a dozen Go Pros? We got the plot, but the story -
if there was one - was just plain weird and hard to watch. Sorry,
none of us got it. I give it one popcorn bag. Tom made us a
traditional Iowa breakfast of eggs over easy, sausage patties, and
toast before we shoved off for Oklahoma.
We saw gasoline as low as $2.04 a
gallon and as high ast $2.69 along the trip. Our rental Chevy Cruz
was getting around 35 MPG and handling the 80 MPH traffic well. We
had only one incident; when getting off a toll road, we didn't have
the correct change for the unmanned toll booth, so Ellen put a dollar
into a changer and it was rejected time after time. Cars filled with
people who obviously didn't have the correct change like us began
piling up behind us. I gave her a five to try and it worked after
several attempts, dumping $5 worth of quarters, nickels, and dimes
into a cup. El fished it out and handed it to me. I counted out the
$1.15 required and she dropped it in the toll basket. The red light
did not go off. Keep in mind that by now there were 10 cars behind
us. I gave her another quarter thinking maybe I counted wrong.
Nothing- the red light glowed on. Finally, I said, “We paid it,
these people got to go too. Go!” She did. There was a bell going
off in our ears as we headed west again. We kept watching for
flashing blue lights in the rear view but there were none. We stayed
in an America's Best Value hotel in Weatherford, Oklahoma that night.
All I can say about this place was that it was about one step above
camping - but it was cheap.
The next day we traveled across a
winter barren Oklahoma and north Texas on into New Mexico. Like
people everywhere, people who live there are awfully proud or so it
seems, but with the exception of some longhorn cattle, quarter
horses, tumble weeds, and big cities, there sure isn't much to see
but scrub brush and long-flat prairie with high line wires along I-40
at least.
We made Gallup at sundown in a light
rain and checked into our hotel. We ate a small Pizza Hut pizza and
hit the sack. We stayed at a very nice America's Best Value inn, but
if you ever stay in Gallup, New Mexico, check out where your hotel is
related to the railroad tracks. A train went by at least every ten
minutes all night long - right across the street! I slept though
most of it with my Cpap on, but Ellen, a light sleeper on her best
night, had a long restless night. The lady at the desk in the
morning said she thinks the engineers take perverse pleasure in
blowing their horns as they rumble through.
On day three we hit a lot of rain and
icy roads. We stopped at a McDonald's for coffee and a break as we
entered Arizona. Ellen took over the wheel here, and I don't think
she had been driving ten minutes when the rain started to turn to
huge snow flakes and sleet. By the time we climbed the 7,000 feet of
elevation up into the San Francisco Peaks range (which we couldn't
see due to the falling snow) to Flagstaff, Arizona, we were in a
full-blown blizzard of heavy, wet snow piling up. It was made worse
by the surrounding big trucks and dare devils in SUVs flying by,
throwing up sheets of wet snow on the windshield. At Flagstaff, we
saw a sign for the Flagstaff Mall and we were able to drive through
the wet nearly foot deep snow to their parking lot. We went mall
walking for awhile. A nice sales lady in Penneys told us that two
days before people had been coming in flip-flops and t-shirts.
Anyway, after some lunch at the Denny's, we could see the snow had
stopped, and Ellen's brother Tom told us that if we can get down the
mountain about 15 miles we'd be out of the snow. He was right.
Actually the plows had cleared I-17 already and we made good time.
The terrain turned from snow covered mountain pines with swollen
streams of melt water to no snow cover with swollen streams and
finally we started to see saguaro cactus jutting skyward along the
highway and on the surrounding hills and mesas.
I started watching the thermometer on
the dash and it rewarded me with what I hoped for as the temp rose
from 30 in Flagstaff to almost 70 when we hit the outskirts of
Phoenix! By the time we got around the city to Buckeye, the temp
read 74. It was still raining a little, but it was 74!
Until next time, get out - we found Tom
and Jan's without trouble and after warm welcomes, we had a cold one
under the veranda roof outside! More next time. Enjoy.
No comments:
Post a Comment