We crossed a line today.

Today we traveled from Albuquerque, NM to Winslow, AZ.  For Cyndee and I both, this is the farthest west we have ever driven.  We've both been further west, but by plane.  We are now enjoying being up close and personal with things we had only seen from thirty thousand feet.

Our final destination is a state park just outside Winslow; Homolovi Ruins.  The drive on I-40 between Alb. and Winslow is probably the most pleasant part of I-40 I have ever been on.  There were a few long, shallow climbs that drained off some of the speed Big Gulp managed to build but the road was smooth and once leveled back out on the valley floor the speed came back easily.

We had one stop for fuel at a Flying J truck stop about half way.  As we got on down the road later I learned that I probably picked the highest priced gas on the whole trip route at just a few pennies short of $4.00/gal.

Homolovi Ruins was a short distance off to the north of I-40, about two exits before Winslow.  The road in is a very narrow asphalt road with really rough seams about every hundred feet.  Rough enough it knocked one of my mud flaps loose and dislodged a fender flair brace.  I'll have to do some mechanic'n tomorrow.

To our surprise the campground was completely empty, save the campground host.  I guess snagging the only sight with a sewer connection was not such a big deal after all.  But we don't know why this place is empty, it is great. 

This campground is wide open, it is the desert, backing in should be a snap.  But wouldn't you know it, our site had a small tree planted right at the edge of the pavement and Cyndee had to do a lot of scurrying back and forth between my mirrors to snake us into place without dragging a tree limb down the side of the trailer.

This is high desert camping.  Except for the out of place scrawny trees, it is nothing but sage, chaparral and tumbleweeds.

There is nobody out here but us.  A big thunderstorm is building about 20 miles away.
 Tomorrow we will explore some of the ruins and check out Winslow.  They have a Walmart so we should be able to start stocking up on the groceries we will need to take to the North Rim.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Putting Down Roots for the Winter

Image
  October 2024 Okay, so the above pic is not our winter home, except in our dreams.  However it (The Biltmore) is just a stones throw away from where we are setting up housekeeping. As planned, our departure from Dumplin Valley RV Park in Kodak, TN was early with only about an hour-and-a-half traveling time to our destination in Candler, NC, a western suburb of Asheville.  But it wasn't quite as easy as it sounds.  The last four miles was like running a gauntlet. As soon as we took the I-40 exit to Candler a four mile obstacle course began.  The roads were just barely wide enough for two sedans to pass one another without taking a wheel off the edge of the pavement.  But that would be ill advised as steep and deep trenches lined both sides of the road.  Getting an eight foot wide and sixty foot long truck and trailer combination down these winding mountain roads was an altogether different drive.  Many of the turns in the road required me to pull ...
Read more
Image
 Since October it has been hard to tell that we are full-time RV travelers.  We dropped anchor at our daughter's family home and that's where we've been ever since.  We're starting our sixth month without moving.  But it's all going as planned.  We sought to spend the winter with our grandkids in close proximity and that has been accomplished.  And as luck would have it we had relatively easy access to replacement equipment our rig was in sore need of.  Some of it we knew about, some we didn't. The first thing to crop up was a bad circuit board on our water heater.  It was the "brains" of the water heater and we could not run on electric or propane, it was totally down for the count.  Most places we have been it wouldn't have been a big deal but in our North Carolina location the well water coming to us was running at about 35 deg F.  That's uncomfortable to wash hands in, let alone take a shower.  I didn't waste any time in getting...
Read more

Looking Ahead - Distant Destination

Image
  Not much happening since last post other than routine life.  Doing things with the grandkids and old people doctor visits.   Except! We have been applying for winter volunteer jobs for 2024/2025 and have been officially accepted as campground hosts for Furnace Creek Campground, Death Valley.  My first communications for this position date back to about three months ago.  There was a lot of waiting between the first few communications but the pace has really picked up in the last three weeks.  We have had phone interviews and signed volunteer agreement forms via encrypted communications.  And as of six days ago of this writing the medium level background checks were begun and completed.  We were told that they could see we had many background checks showing in the system from our past positions and that facilitated rapid progression through the system for this one.  All we have to do now is show up for our October report date. Maybe "al...
Read more