Day 5: Arizona Here We Come

We departed Gallup, NM and quickly crossed over in Arizona. This section of I-40 was particularly flat and looking like driving across Mars, as much as one can imagine. The red rocks of New Mexico were gone, replaced with light brown rock, bleached ground, sage brush and the occasional small shrub.

Craig and I switched drivers so he could sleep. I had to make time to catch up with my Mom and Dan who’d kept going. I put tunes on, kitties chilled out and I put the pedal to the floor. I cruised along doing 85mph and slowly caught up.

We stopped in Flagstaff for lunch only to be surpised that it was not 11:30am like we thought but 10:30am. The nice people at Cracker Barrel worked it so we could get lunch.

I really liked Flagstaff, surrounded by mountains and pine trees, this is more my speed.

After a fill up of gas we were back on the road. Rather than creating drama, I’ll just say the next hour was a bit hairy. Sleep deprivation and I believe pride made for a scary experience in front of me. When we got off the exit to head down 89 to Paulden, a cop stopped the moving truck and a warning was issued. Gratefully all of the other vehicles on the road were ok and no one was injured.

Heading down 89 to Paulden was pretty cool, there’s no speed limit signs, which coming from the northeast freaked me out. I kept feeling like someone was going to stop me and say, “hey you’re speeding!” and I’d have to respond, “but I have no idea what the speed limit is.” It’s quite scenic as you’re driving through state forests.

I had called ahead to our car rental and lined it up to pick it up in the afternoon down in Prescott. We got to the house in Paulden at the same time as the realtor and her very nice sons who were there to help move items in.

This of course did not go smoothly initially. First the A/C was not working in the house, second the fence was not wide enough for the truck, third the trailer lock key was missing and really it just kept getting worse.

After some heated “discussions” things smoothed out and the truck was unloaded. Craig and I drove down to Prescott and picked up our rental car. We ended up with a GMC Terrain which has a nice bluetooth setup and I can make phone calls handsfree.

The evening was getting things setup for own room, getting the evap system working and just relaxing.