Thursday 3-29

O ur day began at a leisurely pace. It was decided we would have breakfast in our motorhomes. This would allow us to get on our way sooner. We had to get to Gallup, New Mexico by the end of the day. Tina went into town to cash some chips left over from a card game. Kevin and I began to break camp and prepare to get on the road. For Kevin this meant to hook their car up for towing.

While we were disconnecting from shore utilities, Tina returned to camp. Kevin pulled their motorhome out into the street to a place where he would have room to pull the car up behind the RV. Tina backed the car into the street to get into the position for connecting to the tow bar. Unfortunately, the tow bar was lying in the street and she didn’t see it. There was a loud noise as she backed the car over the tow bar. Even though the tow bar is made of heavy steel, it bent a small amount. This caused the connection to the car to be misaligned by about 3/4 of an inch.

That doesn’t sound like a lot, but the steel was 3/8 of an inch thick which made it very difficult to spread the tow bar into alignment. Kevin and I pushed and pulled with all we had. Then I tried to kick to bent end into position. Finally we found that a combination of Kevin using a heavy-duty tire tool to pry on the end and me kicking, resulted in the tow bar making the connection to the car.

We were on our way east at about 9 o’clock. Once underway it was only a few minutes until our motorhomes were climbing the steep incline up Highway 68. Our route would take us to Kingman, Arizona. There were several stretches of the highway that were under construction. In a couple of places there was only one way traffic controlled by a flagman. At both locations we were fortunate to arrive at the control points just as the traffic was being opened in the direction we were traveling. When the road construction is finally complete, this highway will be a very nice route to take.

Our plan was to stop in Kingman so we could refuel our motorhome. We found our way to the Flying J on a street named after a western movie star I remember from my childhood, Andy Devine. He was known for having a very distinctive voice. After refueling, Kevin and Tina took the lead, pulling their car behind their motorhome.

Rock formations along I-40 are familiar sights

When we were back on I-40, heading east, the rock formations looked very familiar. We’ve come this way so many times that I’ve referred to it as our Wichita commute route.

We pulled into a rest stop near mile marker 181 to have our midday meal. When we reached the parking area it appeared as if a lot of truckers had decided to stop at this rest stop as well. Kevin and Tina found a pull-through parking place not far from the exit end of the parking area. There was only one spot left as we passed Kevin and Tina.

Time for a quick lunch stop

I decided to pull off to the side rather than take a pull-through space that might be needed by a big rig. Our small motorhome fit nicely in a space that would’ve been too small for an eighteen-wheeler. Shortly after we were parked a big rig pulled into the space we passed up. This would be a short, but restful stop for us.

As we traveled, there was occasional chatter on the CB radio. These conversations tend to make the time pass faster.

It seemed as if a short time period had passed when we saw the snow covered mountain located north of Flagstaff, Arizona. We were able to see the mountain long before we reached Flagstaff. At one point the snow capped mountain vanished behind a mountain that was much closer to us. The scenery along this part of I-40 had turned to views of pine forest as we rose in altitude. There was even an occasional small patch of snow under the trees.

Some of the scenery along the way

Suddenly the snow-capped mountain appeared again as we rounded a bend in the highway. The highway skirts the main part of Flagstaff. As a result we didn’t see much of the city as we drove through pine treed scenery. The number of trees slowly decreased as we descended toward the open desert in eastern Arizona.

Traffic began to slow down and became very slow for this part of the highway. This usually means one of two things, road construction or a vehicle accident. I didn’t see any road construction signs, so I figured we were going to see some sort of vehicle distress. Sure enough, when we finally reached the reason for the slow-down, we saw two big rigs in the center divider. One was turned over on its side while the other was right side up with only minor damage. I’ll bet that ruined somebody’s whole day.

This kind of scene is always unpleasant to see

Once past the spectacle, traffic was back up to speed in a very short time. The sky became somewhat cloudy. At first the clouds looked like cottony puffs. As the afternoon wore on, the clouds grew larger and started flowing together to block out the sun in large areas of the sky. During the afternoon it was decided to pull off the freeway to give Mickey a chance to go out for a walk.

A place along a section of frontage road was a nice place for us to park for a short break. As it turned out, the frontage road was actually a part of the Old Route 66. We found a few interesting photo opportunities across the Old Route 66. There was a "Painted Desert Gift Shop" in one direction. In the other direction was an old land office with what appears to be nothing but open space surrounding the building. We saw a row of mailboxes that greatly outnumbered the buildings nearby. Some of the owners must have to travel a fair distance to pick up their mail.

A lot of mailboxes — no houses

An old attraction along the Old Route 66

We continued on to our destination for the day. I had called ahead earlier in the day to make sure there would be a campsite for us when we arrived. I expected that we would be reaching the KOA campground in Gallup, New Mexico after the office was closed. As it turned out, we arrived with 30 minutes to spare. After registering we found our way to our campsites.

It didn’t take very long for Kevin to begin setting up his satellite dish antenna. This is an activity that would become very familiar as we moved across the country from one campground to the next. It was only after acquiring a strong signal from space that we were ready for a quiet evening in camp. This particular KOA campground is far enough from the Interstate that we didn’t have to listen to highway noise.

We did experience one noisy event however. As Kevin was setting up his satellite antenna a small business jet glided only about two hundred feet over our heads just before touching down on the runway. I had forgotten about the campground being under the final approach to the Gallup Airport, that was exciting. Fortunately for us this is not a busy airport, so we didn’t have any more aircraft activity during our stay.. In years past, we’ve been awakened by airplanes taking off over our motorhome in the early morning.

After our evening meal, we all gathered in Kevin and Tina’s RV to visit and talk about the activities of the day. Talk turned to using a computer to get e-mail on the road. So, we set up Kevin and Tina’s notebook computer so they could get there e-mail. The campground had a data port built into the pay phone in the laundry room.

After getting the computer configured we walked over to the laundry room to try our luck at getting connected to the internet. I took my computer to use as a known working machine. It didn’t take long to set up Tina’s computer and connect it to the data port. Following the instructions on the wall, an online session was started, or so we thought.

The phone line would not "Go off hook." Nothing seemed to work, so I set up my computer because I knew it would work if the phone line was working properly. My computer did no better than Tina’s computer. It looked as if there was something wrong with the phone line. We decided to give up on getting e-mail to return to our motorhomes.

We got together in Kevin and Tina’s rig to watch a couple of favorite TV programs. The satellite service provided local stations from the San Francisco Bay Area. The campground is in the mountain time zone. We hadn’t kept track of the time difference between our location and the source of TV programming. As a result we missed the first program we planned to watch, but we did get to watch the second show.

A side effect of the earlier TV schedule was that we were ready to call it a day early. This would allow us to get to bed a little early in preparation for our long drive the next day. It had been another fun day.