Monday 4-9

W e were up and around early so that we would have more time for driving. Kay and I had a long drive ahead of us as we planned to try to get to the KOA campground in Needles, California for the night. First we wanted to see that Kevin and Tina were going to have help with their motorhome. They had made arrangements for a tow truck to take them to a garage where they could get their motorhome serviced.

The tow truck arrived and boy was a it a big tow truck. The most outstanding feature of the truck was its color, it was bright pink. The driver stepped out of the truck cab adding to the unusual scene.. He had a full beard and shoulder length hair. When I saw him I thought of the mountain man in the movie Gentle Ben.

A big tow truck waits to be pressed into service

When he assessed the situation with the motorhome, he told Kevin and Tina that he had no way to tow the their RV with the back wheels up. So, he suggested that Kevin should drive the motorhome slowly to the garage. It was time for Kay and me to say our good-byes to Kevin and Tina. The last time we saw them was as their small caravan descended toward the I-40 underpass. The bright pink tow truck led the way with Kevin following him slowly and Tina followed driving their car.

It was about 15 minutes later that Kay and I were leaving the campground heading for the freeway. Once we were heading west on I-40 we were viewing very familiar scenery. It wasn’t very long until we were passing the town of Cuervo, New Mexico. I’m still interested in finding out more about this place. It is just barely alive, the small village looks more like a ghost town.

A long road ahead

Shortly before reaching Santa Rosa the wind began to pick up. We had driven a good deal of yesterday with wind, so here we were having to deal with it again on this day. The wind turned out to be with us most of the day with it getting very strong during the afternoon. At one point I was having trouble with the transmission downshifting because of the wind load. I finally had to drop out of cruise control and drive at around 60 to 65 to stay in overdrive. Now that we were generally ascending in altitude and driving against the wind, we were giving back all the fuel economy we had gained when we were heading east almost two weeks before.

We happened to reach Albuquerque at a low traffic time. I was glad for this good fortune as it is bad enough driving through the construction zones without having to deal with rush hour traffic. We arrived in Gallup around 2:00, in time for a late lunch. I found my way to the ground beef palace where we usually eat when we are in town. After lunch we didn’t waste any time, we got right back on I-40 heading toward Arizona.

We had a lot of interesting cloud formations to view

We had to get all the way across the state of Arizona before we could stop for the night. We were in for more very familiar desert scenes. The Flagstaff area gave us a break from the continous desert vistas. I always enjoy driving through the forests around Flagstaff. There were interesting cloud formations in this part of the journey. The clouds added variety to the scenery, especially as the sun went behind the clouds producing interesting lighting on the landscape.

Another shining vista

As we passed the town of Williams Kay saw a KOA campground we hadn’t noticed before. It looked as if it was a nice campground for a possible place to stay on a future trip. As we drove toward the sun we watched as it dropped below the horizon lighting up the underside of the clouds. The clouds turned a bright yellow and orange as if lighted from within.

A glowing sunset in western Arizona

We were in for an unexpected change in the weather. We were about 60 miles away from Kingman with the sky still holding on to the last light of the day. There were small drops of rain beginning to scatter over the windshield. It was only enough rain to make a mess on the windshield. Then I saw what look like ice crystals in the drops. I was right, it wasn't much longer until we had snow flakes blowing around the windshield. It lasted a very short time as we descended toward Kingman and the Colorado River basin, the snowflakes stopped as fast as they began.

When I saw the lights of the city of Kingman ahead I knew our travels for the day would last only a short time longer. When we reached Kingman I pulled into the Flying J to refuel our motorhome. Again we did not delay our trip any longer than necessary. The remainder of our trip on this day was uneventful. We entered the Needles KOA just a few minutes over 12 hours from the time we left the campground in Tucumcari, New Mexico.

The campground office was closed, so I had to use a night registration form. We had our choice of many campsites. I was very glad to get out from behind the steering wheel for the night. It had been a very long day. Now we were close enough to home that I knew we could make all the way home the next day.