New Mexico to Nevada
As has been the case on most days on this trip we began our day in the leisure mode. I jumped in the car and drove the short distance to the little store on the premises. The store is part of a travel center complex that consists of refueling facilities, a McDonald's Restaurant, a trucker's store and a convenience store. Both stores are the best stocked stores in there class. This place is now on my list of places to stop for the night when we are traveling in this area.

Back in the campground the wide open spaces are spread out in all directions. The campground brochure said that the campsites are landscaped using indigenous plants; which means desert flora. In our campsite there was a small dry bush and a clump of tall grass.

Click on image to view larger version View west of our campsite — Image above is a composite of three photos.

Once on the road, our route was very familiar from many years of traveling this way between our home in California and our home town in Kansas. I drove out onto the Interstate where I could see the road straight ahead as it disappeared over the horizon.

In this part of New Mexico there is a long stretch of the old route 66 that is well maintained with a lot of it running next to I-40. About the most exciting thing we saw along the way was evidence of several grass fires in the form of blacken burned areas next to the highway. One burned area was large enough to cover an area that was in the median and on both sides of the highway.

Old route 66 runs next to I-40 in this area

It wasn't very long until we crossed the continental divide; which is somewhat uneventful in this part of the country. There was a short detour that rerouted the westbound lanes over to one lane of the eastbound lane with a concrete crash barrier between lanes. This always slows down our progress and I don't like narrow width of the detour lane. Fortunately, this particular detour had a wider lane. It was always good to see that the Interstate is being resurfaced.

Crash barrier seems too close at times

Opposite side of the road is being prepared to be repaved

Soon the mountains behind Gallup, New Mexico appeared in the distance. This area has been very windy on past trips, but this time we experienced only mild breezes. The skyline of Gallup — such as it is — appeared just before reaching the east end of town.

Gallup is like many small towns that still have a portion of the old route 66 running through the downtown area. There are buildings that have been there for at least 50 years and very likely more. As we entered the city limits the freeway crossed over the strip of US-66 on the east side of town. The highway crosses back over the old main street on the west side of the old village.

The highway passes over old route 66 that is the main street of Gallup

Once Gallup is in our rearview mirror it is only a few miles to Arizona. Along the way an of old pueblo appears on our left. The adobe ruins are nestled in an escarpment on the side of a rocky cliff. There is a roadside rest area close by that makes it easy to see the old structure when traveling eastward on I-40.

As usual we saw many very long trains along our route. It seems as if there are a lot of new automobiles heading for California. In one day half of the trains we saw were carrying new cars or were heading east with empty car-carriers. As we saw in the early part of our trip, the long trains have anywhere from four engines or power-units to as many as eight. In this area we saw long trains of coal carrying cars which I assumed were headed to coal burning electric-power plants.

Just before leaving New Mexico there is a collection of tacky looking souvenir stores catering to tourists. This is not to say that tacky tourist attractions are only in New Mexico, we've seen them in most states where we've traveled. It's just that the location on the western border of New Mexico really stands out. In a way I guess that is just part of doing business; attracting attention.

After leaving New Mexico the familiar Arizona sign appears with its very brightly colored image of the Arizona state flag. This eastern part of the state is the home of a large meteor crater, petrified trees and dinosaur fossils. Once a petrified tree trunk, lying on the ground is recognized, they seem to be all over the place, for a short time, on both sides of the highway.

Colorful Arizona sign welcomes us to the state

Gift shop with a familiar name is seen shortly after entering Arizona

There is something else that is on both sides of the freeway — dinosaurs. There are life-size sculptures of dinosaurs, of various kinds, mounted in life-like poses near the roadway. I took a picture of a running raptor on the other side of the highway from us. When I was finally able to see the photo, it turned out to look as if the terrible-lizard was about to attack a couple of eastbound tractor-trailer rigs. We were more fortunate on our side of the Interstate the big bad dinosaur had already landed a meal and the prehistoric creature was snarling as if to protect its meal from outside poachers.

Dinosaur looks as if it is running to attack a couple of big rigs

Shortly after getting safely through dinosaur territory I decided to top off the fuel tank of our motorhome. I chose the place because there is a Flying J Travel Plaza near Winslow where I pulled our RV up to the RV pump area. While holding the pump nozzle, as fuel poured into the RV tank, I noticed a yellow sticker on the pump. I recalled that I had seen the bright-yellow message on other diesel pumps in Arizona. To allow me to read the entire message later, I took a picture of it.

The gist of the message is that it is illegal, in Arizona, to use that particular pump to fill the tank of a vehicle with more than two axles and/or has a weight greater than 26,000 pounds. Fortunately for me my motorhome is qualified to refuel at the RV pump. What I gathered from the message is that there is a higher, state fuel-tax for heavier vehicles and such vehicles should be refueled at the big-rig diesel pumps. There is an attention-getting fine that goes with the violation of using the lower priced fuel. The fine is $1000 or $10 per gallon whichever is the greatest.

Click on image to see full size warning sticker Warning seen on diesel pumps in Arizona

Most of the day, the weather was overcast with the sky getting very dark, at times it seemed as if it might rain. Then the sky would get lighter and the sun would peek through; we went through several transitions like this during the day.

I saw a couple of road signs with the names of towns that brought back memories of our first trip this way back in the early 1960s. The town names are Two Guns and Twin Arrows. On that first trip we spent our first night in a Flagstaff motel on our way to our hometown. As we left Flagstaff very early in the morning, it was cold and we wanted to get a quick breakfast. Because of the early hour, we found no place open until we got to a little restaurant in Twin Arrows. Now, there isn't much left of either town. In fact, when I looked on the Web for info on each place, the towns were sometimes characterized as ghost towns.

When it was time for lunch, I pulled into a roadside rest area that was surrounded by red-rock formations. I went outside to see if there were any photo-ops nearby. As is usually the case in this area, many opportunities could be had in all directions. I clicked off a couple of pictures of our motorhome with our car in tow. Then I turned toward a red-rock formation with the desert stretching off to the horizon. A blue sky formed a nice backdrop filled with numerous white puffy clouds. A sign caught my attention; it warned about dangerous critters in the form of poisonous snakes and insects that may be lurking in the area. .

A sign that really gets your attention

After lunch it was apparent that the roadway was beginning to climb to a higher altitude. The sky was clearing of clouds and we could see San Francisco Mountain that is north of Flagstaff, Arizona. One thing that is very noticeable is the increasing number of pine trees. The section of I-40 that goes through Flagstaff is always a refreshing change from the harshness of the desert environment east and west of Flagstaff. As we climbed away from the desert floor the environment changed to forested mountain scenery. I was looking forward to getting beyond Flagstaff because it's mostly downhill all the way to California.

Ahead of us the mountain north of Flagstaff is in view

Forested scenery is a welcome change from the desert environment

Instead of going directly to California, our plan was to take a detour to Laughlin, Nevada for the night where we could visit the Riverside casino. The sun went down shortly before arriving at Kingman where we made a stop to top off with diesel fuel. By the time the fuel tank was filled there was no light in the sky resulting in a short drive in the dark.

On our way to Laughlin we could see the dome of light beyond the mountains that was over the location of Las Vegas 90 miles away. It took awhile before we could see the much dimmer glow in the sky over Laughlin even though we were much closer. The long downhill ride into Bullhead City, Nevada went very well. I was pleased with the performance of the exhaust brake on our motorhome engine.

Once at the bottom of the hill it took only minutes to find our way to the Riverside RV Resort where we would spend the night. It took awhile for us to find a vacant campsite that would be easy to pull into. Once our motorhome was settled into its campsite it didn't take long to unhook our car and get ready to visit the casino. Looking down the hill from the campground there were some new lights that weren't there the last time were here. The colorful sign was displaying the name of a hotel-casino — Aquarius — that I don't recall being there before.

The view from our camp area looking out toward casino row

In the casino we felt very comfortable in familiar surroundings. First we found our way to the buffet to have a bite to eat before settling down in the casino. One thing I like about the buffet in the Riverside Hotel and Casino is that it is right next to the Colorado River. We had a riverside table that overlooked the boat dock where we could see the water-taxi coming and going. The water-taxi transports people to-and-from other casinos located next to the river as well as taking passengers across the river to a dock in Arizona.

Familiar marquee in front of the Riverside Hotel and Casino

I always enjoy going through the Classic Car Collection. One thing I like about the cars in this particular museum is that they are so varied. There are fairly old cars in like-new condition as well as not so old cars. You will find cars that are stock right next to custom cars and street rods. Many of the cars evoke fond memories of my teen years when cars were very important, second only to girls in my mind.

Some of the cars are those that were previously owned by celebrities such as a special utility vehicle built to order for John Wayne. Another celebrity car is a street rod driven by Elvis Presley in one of his movies. Also on display, is the beat-up motorcycle that Steve McQueen rode for recreation. There is one very strange machine that is a motorbike made from a regular bicycle powered by what appears to be a modified, outboard motorboat-engine.

Back in the casino Kay was still giving the slot machines a workout. I sat down for a few more minutes playing the slots. It was getting late so we decided to call it a day. It took only a few minutes to get back to our motorhome. Once there I turned on the TV to check out the weather forecast — it looked as if it was going to be blustery the next day.

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