Thanksgiving Trip 1999
Sunday 11-21-99
Page 2

We left Needles at about 9AM and headed for Arizona only a short distance away. We had been traveling for about 25 minutes when we crossed the Colorado River into Arizona at 10:25. No my math isn't bad, we also crossed into the Mountain Time zone, so we just lost an hour.


Rock formations in a familiar mountain range

As we drive along, we have a familiar mountain range on the left. I have seen those jagged peaks many times on this route which has become a sort of commute to Wichita. We are in a place the radio stations we are listening to refer to as "The tri-state area." of California, Nevada and Arizona. An interesting thing about this area is that the radio stations always give the time for two time zones. This only happens when on Standard Time, when Daylight Time is in effect in most of the country, Arizona is one of only two states that remains on Standard Time. That puts the whole tri-state area in the same time zone. But for now I find it interesting to hear a commercial on the radio where the store hours of a business are given for two time zones.

Out in the Arizona desert there are a lot of very long freight trains. I saw trains stretching off in the distance to where I couldn't see the end of the train. Most of the long trains have five and six power units. The long trains are interesting to see when they are winding through the rock canyons that are common here. I know my rail fan friends would really enjoy watching the trains here in Arizona.


The prices of gas seen here were typical along I-40

I can tell I am out of Northern California, I drove into a Flying J truck stop to fuel up the motorhome to see the price of gas at $1.19.9 per gallon. With my RV discount card I received a penny per gallon discount. As it turned out, these prices represented what we would see on most of our trip.


An unusual building next to the highway

The sky was clear with only a few small clouds on the horizon. We had lunch in a rest stop along the way and while there we saw what I thought was an unusual truck driver. A tractor-trailer rig pulled in with Canadian license plates. The driver appeared to be from Sikkum and he was wearing a blue turban, traditional white garments and a scabbard with a curved knife.


The mountains ahead, near Flagstaff, are dusted with snow

Because of the good weather, we were able to drive after the sun set. This allowed us to get all the way to Albuquerque for the night. We arrived at the KOA campground at about 8:30 after stopping to get our evening meal at KFC to take with us to the campground.


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