Sunday December 20th, 2009

Hello Family and Friends!

We’re behind on posting obviously, so I’m not going to try and recreate each day since Saturday, but will share the second day of driving.

On Sunday the 20th we set out on the road about 6:30 in the morning. We made very few stops and made it Show Low, Arizona, about 5 p.m. That’s when the fun began. Paul follows a blog from an RVer that grew up in Show Low and wanted to dine there and maybe take a picture or two. I looked up some restaurants on the Blackberry and we found several right on the highway.

Nearing the restaurant with a pirate-sounding bar, we dove into an unknown dealer new car lot to park for the meal. Issue 1: the car lot didn’t offer the ability to drive around. Instead, we got to practice unhooking the tow car and re-hooking so he could turn around in the available space. Issue 2: The restaurant did not serve beer. Issue 3: The pirate bar was upstairs from the restaurant and after making our way up all those stairs it was closed for a private party. We opted to leave the family restaurant and went across the street to a New York themed sports bar/restaurant. Food was marginal, but service was good. A couple coffees and some food and we were ready to keep on. We lost a good hour and a half from our excursion in Show Low. I don’t believe we’ll be visiting there again. Sorry Nick the blogger.

We continued on the route well after dark and found only a couple nice things about what was to come. I cannot write succinctly enough to describe to you our trek through the mountains. In the moonless dark, watching for moose, deer, cows, general animals, falling rocks, ice on the bridge, vehicles passing the center line, at least 500 35-mph hairpin turns. The bright spots are that the motor home features a grade brake and the road surface was good. It required every ounce of the coffee-fueled energy we both could muster. The Co-Pilot software Paul’s daughter bought us a couple years came in very handy. I could zoom in to the extent to see the really really bad turns as opposed to normal curves in the road. Should u ever travel this route and use GPS, the blob that appears is actually the 12-or-so back-to-back hairpin turns. I don’t believe we’ll return that way.

There’s a town whose name escapes me most of the way down that trek. Driving through town my mother called needing computer help. I was busy talking to her when Paul noticed cars were flashing lights, honking and pointing to the tow car. One of the straps from re-securing the car in Show Low had come loose. We didn’t do an interim check like he usually does. He got smart after the strap loss in Casey though, and puts a safety chain around the car’s axle. We stopped at a wide spot on the side of the road and a helpful police officer parked behind us providing extra light and safety. Thank you to that officer, whoever you are.

Needless to say we were pretty wiped after having survived that mountain drive in the dark. We got through the town and SURPRISE we weren’t done with the sharp turns and rise/falls of the mountain roads. Either they were less intense or we were immune because I don’t think I stomped my imaginary brake once.

At some point earlier in the day I realized that we hadn’t secured a place to stay that night. I got out the handy Woodall's campground directory and found a park on the southeast side where we’d be coming in. My criteria were decent Woodall’s rating and advertised wifi. We reached Shiprock RV Park in Apache Junction about 11 p.m. at night.

We pulled into the park and didn’t know where our spot was. Captain Obvious was quick to greet us and share that he knew where our spot was, but that the park didn’t like people arriving at night. Thank you Captain Obvious, I’m glad you got to share your thoughts.

We reached our spot and had to unhook. The spots here are not pull through. We’re getting pretty good at hooking and un-hooking the car so that went pretty quickly. A new neighbor helped him get backed into the spot and was very welcoming. We still had to level the unit and hook up before we could think about sleeping. The last of our hasty packing at home netted us extra copy paper boxes and laundry baskets all over the bed. Once the electricity and water were hooked up and the slides out, we had to dig out the bed. I did my best to stay out of Paul’s way. He was exhausted, I was exhausted and I had to work at 7 a.m.

I’ll close this post and create a new one about our encounters for this week. Just to pique your interest, I’ll tell you that it involves smuggling.

Thanks for hanging out with us,
Ann