Flagstaff, Az

Well after one month, we are on the road! In that month, John detoxed from work, we moved Jeff and Damilya into our house and we got the motor home ready for the great journey.

We were worried about the heat in the desert, so decided to get an early start on our first day. Up at 2:30 AM! The coach was ready to go so we were on the road by 3. The sun came up behind some beautiful clouds about 5. We were heading east on I 40, east of Barstow by this time. It never got very hot, just about 85.

For our California friends, gas cost $2.87 a gallon at our first fill up. That’s 46 cents cheaper than when I filled up before the trip. At this rate, they will be paying us to gas up by the time we get to the east coast.

This was a long traveling day, just short of 500 miles. We generally want to take it easy and only go 100 to 200 miles a day. The idea is to see the country, not drive though it.

Our campground in Flagstaff is at 6713 feet elevation (so says my new GPS navigation software), so it is much cooler here than other places in Arizona. The sky is blue and the air is clear, just like LA.

We are still getting our house in order, there is junk everywhere. That will take us a few days.

Day 2 in Flagstaff dawned clear and windy. A low of about 65. Not as cold as expected. It was off to explore old town Flagstaff, which is quaint. Lots of micro-breweries, restaurants and nice stores. Then on to Wal-Mart for the things we forgot.

We then tried to get the coach organized and have come pretty close. Everything is in its place for now. We will see.

We went shopping about 4:30 and when we came out of the store we saw the monster fire that started 2 miles southwest of town. It was burning hot (black smoke) and was moving toward town.

When we got back to our campsite, which is about 4 miles northeast of town, we turned on the tv to see what was happening. It didn’t sound good. The wind was blowing at 25 mph, with gusts to 40. The humidity was just 5%. The forest service was very pessimistic, with these conditions. The fire threatened some sub-divisions and was going in the direction of the famous Lowell Observatory, which was about 2 miles away at the top of a ridge. That’s where Lowell looked for life on Mars and Pluto was discovered in 1920.

With our experience with fire in southern California, I thought the town was toast! But the fire crews really pulled this one off. Water drops and hot shot crews had it almost under control by sundown and the fire hadn’t advanced very far, inspite of the wind. By the time we went to bed, there was very little tv chatter at all about it.