Sunday, 3-8-98

T oday I saw the sun rise for the 9th straight morning. That may be a record for me. Just before sunrise, I saw a spectacular sight. The largest meteor I’ve ever seen streaked over the Mesilla Valley and appeared to fall toward the Organ Mountains before burning out just above the mountains. The fireball was blue-green leaving a streaking trail of sparkling light that was yellow and orange in color. The sparkle was similar to that seen as part of a fireworks display. What a way to start the day!

We said our "Good-byes" to Tom, Nora, Dorisdean and Dick last night so we (Kay and I with Dave and Barbara) were underway at 5:30AM. Until today I didn’t know there was such a time on the clock. We started very early to try to get a head start on the stampede of motorhomes that was going to take place in a short time. I think our plan worked.

We were passed by only a few motorhomes. One nice feature of getting started so early is that I was presented with a beautiful sunrise in the rear view mirror of our motorhome. There was one place along the road where we saw a lot of motorhomes in a motel parking lot. It was figured the motorhomes probably took off last night during the windstorm and they had to take refuge in the parking lot.

As we left this morning it was cold with a breeze of only 5MPH. The low temperature for the area ranged from the mid to high 20s. As if to illustrate how cold it was as we traveled on I-10, we passed a motorhome with a cascade of icicles running down the side. The motorhome’s water filler cap was missing. Water splashing out of the fill pipe had frozen into icicles hanging down the side of the motorhome.

At one point along the way, we saw the results of an accident involving a Monaco motorhome and a car. The rear left corner of the motorhome was caved in and the right front of the car was smashed. My guess is that the motorhome driver was inexperienced and tried to change lanes from the right to the left with out looking far enough back. The driver of the car was probably surprised and unable to get out of the way in time, crunch.

The heaviest traffic encountered today was while driving through Phoenix. On the West Side of town, I stopped to buy gasoline. The price was the lowest I have paid in a long time. I bought Arco gas for 95 cents a gallon. This fuel stop also brought another pleasant surprise; our motorhome was getting 11.9 miles per gallon. Barbara suggested that it might be the result of not driving 70 MPH. Our usual speed on this trip has been 60 MPH.

We stopped at a rest stop along the Interstate to have lunch. I pulled up close behind Dave’s motorhome so as to take up only one slot. Across the freeway from us was a hill with a large population of saguaro cactus. While we were having lunch, an old passenger bus pulled up beside us. It had out of state license plates. In fact it had out country plates. The plates read "Centro America." This must be one of the results of the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement.) The bus was noisy and it smelled of diesel fumes, but it was on its way in a short time and so were we.

Our lunch stop is across from hill with a lot of saguaro cacti

In western New Mexico, the desert has a thick population of Yucca plants. The highway took us across great expanses of desert where we could see mountains off in the distance in most directions. It was as if there were islands of mountains in a sea of desert. At one point we passed a State Park in Arizona where there was a mountain covered with saguaro cactus. All along the way today we saw patches of brightly colored wild flowers. We again passed the ostrich farm that we saw on our trip going the other way. There must have been a thousand big birds in three big corrals.

Off in the distance along one stretch of highway, a small group of steam plumes could be seen rising from some sort of industrial or commercial operation. The steam dissipated and disappeared to rise as invisible water vapor. Up above, the water vapor condensed into a small cloud above the source of the steam plumes. The cloud was the only one in the sky at that time. The commercial operation was producing its own weather.

A few miles from the Arizona-California border is the town of Quartzite, Arizona. We took the business route through town so I could take a photograph of a sculpture of a really big fishing pole. We had seen the pole on our outbound trip, but I didn’t get a photo of it then. As I pulled off the road to take the picture, I discovered the giant fishing pole is part of a collection of interesting sculptures all over a motorhome campground. There were sculptures of all descriptions made mostly of welded scrap metal and old horseshoes. There were bicycles, cacti, people, and many other things. The whole campground is like one big art gallery. I took a picture of the fishing pole for Tom.

A new fishing pole for Tom

As we approached the Arizona-California border, we all decided to call it a day. Our KOA campground guide showed a new campground located at Exit 1 on the Arizona side of the border. It seemed a bit early to stop for the day, until Dave reminded me that we had been driving for over ten hours. It didn’t seem that long. Since we have a great expanse of desert ahead of us, it seemed like a good time to quit for the day. So we found our way to a brand new KOA campground.

The campground was so new that it is not officially open yet. But we decided to stay there anyway. This campground is going to be a very nice place to stop. It is situated right on the Colorado River looking across at California. The I-10 highway bridge across the river is visible from our campsite. We were treated to a most beautiful sunset. The sun silhouetted a group of palm trees and put a colorful glow in the sky as well as on the surface of the river. It was very pleasant to hear the sounds of wildlife around us.

Sunset as seen from our campsite on the Colorado River

The four of us put together a potluck meal for our evening meal. We sat at the campsite picnic table with a view overlooking the Colorado River. We must have done something right to get such a view. Once the campground opens, it will be next to impossible to get such a nice campsite on a whim.

Kay and I hope to get all the way home tomorrow. We traveled a distance of 550 miles today and we have about 600 miles left to go. So we think we can make it in one day tomorrow. We will see.

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