On The Road….Again

It was approaching time to begin planning a road trip to escape Phoenix’ blazing summer heat but the heat arrived sooner than expected and not much in the way of planning had been done.  There was a vague idea of heading toward Oregon to spend time on the coast with faux family Ruthee and Gail but then Ruthee got scheduled for foot surgery and would be recuperating right smack in the middle of the best time to be on the Oregon coast.  That’s a long way to go to not be able to do what you wanted to do so we modified plans to include a giant circle which would take us to Grand Teton and then back to some of our favorite haunts along the way.

An arbitrary date was selected for departure.  The weather forecast was for temperatures to be slightly over 115^o F at the time we’d be loading up the coach and we just couldn’t face the prospect so we postponed departure by a week.  Temperatures never did moderate much but we had to bite the bullet and start the chore.  There was even less rhyme or reason to our packing process this time and, as we’ve since learned, many useful items were left behind. 

Our first stop, as has become habit, was to be Camp Verde.  Shortly after passing through Black Canyon City, not an hour from home, Howie noticed a plume of smoke ahead of us and it wasn’t long before traffic on I-17 slowed to a crawl and then stopped completely.  We could see planes and choppers dropping water and fire retardant not far off in the distance.  There we sat in 107^o heat, bumper to bumper, for three hours.  We were more fortunate than most, being able to run the generator to keep the a/c and refrigerator operational, with convenient access to cold water and a bathroom of our very own.  The CB radio kept us informed as to progress or lack thereof of the fire crews ahead of us.  The southbound lane reopened in pretty short order but we northbound folks seemed to be stuck in place.  There are stretches along I-17 where exits are few and far between and even where there are exits, there’s nowhere to go once you get off – just some dirt roads wandering off into the desert, no services, no nothing.  By late afternoon we had inched our way to one such exit and there was nothing to do but to exit and get back on southbound and find a campground for the night.

And so we did, arriving in Anthem in time to cook supper, watch a little (very little) t.v. and hit the hay for an early start the next day if the highway had been reopened northbound.  And it was.  As we drove past the exit we had used, we could see that the fire had burned right up to the edge of the highway and traffic was confined to one lane as work crews replaced the guard rail posts which had burned in the fire.  But the fire was out, no homes were lost and many travelers were inconvenienced but not harmed.

Camp Verde was at least ten degrees cooler than The West Valley and the nights considerably cooler but it was still a little too warm to turn off the a/c and open all the windows.  One of the plans on our agenda was to meet friend Pat for a trip to the Pine Strawberry Arts and Crafts Festival.  I had a notion that the festival had something to do with strawberries.  Nope.  Pine and Strawberry are two small towns up in the mountains on the road to Payson.  It had always been an intention to visit Payson.  Okay, you can check that off the list.  Yes, it’s pretty and yes it’s cooler but there’s only one road in and one road out and the tinder-dry pine forests seem dangerously close.

Another day was spent poking around in Prescott and Prescott Valley.  We visited a number of RV parks with an eye to perhaps booking ourselves in for a few months next summer.  But nothing struck our fancies in particular and we more or less shelved that idea.

With the 4th of July upon us, Pat had invited us to her place to watch the fireworks from her back patio.  We had an not-so-old fashioned picnic dinner.  Her house is on a hill over-looking the Fairgrounds so we had a fine view of the fireworks.  But they were overshadowed by an enormous black sky filled with stars and we realized once again how nice it is to get away from big city lights.

One of the reasons for making Camp Verde our first stop is to be close enough to home to run back for any really important things which might have been left behind.  We had our meds and eye glasses with us but did have to shop for things like nail clippers and assorted other small items.

After doing a rather thorough job of checking out the antique stores and thrift shops (and acquiring a few small treasurers) in the area, we moved on north and eastward, spending several days in Grants, New Mexico, a place we’ve not stopped in the past.  Grants is one of those small cities along Old Route 66 that slowly faded away when I-40 came into being and traffic kept on moving.  The cluster of chain motels at the highway’s exit seem busy enough but there are plenty of vacant buildings along what once was the Mother Road that still serves as the town’s “main drag”.  We had hoped to visit the Acoma Pueblo, known as the Sky City, but their brochure indicated that it would be closed for an extended period of time, including our time in the neighborhood.  And, yes, Grants is plural because it was founded by three brothers named Grant; had there been only one brother we’d be spending time in Grant.

We had about given up hope of having something interesting to do during our visit in Grants so we had rather low expectations when we wandered into the New Mexico Mining Museum and stumbled into another one of those magical circumstances that make RVing so much fun.  A gentleman at the front desk offered to be our tour guide and we always say yes to those offers.  We quickly learned that what was once mined in this part of New Mexico was uranium and that there were once 25 mines operating between Gallup and Albuquerque and that we had as our guide someone who had worked in those mines for an extended period of time.  Using a real uranium mine for display purposes would be hazardous so a condensed but very realistic (this assessment was re-enforced the next day by a real life geologist) replica has been recreated in the basement of the museum.  By realistic I mean that there were pieces of actual (and well-used) equipment lying about, sandstone dust and chucks of stone on the floors.  Nothing looked the least bit new or clean and we had Mr. Jack Farley to give us a blow-by-blow description of life in a uranium mine.  His love of the topic was obvious and he made us feel a small part of the experience.  The mines are all closed now because it’s cheaper to buy uranium from other countries than to mine it here.  These mines once employed 7500 people; nowadays you’d probably have trouble finding a half dozen willing to do that hard and dangerous work at any price.

When we got back to the surface, which also serves as the Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Farley pointed out a small display of rocks and other items of interest which were displayed in tidy glass cases around the room.  An item of special interest was a dinosaur bone, the interior of which contained iron pyrite (fool’s gold) crystals which Jack had unearthed 800’ below ground in one of the area’s mines. 

El Malpais National Historic Monument is located not far from Grants so we took off on Saturday morning to do a bit of exploring.  It turns out that El Malpais (which means “the badlands” in Spanish) is a park best explored on foot…if you are young enough and strong enough to tackle it.  We watched the brief film and headed down NM 177 which runs along the east side of the park, stopping again at the BLM ranger station for further advice on what to see and how to get there.  It turned out that the 1 1/2 mile long access road to the Sandstone Cliffs overlook is not paved.  While it is a pretty decent road, it was just not comfortable in the Saturn so we turned around and headed back toward pavement.  Progressing further south, we came upon La Ventana Natural Arch which had the good sense to place itself near the highway.  By then it was noon and we had no inclination whatsoever to hike even the shortest distance to see it.

There were beautiful sandstone formations, sculpted by eons of wind and rain, some free-standing, others clinging to cliffs and hills.  And there were plenty of lava flows from the ancient volcanoes that dot the area.  This park is one best explored in a more moderate season and with much younger knees.

On the way home we stopped at the Route 66 Vintage Museum located in the Double Six Gallery.  The museum tells the story of Route 66 in and around Grants through a selection of enlarged postcards which show Grants during the heyday of The Mother Road.  Most of the buildings pictured still exist, although not now serving their original purpose….or any purpose at all for that matter.  The docent volunteered the information that carrots had once been a huge cash crop in the area, something we never would have guessed, this being a high desert area.  Uranium and carrots, what an interesting combination. 

And now it’s onward and upward towards Santa Fe….stay tuned.