Friday the 13th!
We had a leisurely breakfast and decided to go geocaching. Candy found one that was particularly hard in a cattle grating. We went on to locate several others around Lake Pleasant except for one that the log stated something about sailing right up to it. We figured the water level was probably still too high. Around noon we headed back to the resort and drove our rigs (Candy and Rick decided on calling theirs Goldie and we’re deciding among Cassie, Elsie/LC for La Casita or perhaps Sunny—to go along with Sunseekers). Judy did laundry while the others read around the pool. Candy and Rick took catnaps while Harris enjoyed the pool and hotub. Five PM found us going to a restaurant that Harris found a coupon for. Unfortunately, it was closed for a couple of weeks. On to Scottsdale to find a restaurant before seeing the play I do, I do. We stopped a possible restaurant, but when the appetizers were in the $40 range we moved on (Harris was very happy about that decision). We passed a restaurant called the Quilted Bear that Judy decided was fate calling and we stopped there. Much better prices (soup and salad for 8 bucks). The clam chowder was deemed excellent by Harris. Candy and Rick had salads and soups as well as wine to go along with dinner. Judy had prime rib sliders that Harris helped demolish. The waitress could have been Central Casting with her white hair and diner attitude. She was highly tipped for her services. The play was a let down. The woman lead had fantastic facial expressions and the only weakness was warbling voice. The male lead had major problems. The biggest was that fact that he perspired buckets and had to continually mop his face. The theater seated 25 or so and we were literally 5 feet from him. It was very distracting. The play is about a marriage over a lifetime and there were many poignant moments that each of us could relate to. Afterwards it was time to drive to camp and say good bye to Candy and Rick since they were to leave early the next morning.
Rick looking hard
Saturday, March 14, 2009
We left the campground almost 4 hours after Rick and Candy left. We followed their footsteps to Flagstaff before turning East to visit the Petrified Forest National Park. We stopped at Rainbow forest which is at the southern edge of the park. The weather was constantly getting colder. We left Lake Pleasant in the 70’s and by the time we were in Flagstaff, it was Seattle-like 50’s. The wind was biting and we had to wear our jackets, but we refused to change out of our shorts. We took a short stroll among the “trees” that had all their wood products replaced with silica that gave them a much heavier presence. A 3 foot high 24inch tree section can weigh 800 pounds! The weirdest sight during the park walks was seeing a 20 something woman walk her bobcat on the trail (other than having it snow on us). That is something you don’t expect to see even in the natural park setting. We stopped several more times to snap some pictures of the rocks and Grand Canyon like scenery before we left the park. Since there was no place to camp at the park, we made reservations just outside of Albuquerque in a RV park that was a couple of hundred miles away. Off we went and as we went farther East, the temperature dropped…48-43-40 and then 39-37-31 and then braking lights and ICE/SNOW. We slowed to a crawl and heard over the CB radio about a truck sliding into another just ahead. Judy was not feeling happy and secure with darkness and ice. Harris just wanted to get past it so that the speed would pick up. Fortunately the truckers were saying that things were improving Eastbound (our direction of travel) as we saw blue/red lights streaking westward on the other side of the freeway. We liked the phrase “salt shakers” that the truckers used as in “I saw a couple of salt shakers headed westward.” It was reassuring to see the temperature rise up to 34 and then 36 so Harris could pick up the speed and get us to the RV park faster. We pulled in about 8:30 but with the hour change it was 9:30 PM. The variety of scenery in just one day’s travels was remarkable. We went from miles of desert with saguro cacti everywhere, to scrub brush, to pine forests, over the continental divide and into high desert country again. New Mexico greeted us with beautiful red bluffs highlighted in the setting sun…something straight out of a western movie set. We pulled up to Enchanted Trails RV Park another of the “Happy Camper 50% off club”. This one should be about $15 for the night.
Petrified Forest National Park
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