Arizona, Mesa - Sunday, November 1, 2015 - Gallop, NM to Mesa, AZ

Pulling into Val Vista Villages RV Resort early this afternoon.  It is 84 degrees here.  When we left Gallup, NM this morning it was 21 degrees with a wind chill to 13.  We were ready to get out of there by 7:00 a.m., a whole lot earlier than our usual time!!

 

 

This is our home for the winter.  Our address will be 233 N. Val Vista Drive, #796, Mesa, AZ 85213.  We are in a different site than we were last year.  This one was a breeze to get into, last year was a real fight.  We didn’t have a patio last year, this year we have a double one which will allow us room to park the motorcycle instead of leaving it sitting on the sidewalk out front.  Our times are going to be off kilter from the kids again – three hours difference from our daughters and two hours difference from our sons.  I think our tree is an orange tree.

Before we left Gallup completely we waited in line at the Blue Beacon to get the motor coach washed.  The dust we picked up in Kansas became splotchy dusty yuck when we came through some rain showers – we were a mess.

I read yesterday that this part of New Mexico has at least 100 trains per day going through. 

We left Gallup on Hwy 40, this is just one of the many different mountain formations we came across on this trip.

Mountains entering Arizona look completely different.

A little touch of color.  Not sure what kind of tree the yellow one is, they really stand out.

As we enter Arizona there is a whole lot of open land, every once in a while we would see a cow or two.

As we neared the Petrified Forest area we saw yet another type of mountain formation.  These are smaller versions of what you would see in the Petrified Forest.

I don’t know the name of this mountain in the distance, but the snow on top was pretty impressive.  This is as close to snow as I want to come J. 

We took Hwy. 40 into Winslow, AZ where we picked up Hwy. 87.

I closed my eyes after I took this picture.  I don’t care if it said the height was over 14 feet, it didn’t look like we would fit.

Not a lot happening on Hwy 87.  It did occur to me that if you had a problem, there was nowhere to pull off.

We are entering Coconino National Forest.  I was expecting trees in a forest.

Found the trees and lots of sharp curves!!

 

 

More curves….

I tried to not look over the edge when there wasn’t a guardrail.  It did occur to me that a little guardrail probably wouldn’t stop a motor coach bent on going over the edge.

Not only were there lots of sharp curves, there were lots of steep downgrades.

 

Even though it was a little tense at times, the mountain views were awesome.

 

 

 

This is really something you don’t want to see when you are driving in challenging situations.  You know this person doesn’t have experience driving this vehicle and has no idea how it might react, plus they are towing another vehicle.  I was glad we didn’t have to follow them for long.

 

 

We knew we were starting to get close to our destination when we started seeing the cactus.

I’m told that the Saguaro cactus doesn’t start to grow “branches” until it is at least 50 years old.  These are some beautiful specimens.

A couple more shots of the different mountain formations before we got into Mesa.