OCT 28, Friday, to Mesa, Arizona via the Petrified Forest National Park
We left at 8:45 am and drove back 17 miles to enter the Petrified Forest National Park. We stopped at the info centre where we watched a 15 minutes movie on the formation of the park. I also bought $30 of fuel @ $4.25/gal. (talk about a rip-off) but I had to as I was down to one quarter. Anyway, we continued into the Park and first looked at the Painted Canyon. It was quite spectacular, full of vivid colors of grey, brown, red and silver. We were on a ridge looking down into it. The road makes a wide loop before returning to and crossing I-40 and continues South to the Petrified Forest. There were points of interest along the way including the “Agate House Trail”, an old Pueblo dating back to 1250 and had 1200 people living there. The next place was the Newspaper Rocks where we saw lots of petroglyphs. We drove further south to the “Giant Logs Trail” where we saw a petrified log forming a bridge over a small gorge. It is supported by cement trust so that it won’t break apart. There were hundreds of pieces of petrified wood lying all over the field, some small, some big, some very colourful. There are signs everywhere warning NOT to pick up any pieces.
It was time to leave so we turned south- east on Hwy 180 to hwy 60 where we headed south-west. As we came around this curve, we had to stomp on the brakes as there was an accident; a guy on motorcycle went into the ditch and was laying face down. The bike was quite damaged too. We stopped to offer assistance but they had everything under control so we left. We stopped in SHOW LOW to buy fuel at 3.74/gal and had lunch here. We turned west on 260 and finally south on 87 at Payson. The drive was spectacular. On 260 we drove to the rim and saw all the mountain ranges south and west. We went down on this beautiful 4 lane highway to Payson. Hwy 87 was lower but as spectacular. In all we went from 7600’ down to 1200 feet in Mesa. We finally arrived at Val Vista RV Park around 5:30 pm and the gate security took us to our site, 106, three doors down from Glenda and Terry. Terry had made arrangements to have them wait for us and take us to our site.
After setting up, we went to T&G where they were having Happy Hour with their neighbours. We had a couple beers then called it quit for the night. It has been a long but wonderful day! We took lots of pictures and most are on PICASA folder #80. Time to go to bed!N 23* 25.126’
W 111* 45.127’
Alt: 1275 feet
We drove 275 miles (445km) @ an average 48 mph in almost 7.5 hours.
OCT 29, Saturday, Val Vista, Mesa, Arizona
We got up to a very nice sunshine and already, at 7:30 am, it is a balmy 20*C (70*F)! We went out with T&G to a local flea market being held at a church then for breakfast in Apache Junction which was cheap and delicious. Afterwards, we went to the Mesa flea market and got a “Happy Hour” flag and a couple other small items. We came home via Wal-Mart so that I could buy a time card for my phone. It is 88*F outside (29*C) but almost 95* F inside Bear so the A/C went on full blast...should have done that BEFORE we left!
We ended back at T&G’s place for Happy Hour after they had a swim at the pool. Friends of theirs, Moe and Kal came over to join us and we ended up having BBQ hamburgers. We had lots of fun and good laughs.
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