I would love to regale my very limited readership with interesting stories of our adventures but today we took the day off from doing anything. We hunkered down in the Barbarian Invader, turned on the air conditioning and watched old TV reruns for a good part of the day. It is just too hot to venture outside today.
It is about 2:30 PM as I write this and the temperature is rising. Our indoor/outdoor thermometer indicates 101.2 and rising. TGFAC (Thank God For Air Conditioning.)

Today is Peggy’s birthday.
We have discovered one absolute truth here in Cottonwood at the Verde Valley RV Resort. This place is hotter than hell. The humidity sometimes gets up to 10%. These reasons must be why they refer to this place as a desert. We decided to get going early in the morning, skipping the normal cooking of breakfast and choosing instead to eat in a restaurant called Randal’s. I tried my usual unhealthy fare of chicken fried steak which also came with hash browns, eggs and biscuits and gravy. It was good although I would have preferred to get a little more steak and a few less biscuits. Peggy selected bacon and eggs and thought it was great maybe because they gave her too much bacon. I helped her with the inadvertent overstock.
From Randal’s we drove first to Montezuma Well. The well is located at the top of a hill and is really a small lake or pond with continuous replenishment by springs located in the bottom of the disgusting green water. The water is apparently 80 times richer in carbon dioxide than real water so drinking without treatment is out. There are bright red and vibrant blue damsel flies hanging out in the bushes at the rim. The water from the well dumps into the Verde River although it should more properly be called the Cafe River because it is not green.
It was only about 105 degrees when we were there and little shade is available so we departed after strolling around the well rim. We drove a few miles down the road to Montezuma Castle National Monument. Oddly, Montezuma had nothing to do with this place but some of the white early explorers in the area ignorantly thought the locals were Aztecs because they looked like Indians. There is also no castle. Instead, there are quite a few cliff dwelling pueblos where the Sinagua people lived for about 400 years. The pueblos are pretty neat and they must have been built pretty well because they are still here despite the efforts of grave robbers, unauthorized collectors and thieves. This park has ample shade protecting the tourists from complete desiccation as they roam on the walkways through the Monument. The entry fee is $8 a head but our federal pass got us in free.
Since we were shriveling up like ticks on a skillet in the dry, broiling environment we chose to return to our air conditioned Invader for the miserably hot part of the day. It ended up being hot until about 9:00 at night but we did step out just after dark for a whirlwind trip to Scab-Mart for food and booze. When we returned from shopping, Peggy bailed out of Charlotte and started walking toward the Invader when she noted a life form wriggling in the bushes near the back of the trailer. This particular life form was covered with long hair that was almost all black except for the two white stripes down his back. The skunk was happily feeding on some bird food Peggy had generously dumped on the ground for the birds but it seemed the birds were not going to get any because the skunk was soon joined by one of his relatives and four raccoons who were very efficient at cleaning up everything on the ground. They also tag-teamed the shepherd’s crook we had installed to hold our bird feeder and toppled it, cleaning out the feeder’s contents by morning. It was a massacre.

It was our first real day for exploration in the Cottonwood area and we elected to go see some local stuff touted as nifty in the brochures we picked up at the Cottonwood Chamber of Commerce visitor information center. The cleverly created map we initially used for getting to the mining town of Jerome, AZ, was highly imaginative in nature and entirely inaccurate in reality.
After only getting bollixed up once in Cottonwood by being trapped in a parking lot with no exits and subsequently misled near Clarkdale where the map deviated substantially from the actual road configuration, we found the road to Jerome. This was a town established by copper mining employment and it appears that scads of people used to live on the steep side hills surrounding the mine. Miners can be clever builders and the structures in Jerome are proof of their tenacity and absolute lack of engineering expertise. Old buildings are built atop the even older but flimsy former buildings. The result is a quaint assembly of interesting but structurally horrifying structures that have entries at grade level on one side and tall columns, hastily constructed retaining walls and sheet wall systems on the other. If you enter by the front door you will be as safe as anybody in a war zone but if you exit by the back door the fall will probably kill you. The streets are lined with old, seismically susceptible-to-failure buildings containing bars, antique stores, restaurants and tourist hangouts. If you don’t look at the foundations, walls, columns, beams or streets closely, you will probably enjoy the place.
The town is located halfway up the side of a very steep mountain so the views out across the valley are terrific. The road up and back is very narrow and Peggy kept the speed down for fear of plunging off the side into oblivion. Once we had made a pass through Jerome, we headed down the hill and stopped at a sandwich place called #1 Sandwich Shop that published an ad in our Verde Valley RV Resort guide alleging that they offered “The BEST sandwich you’ll ever have.” Their advertisement is not quite true but the sandwiches were okay and we devoured them at a picnic table in the nearby Tuzigoot National Monument. Tuzigoot is right next to the town of Clarkdale and consists of a hilltop pueblo ruin where maybe 225 Sinagua lived. There is a walkway around the ruins and you can actually climb to the very top of them but Peggy and I stayed on the loop trail because we could do it the fastest that way. It was a bit over 100 degrees but it was a dry heat since the humidity was 5%. There was no shade on the loop. After a bit of human barbecue here, we hopped back into Charlotte, turned the air conditioning to ramming speed and sped home to our Barbarian Invader and cold air Nirvana.

Today was a moving day. We disconnected our umbilical cords from Meteor Crater RV’s utilities and headed west on I-40 toward Flagstaff, AZ. It is about 35 miles over and 2,000 feet up to the I-17 junction in Flagstaff where we turned south towards Sedona and Cottonwood, AZ. The section of I-17 just south of I-40 passes through some vibrant conifer forests before dropping about 3,700 feet in about 18 miles of highway. Numerous signs adjacent to the road warn motorists to save their brakes on the way down because if you don’t, you plunge over the side to certain death. We chose the chicken option and kept Charlotte’s and the attached Barbarian Invader’s speed down so we didn’t come out at the bottom going 200 miles per hour.
Once we got to the bottom of the hill, we turned west on CO-280 toward Cottonwood. After a few miles we pulled into Verde Valley RV Resort, a TT campground. They call all TT parks “resorts” although they really aren’t. This park has three or four main RV areas but the really nice spots are pre-filled by folks who either own seasonally or permanently here. The main areas have irrigated grass, power, water and sewer hookups, tables for each spot, a hot tub for the thermally defective, a pool and terrible wi-fi. Our dreadful phone has very sketchy service on phone calls and the data transmission rates are negligible. The good part is that we are TT members and all this is free. We were not blessed with getting a terrific spot near the river gully but we did get one that is private and all the utilities work. We have good shrub cover on 3 sides and Charlotte blocks the road so we have a nice, quiet outside porch although it is hotter than hell. There is no 50 amp electrical service for some reason but we are okay with 30 amps.
We set up and since today’s drive from Meteor Crater was short, we had plenty of time left in the day for some exploration. As soon as we looked north, we could see the absolutely stunning red, orange, yellow, white and gray cliffs in Sedona, about 20 miles distant. We chose to do some snooping around that way and soon were driving among the same gorgeous cliffs. They are truly awe-inspiring but some types have elected to give mystical powers to the surroundings with claims about spiritual vortex thingies, wellness nodes, self improvement imaginary mechanisms and unfettered capitalism.
Driving in Sedona is a nightmare for two reasons. The first is that spiritual gurus and proponents of mystical health strategies seem to be very poor drivers. The second reason is that the terrain on both sides of the main street is magnificent and only the most jaded can resist slowing to just look around. To give the motorized traveler more difficulties, the main drag has numerous businesses with funny names touting all sorts of mystical shit to make you more whole, healthy, honest, dishonest, sensitive, in touch with something, human or allegedly better. We saw possibilities for pink Jeep rides, personal enrichment, gluten-free Mexican food, the purchase of chia seeds and goji berries (whatever they are), spiritual healing (in case your spirit consumed too much peyote or broke it’s leg), workshops for those bozos convinced that chatting about something will change it, guides for those seeking wisdom and the annual Sedona Yoga festival. According to those selling these services in Sedona, this is the spot for holistic healing, psychic readings, dream analysis, past life regression and massage, vortex hikes, yoga at alleged vortex sites and general personal bad juju reduction.
Those touting Sedona allege that Sedona itself is something they refer to as a vortex, a perceived point at which earth is believed to emit swirling waves of energy. They have no proof. The types of energy allegedly emitted is of an unspecified, unmeasurable nature that can only be properly identified by those with vortex identifying superpowers. There seems to be no local acknowledgement that tornadoes, dust devils, whirlpools and the stuff spinning down the john are vortexes and have scant use in personal enrichment but may contribute to personal impoverishment, property destruction and environmental messiness.
Regardless of the hooey abundantly offered by charlatans, con men and quacks, the scenery in and around Sedona is spectacularly beautiful. Leading from downtown is the Red Rock Scenic Highway which takes you back to reality and I-17. This road passes through some terrific scenery before joining the freeway that took us back to Cottonwood. There are a few pull-outs along the road but anyplace you want to park costs $5 and each place levies the fee so it would be easy to spend $25 just stopping to take a few pictures and read some interpretive signs. We will return here before leaving the area but only after we research the route to see what we want and not a business route through strange businesses staffed entirely be wierd0s and crystal salespeople.

Today’s list of must-do functions was limited to checking out Meteor Crater, the original reason we parked in this part of Arizona. I was a really good guy and cooked up some breakfast before Peggy threatened to have her way with me. We finally got rolling about noon and drove the 5 miles up to the Meteor Crater visitor center. We had a discount card from our campground and I am ancient so I got two discounts, Peggy got one and the visitor center cashier got $30.
The visitor center is quite nice, not very large but well air conditioned which is fortunate because it was toasty outside. We sat down and watched their informational movie where we learned the meteor that made the big splash here was about the size of a bus and was moseying along at 26,000 miles per hour when it reorganized the local terrain.
We strolled outside into the inferno-like sun and were rewarded with a magnificent view of the 550′ deep, 4,000′ diameter crater created when the rock hit the earth. They believe everything within about 10 miles was vaporized by fallout, blistering heat and explosive magnificence some 50,000 years ago when the chunk of iron and nickel hit the earth. 150 million tons of rock and impact products were blasted from the hole, leaving the monstrous crater visible today.
We finished giving the Crater a sniff and returned to the Invader for lunch supplies before taking off on another local loop drive through the Navajo Indian rez a bit north of I-40 between Winona and Leupp Corners – about a 60 mile round trip. This part of the world has some extraordinarily beautiful desert and mesa scenery and, next year when we have more time, we hope to return.
We ran into some of our fellow RVers as we bought fuel today and a pithy comment might have been made about some of our geriatric counterparts. The fellow RVers were traveling in an very upscale and expensive motorhome called a “Phaeton,” sometimes referred to by us as a “Pharton.” The believe the comment went something like “Just because you own a Phaeton doesn’t mean your wife doesn’t shave her moustache.”

We departed Holbrook and drove about 60 miles to Meteor Crater. Normally I drive when the Barbarian Invader is attached to Charlotte but Peggy was a really good sport and elected to drive today. It is rugged sitting in the right seat and actually getting to see all the stuff as we went by and today was a good day for me to be cruelly excluded from driving duty. I’ll get over it.
We covered the distance in less than an hour and were able to find our park for the next two nights, register and set up the Invader before noon. We love the short hauls with the trailer. We finished all the stuff we needed to do like having some porter before deciding to take an aimless spin around the ‘hood. We started by going west on I-40.
After about thirty miles we pulled off at Walnut Canyon National Park. We knew nothing about this park and until we pulled off I-40, we were ignorant about its existence. The park charges $8 a head but we had our federal access pass and got in free again. There is a nice visitor center with a gift shop and some exhibits. The back door of the visitor center leads out to the edge of very steep-walled canyons where some folks named the Sinagua (Spanish for “without water”) lived in caves and cracks underneath some of the layers of rock. I guess if the crack was wide enough and deep enough, the former residents would build mud and stone walls to keep out the weather and critters and neighbors.
The cliffs where the Sinagua selected for their homes are either very steep or outright bluffs so going down to the canyon bottom for water contributed to efficient use. Getting up the cliffs without water jugs looks to be pretty nasty so sending the kids down for water must have kept them busy all day. These folks were tough; the canyon is at about 6,000′ elevation and getting around in the bit of the park we saw left me gasping, at least on the uphill sections.
We fiddled around in the park for about an hour before departing and driving a bit further west on I-40 until we turned north on US-89 toward Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. There are actually a whole bunch of volcanic vents and cinder cones in the monument left over from a giant fracture in the earth that spewed tons of lava and cinders extending for about 20 miles or more.
The road through the monument takes motorists on a serpentine route between the cones, through lava flows and tremendous sections of bumpy land covered by cinders. The vegetation, where there is any, was open for business and the clumping plants were festooned with purple, red, white and pink flowers. This is a pretty spectacular place and, just when we thought we had seen it all, the road passed over a ridge and an amazingly colorful vista of iridescent cliffs maybe 25 miles away on Navajo lands appeared. The colors, even from a distance, are vivid and I can see why the Native Americans in this area enjoyed peyote. The cliffs must be fantastic on psychedelic drugs.
The Sunset Crater loop road exits the monument property and, for a bit, wanders through stunning scenery showing all the fun this area must have been when eruptions were in full tilt in the early 1600s. The loop road then enters Wupatki National Monument, another place we were ignorant of until today. The road leads past Wukaki, Wupatki, Lomaki, Citadel and Nalakiku pueblos (actually, former pueblos since they are all ruins) in addition to a bunch of unnamed evidence of former civilizations in this area. The view to the west is the snow-capped 12,633’ elevation peak of Mount Humphries and the views to the north and east are the constantly-changing hues of the Navajo lands. This loop is a great drive. It took us about four hours to go 60 miles because the scenery was so great.
We then drove back to our camp near Meteor Crater because it was getting dark and we both prefer to keep our veering limited to daylight hours. On the way home, the clouds and sun put on a spectacular sunset demonstration that I photographed liberally although the camera, despite being a Nikon, just can’t quite reproduce the amazing subtle colors the eye can see. I guess you just have to go see for yourself.

Peggy and I jumped up this morning, drank a bit of fortified coffee, packed some vittles for a day of exploring and departed OK RV Park before 0900 hours. We headed back east on I-40 until we reached the entrance to Petrified Forest National Park. After a short stop at the visitor center for postcards, we pulled up in the entrance line to pay $20 to access the park. Fortunately, we had our federal access pass and got in free.
The first several miles takes you along the road through a section of the park called Painted Desert. I do not have the capability to use adequate superlatives to describe the scenery in this magnificent place. The terrain exhibits all the colors of the spectrum in the cliffs and mesas and we could have easily filled up our data chip in the camera taking pictures of the stunning scenery. We stopped and strolled around wherever there was a possibility and were delighted.
Things only got better because no sooner had we left the dazzling panoramas of the Painted Desert when we crossed I-40 and entered Petrified Forest. There isn’t too much petrified anything at the beginning but soon we got into the really neat stuff. The terrain is extraordinarily colorful with hues of red, pink, orange, blue, white and purple everywhere we looked. As we continued south through the park, more and more petrified wood started showing up near the road with equally extraordinary colors of what used to be wood 225 million years ago. We pulled out everywhere we could and again took all the available short little trails they have through the wonderful gardens of petrified wood chunks strewn about the stunning terrain. This is definitely an E-ticket ride and a bucket list adventure. Plan on spending the whole day watching the colors change in the sunlight while covering the 25 mile long road through the park. I will come back if I get another opportunity.

A travel day today. We broke camp by about 10:00 AM and started west on I-40. In Albuquerque, we finally got to see our only hot air balloon despite being in the area for 5 days during their Balloon Fiesta. Albuquerque is in the Rio Grande Valley and there is a substantial climb going west from town. We passed through Albuquerque at about 5,200′ elevation and ascended to around 7,000′ at the continental divide before starting the long descent across the remainder of New Mexico and eastern Arizona.
I-40 passes through some truly magnificent canyons with brilliantly colorful rock formations. In eastern Arizona, the interstate passes right by Petrified Forest National Park but there are no RV camping areas near the park so we continued to the OK RV Park in Holbrook, AZ. The run from Tijeras to Holbrook is about 250 miles, nearly at the limit of as far as we are willing to go in one day. The park is another desert-type facility with not much shade because not too many species of trees grow in this part of the world. The park has full hookups, wi-fi, cable TV and our dreadful phone works here for some reason.
We decided to go out for Chinese food at a joint called Mandarin Beauty. I got the General Tsao chicken and a combo rice and Peggy chose a chicken with vegetable dish with a typical Chinese name like “twice frazzled chicken” or “vegetable chicken poon tang.” My food was very tasty and Peg liked her food. Later that evening, I found out why people say you get hungry a short time after eating Chinese food because mine passed right through with considerable alacrity.
We also took a spin through the town of Holbrook. It is a unique little burg with many plaster dinosaur statues, Indian rug merchants and the complete array of fast food joints like DQ, Aliberto’s, of course the Mandarin Beauty and some little Mom & Pop eateries. They also have a motel called Wigwam Village where travelers can stay in a genuine concrete teepee with window-mounted air conditioners. Very spiffy. This same motel, in the interest of historical accuracy, has several old 1940s, 1950s and some 1960s American cars spread amongst the concrete wigwams. Some are in great shape and, if they run, could probably be sold to guys like my son, Sam, or our friend, Steve Perich, back in San Diego. Very little rust on these relics.

Today is our last day of our two week stay in the Albuquerque area. We drove into Albuquerque to try out a highly-touted restaurant called California Pastrami.
The place is quite a ways north in the city so it took us about 25 minutes to get there. It is in a mini-mall; one small suite among many. When I walked in I thought I may be in heaven because they specialize in pastrami which I would gladly slam-dunk down the grocery hole until I pop. Reality quickly set in when I noted the 12 ounce pastrami sandwich with some provolone slipped in runs some $13.88 and the chocolate shake I got to go with it comes in around $5. Peggy got the Reuben (which they spell on the menu as “Ruben”) and was unimpressed. My sandwich was okay and there was ample meat but they slice it transparent thin which dries it out during heating. The food was okay but we got two sandwiches and two shakes which ran to $36. They are no match for Phillipe’s in L.A. or R Deli in Hulett, WY.
We picked up fuel on the way home and then spent the rest of the day preparing to break camp from our two-week stay along with some dedicated television watching. We got TV over the antenna in Tijeras; maybe 10 channels. All of them are shit.

We might be considered unimaginative because we have pretty much exhausted our list of stuff we wanted to do here in Albuquerque. The Balloon Fiesta is still a non-event for us because we have been near the Fiesta grounds twice and still await our first sighting. In addition to some unfortunate weather the ascensions are mostly around 7:00 AM which is somewhat early for us.
We elected to go back up Sandia Crest (el. 10670′)and were rewarded with a drive that looked different than it did Saturday before last. The Aspen trees are changing color and the breezes on the sides of Sandia Peak wiggle the leaves resulting in a great show. Some of the Aspens are green, some yellow and the rest red. It is pretty neat. The views in all directions from the Peak are terrific, particularly with today’s balloon flight cancelling wind and clouds racing up the west face of the mountain. Got pix.
We descended after a while but instead of heading back down NM-14 to our trailer, we headed north towards Santa Fe for a while. There are some stunning views of wide-open New Mexico land with multiple ranges of mountains visible in the background. After a bit we turned east and south back toward Edgewood on I-40. We noted a Wal-Mart next to the highway and we needed some deli meat so we pulled in to do some light shopping.
The deli was closed for a mysterious reason that seemed to be unknown to other Wal-Mart personnel. Some who worked in adjacent sections responded “Oh, is it closed?” when queried about the lack of deli staff. We left still stumped.