Thanks for those of you who chimed in on how often you wanted updates. Some read our blog with their morning coffee every morning and some can’t keep up with the daily posts. So, I’m going to do a little of both, some daily posts, some every other day.
Our last two days in Arizona were very unplanned because the snow effected all of our plans.
After we left the Grand Canyon and trecked back to our resort 79 miles away in Flagstaff, it was Becca’s turn to check the oil in the car and fill it up.
It’s a good thing because the snow came down that night!
So we decided to go buy some cheap sleds at Walmart and go sledding!
Guess what? Walmart’s buying department doesn’t know the Alpine climate and didn’t have any sleds since it’s “past season”….In March🙄
So we decided to go to the Observatory…
All tours were booked for the day.
But it looked like a great place to go sledding. I guess one or two other people have thought that too. Read the signs. No sledding. 🤣
But, it’s “past sledding season” according to Walmart.
The Pioneer Museum was closed too but we got to see the outdoor things. Check out these amazing Ponderosa Pines.
The museum has an old logging car train and pioneer logging equipment. (Lee Coulter’s business in Hope Valley if you watch When Calls the Heart like my girls do).
We ate lunch at Casa Durant, where the girls were very excited to see they serve home made Horchata!
My son-in-law introduced them to this cinnamon, creamy drink last summer and they have a definite affinity for it.
This place has excellent dips and sauces as well.
And this is the first time I can understand why anyone would like unsweetened tea. We discovered there is no such thing as “Arizona tea” in Arizona. It’s all unsweetened tea, unless it is raspberry or peach soda fountain flavored tea. But their unsweetened is really good!
Day 38
This morning roads were covered in ice, it was 28 degrees and still snowing. We were supposed to check out at 10:00. I was a bit unnerved by that thought.
At 9:59 a road scraper came by and cleared the road. Thank the Lord!
We had a 7000 foot elevation to drop and a 5 2:2 hour trip ahead.
We drove through the beautiful 1.8 million acre Coconino National Forest.
Just beautiful
GPS routed us to Route 66 to avoid crashes on 140. We got to go through the cutest town we have seen yet on Route 66!
Williams, The gateway to the Grand Canyon.
The old Santa Fe RR train is there.
And an old filling station museum.
With vintage cars out back.
Then we went through crazy Rock Mountains I was too chicken to drive through and take pictures in. Followed by endless desert!
Occasionally we’d see a few cows.
Mimi said they probably just had cows for show out here because they had way too much land! 🤣
Then we ran into something really cool looking for a gas station.
The Colorado River!
We drove UNDER the Santa Fe railroad train!
And there was this incredible Oasis out in the middle of the desert!
I’ve never seen a restaurant with a pool!
It is such a cool place. A definite respite from the summer heat for travelers no doubt!
The smoked chicken wrap and salad are delicious.
It was really windy and the girls said the water felt like mountain stream water. Cold! But there were people swimming.
We drove through endless desert again over Hwy 95, which is nauseating if you have car sick issues like me.
The long, straight, forever road with little hills every 50 feet. Nauseating.
I see why there were a ton of 4WD vehicles back at the restaurant. This is 4WD adventure country!
I learned, thanks to Mimi, how to control my motion sickness on this type of road.
She said DON’T LOOK DOWN!
It worked! I stared at a point of the mountain straight in front on every hill! No sickness! And I didn’t hit any trucks head on while not watching the road, which is great!
Nothing but rocky sand for the ground here.
Then, we spied a palm tree farm!!! In the middle of the desert!
The temperature was 75 degrees by the time we reached our resort in Indio, California.
What a drastic change of scenery and weather we underwent today!
From a blizzard at 7000 feet, to tropical paradise at sea level.
Here is the view from our back deck. The front deck overlooks the tennis courts. People are playing under the lights tonight because it’s warm enough too!
And the pool temperature is what the girls call PERFECT! They swam for an hour to stretch out from the long day in the car.
And we got Panda Express drive thru two minutes before closing for dinner.
Really, really, really excited to be some place warm, without snow for a few weeks. So, so, SO glad.
The Grady Bunch Life 