We’re on our way!

It is amazing how fast the last two weeks have gone. We were in the hunter-and-gatherer mode with piles in several rooms of the house and finally got everything loaded into the RV on Saturday afternoon. In addition to the things needed for the Mexico trip, we needed to have everything for Christmas ready to go with us. At the last minute, Tobey decided to take the RV in to have the tires checked and they reminded him that he was past due for a tire rotation … so three hours later he was home. (I guess he wanted me to have time to finish cleaning house before we left!)

We left home at 6:00 a.m. Sunday morning (to our friends, Phil and Marcia – we CAN get on the road early!) We stopped to pick up our son, Tyler, and were on the highway by 6:30 a.m.

Tobey took the first driving shift. Traffic was light and the roads clear. Just south of Raton, NM I took over driving. We weren’t sure we could make it to Albuquerque for gas so we stopped at Santo Domingo Pueblo to get 5 gallons then cruised on into Albuquerque to fill up 50 gallons at the Costco – only $2.62/gallon! I drove past Grants, NM then Tyler took over.

We made a stop at the WalMart in Gallup for an electrical cord for the IPod and thought we were making great time … and then the rain started. It poured rain from Gallup to Holbrook, AZ, then it turned to snow. We stopped in Holbrook to assess the situation.

Tyler, armed with coffee and Red Bull, continued on. We took AZ Hwy. 377 then Hwy. 277 from Holbrook to Heber. It was near white-out conditions, but Tyler is a very  careful driver, thank goodness! Fortunately there isn’t a lot of traffic, but when the big trucks went by in the opposite direction, the splash back was horrible!  At Heber we picked up Hwy. 260 to Payson. It’s about 60 miles and the roads were wet and slushy, but the snow did change mostly to rain. When the rain finally stopped, the fog settled in.Tyler commented that he ALWAYS gets this lousy stretch of road and bad weather!  When we reached Payson we turned south on Hwy. 87 and had pretty smooth driving into Scottsdale.

We only passed one car in the ditch, but help was already there to pull them out. Arrival at mom’s was midnight – 18 hours after pulling out – about two hours later than anticipated.

Tired, but relieved to be here, we said quick hellos to mom and all went to bed for some much needed sleep. Even Penny was happy to be here!