Day 54-To Flagstaff, AZ
Drove 198 miles in 3-3/4 hours today and what a difference a day (and more than a mile high) makes. We were going to drive another 100 miles to Sun Valley but I remembered when we were in AZ last year they told us Flagstaff was usually a lot cooler because it’s at a higher elevation. So I started calling campgrounds and, sure enough, most of them were busy because everybody was coming here to get cool. We found a really nice one, Black Bart’s RV & Steakhouse in Flagstaff, very reasonable price, pine trees and much cooler. Rained as soon as we got here but it’s really nice out now. Finished my book, Catching Fire, the second of the Hunger Games and it left me hanging so now I want to start the last one…good thing I brought it. Took a walk after dinner, stopped in at Black Bart’s Steakhouse, they have sort of a revue with the staff like a karaoke thing with a theme but we didn’t stay. Nice to go outside of AC and not come back dripping. At 7:30 it was quite dark already.
Watched some Olympics and then the weather with said there was a “haboob” (an intense sand storm with high winds) through the valley where we were originally going today. The pictures looked like a huge sand cloud. They said because of the storm you had to wash your cars again (this must be a normal thing here) and it was hard on pools. Harry and I were wondering why there aren’t any pools here, now we know, I wouldn’t want to have to clean sand out of a pool. Supposed to be like this ‘til Tuesday and then return to the norm of 103!!!! Staying here for at least two nights and then I’ll be checking the elevation of places we’re going and try to stay somewhat high in elevation until it gets cooler.
Some stats for today:
Left Laughlin, NV 10AM 118 deg. Arr. Flagstaff, AZ 2PM 63 degrees
Sand, sagebrush, mountains Dirt, pine trees, mountains
Elevation-550’ Elevation-7000’
Temperament-HOT Temperament-COOL