A Series of Firsts

Coolish morning and foggy. Yesterdays rain meant that we got nothing packed away last night, so as far as I can recall this is the first time we have done all the packing up on the morning of departure. Before beginning this arduous task we headed over to the club house for sustenance in the form of waffles and O.J.

With food in our bellies we got the place packed away and hooked up in less than 90 minutes. That is also probably a first. As we headed north up I-10 the fog quickly dissipated. In Phoenix we joined the I-17 to Flagstaff. Once we got north of Phoenix the scenery changed from desert to mountain, and we started a steady climb. As we climbed and got further north the temperature dropped, and the there were a lot of pine trees rather than the cacti and tumbleweed of further south. We started out at 1200ft ASL; as we passed through 5000ft (a first) we began to see snow off to the side of the road. We then headed west on the I-40 and as we climbed through 6000ft (a first) ice pellets changed into snow and the temperature dropped to -2. By 7000ft (a first) the flurries became quite heavy at times, but no snow settled on the road. We topped out at 7364ft, before making a gentle descent into Williams at around 6500ft.

We checked into the campground and saw a snowplow clearing the sites (a first)! Just after we got parked on our site we heard a train horn close by, the tracks run about 50ft from the site; those horns a pretty loud close up, one on the truck could be fun.

Another first, setting up in the snow! Luckily everything worked out fine (I even backed into the site with no trouble) and even the satellite was set up in under 5 minutes. Now to prepare for a -10°C night, another first.

Happy Birthday Barbara!