Our first stop east of Los Angeles was back in the desert, this time in Quartzsite, AZ (it is spelled every way you can imagine and sometimes more than one way on the same sign).  We made a planned stop to have the coach outfitted with a solar panel and controller at RV Lifestyles, recommended to us by Dean Cross and Jane Eccelstone.  We are grateful for the recommendation and will give referral to them for anyone else in need of RV service in the Quartzsite area.  We dropped off the coach at the requested time after spending a night on BLM land a couple of miles west of the shop.  The camping area was mostly deserted,  but clearly has been host to many, many RV’s.  When we returned at the promised time, Gee 2 was waiting and ready.  The panel has worked flawlessly since, keeping our batteries in top charge when the sun is shining.

Outfitted with our new energy source we set off for Congress, AZ and an Escapee campground called North Ranch.  Nice people, beautiful place, we will go back.  During the day while we toured we left the power to the coach off and let the sun keep the batteries full.  A day trip to Wickenburg took us to The Desert Caballeros Western Museum which had an invitational show, Cowgirls Up! work by 56 women artists.  WOW! not be missed if you are anywhere near (less than an hour north of Phoenix).  Leigh, it is worth a special trip!  The rest of the museum is up to the caliber of the art.  It is an amazing collection of local history and thus the history of the West and the cowboys that lived it.  We had lunch sitting across the street from the museum next to the railroad tracks. then took a walking tour of historic Wickenburg. 

All of this was in magnificent warm sunlight.

The next day was mountains.  We took the car and drove up 89 to Prescott AZ.  We took a road that is closed to trucks over 40 feet and not recommended for RV’s.  It is very steep and very twisty and goes on for many more miles than the Banner Grade in San Diego County.  We toured the Courthouse Square area of Prescott and had our Pesadich lunch in the car.  We enjoyed the many shops that stayed open for Easter Sunday and took the slightly gentler road back to North Ranch and Gee 2.

In the morning we pressed on with departure, ignoring warnings of high winds along our route.  We retraced down to Wickenburg then over to I 17 to avoid the worst of the mountains and to enable a stop at Arcosanti an Urban Arcology.  Rather than try to explain I suggest you look it up on the web.  We have a cast metal wind chime from Cosanti that has hung at our house since 1972.  It was worth the 2.5 miles of dirt washboard we had to endure to get there, oh my fresh washed coach :{ 

Continuing north; we were being battered by the wind, but it did not feel dangerous, just required attention to the direction of the coach.  The rough road seemed more problematic than the wind, until we turned onto I 40.  Here the rough roads and the winds gusting to 60 mph made driving a challenge, but there was no reasonable place to stop so we pressed on.  Shortly before Meteor Crater, still in Arizona, Carol began to tire and she pulled over so I could take the wheel.  I did not drive more than 10 or 15 minutes before I passed between two patrol cars sitting facing traffic on both shoulders with headlights flashing.  Since visibility was fading as the dust storm blew, I began to slow and quickly found traffic stopped in both lanes.  And there we sat with very little information for five hours.  The coach rocked and everything on the outside that could move moved.  I later found that a window awning had completely unrolled and rerolled during the storm – I found the pull strap wrapped up inside the awning.  Others lost their large main awnings and other things blew away including my hat which I stupidly left on when I opened the door.  The wind caught the door and, rather than let it fly open and punch a hole in the coach, I hung on and went for a ride with it.  I was not hurt, just surprised and I did not have a hand to try to catch the hat which was last seen flying northeasterly at 60 mph.  Eventually the Highway Patrol reopened the road and sent an escort vehicle ahead to hold down the speed through the worst of the remaining storm. 

We pulled off in Winslow AZ into a Flying J where we fueled up and spent the night.  The parking area was very full and the lanes for RVs were very narrow.  Once we settled in we found ourselves truly trapped as the coach to our right was so close our door could not be opened!  Fortunately we have a driver door and that was still clear.  In short we crossed New Mexico, well 40 miles short, in a day.  Then Tuesday we crossed the rest of New Mexico then through Texas on US 54 cutting through the town of Dalhart, look in the upper left corner north and west of Amarillo.  Oklahoma was next cutting though at Guymon.  We finally came to rest in Liberal Kansas. 

To be continued. . .