OK....we left at 5am on Friday morning from our home in Ontario, CA. The first leg of our trip was to Barstow (Flying J) where Elaine would do her two conference calls. We arrived around 6:30am, and her first call was at 8am. The 2nd call was at 10am and done by 10:25am. We departed within minutes east bound on I-40. Just past Needles, CA we hit the high temps of the day at 112 degrees. From Needles, around 800 feet elevation we had to climb to Flagstaff at 7,000 feet.....we battle the heat all day....having to pull off the Interstate a few times to let the tranny, oil, and water cool down. Got up to 200 degrees on all three several times. We arrived in Flagstaff around 6:30pm having covered 420 miles our first day (around half our total mileage for the trip to Creede). We ate at the Olive Garden across from the Walmart off the Butler exit. They don't allow overnight parking at this Walmart so we headed down the road to the Cracker Barrel Restaurant that does allow overnight parking...got 9 hours of sleep, and ate breakfast at the Cracker Barrel (great breakfasts and the best coffee), Departed Flagstaff round 7:10am and headed up HWY 89 to HWY 160 which took us northeast through some amazing scenery.....past Monument Valley,and Four Corners (we'll see them on the way home). We arrived in Cortez, CO around 1pm and are staying at the Sundance RV Park, which I recommend highly. Walked down Main Street to a local brew pub and had a couple of locally made Porter's and an anchovie pizza (for me...Elaine had the steak salad). We'll head over to Mesa Verde National Park tomorrow to hook up with Steve and Tricia and tour some of the indian cliff dwelling sites. Monday morning we'll head up to Creede. I'll keep you posted on tomorrow's activities.
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