On Sunday, November 6, we finally made it out of California and into a snowy Arizona. REALLY??? What was the big hurry to leave sunny, warm California? We must have been nuts! Now my new fear wasn't getting a flat tire in the middle of the desert (which most of you know the desert gives me anxiety attacks!), but it was that poor Mr. Bojangles, my little Betta fish, was going to freeze to death! I had to somehow keep him warm in this freezing cold weather. So while Jeff was roasting from the RV heat cranked up to a toasty 78 degrees, Mr. Bojangles was lovin' life! We eventually wound up in Winslow, Arizona, where I used to spend a lot of time when I lived in Phoenix and dated a guy from Winslow. most of you probably know Winslow from the Eagles song "Take It Easy", where they were..."standin' on a corner in Winslow Arizona". I'm not sure why ANYONE would want to stand on a corner in Winslow Arizona because there is not much to do there, nor is it a scenic place, but we did spend our first night in an official RV park at the Homolovi State Ruins, where ancestral puebloan pit dwellings (huh??? holes in the ground where ancient indians used to live) were discovered about 15 years ago. I actually visited the site 15 years ago with my father and grandmother and the site was loaded with artifacts. Because it was a new archaeological find, the site still had not been worked properly by archaeologists, so there were handwritten signs everywhere saying "Please do not take artifacts. It is a federal offense." Well of course when we got home, grandma reached into her pocket and pulled out a bunch of pottery sherds. Guess she didn't see the signs! Anyhow, Jeff and I chose to stay there for the archaeological aspect of it. What we didn't know was that the plains were freezing cold so no one else was there (see top pic). And it was loaded with coyotes that liked to howl ALL NIGHT LONG, so needless to say, I stayed up pretty much all night because of all the noise, out in the middle of nowhere! When we woke up in the morning, we attempted to visit some of the pit dwellings, but it was so cold and we actually had to watch out for quicksand...yes, QUICKSAND in AZ, that we finally left the ruins happily. The weather got progressively worse, and we decided it was now or never to drive through the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert. I was freaking out about the weather since we were sliding all over the road in the RV, but we were assured by the locals that the lousy weather we were in was perfect for viewing the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert. And from the top right photo, you can see that the Painted Desert was pretty spectacular! We continued on until it got dark and we were STILL in Arizona...so we found our second little RV park to crash for the night somewhere near the New Mexico border (we hoped). The animals and I were very happy to finally stop driving in the snow, and Jeff was glad I finally stopped saying, "Slow down, the road is slippery".
