Day 6 -- Needles, California to Flagstaff, Arizona -- 209

Today was a driving day, not much of a stop and shoot pictures day. The terrain east of Needles, California is mostly Mojave Desert-style country and rolls along for mile after mile with nothing much to appreciate but Mesquite, cacti, and dry arroyos. The startling sandstone cliffs, roadside cuts, and upthrusted mesas that come next are great photographic material but don't often present themselves with a handly pullout for the RV.

However, one attraction that did present itself for a very short stretch of desert was scattered majestic stands of one of my favorite desert plants, the Ocotillo. To our amazement the dozens of ocotillo plants that rushed by our side window were in full bloom, a spectacle that we had never seen before.

Naturally after we'd rolled by countless examples of these beautiful plants, I decided that I just HAD to stop and grab a few photos. I diligently searched ahead for a pull-off spot wider than the normal shoulder and none appeared. But mircaculously one eventually presented itself and the wider spot allowed me to pull further off the highway then normal and be well away from the speeding traffic.

The traffic on Interstate 40, as we learned on our Kitty Hawk, North Carolina vacation a few years ago, is largely comprised of truck traffic. 18-wheelers are constantly roaring by much faster than I'm willing to go, or are going so slow that I have to constantly be passing them. Either way, I have to concentrate most of my attention on what's happening on the highway and not the passing scenery. Inevitably, the photography suffers in such a situation. It's the reason we don't often travel the interstates.

Tonight we're staying at the Flagstaff KOA which has a very special place in our hearts. It was here that Concetta and I stopped for the night back in 1977 on our very first camping trip. We were not married at the time and were driving her largely worn out 1964 VW Beetle which had a top speed of under fifty miles an hour. You certainly get to see a lot of scenery up close and personal at that speed.

Our night at the Flagstaff KOA was uneventfull, but the next morning the VW refused to start. Since my Dad and my Brother were the automotive geniuses in our family, I usually went to them for mechanical advice. But in the KOA camp, so far from home, no such advice was available. Instead, I loosened the bolt that held the distributor in place and I asked Concetta to get in the car and keep trying to start the car as I carefully revolved the distributor a tiny bit in each direction.

Miraculously, the car "liked" what I was doing and fired up when the distributor got to location it needed. I then tightened the unit down firmly and away we went. I like to think that such "tests" helped cement our relationship back then for we have enjoyed many fantastic trips together in the last forty-seven years of our marriage.

Tomorrow we're finally divorcing ourselves from the "Big Rig Alley" of Interstate 40 and we'll be headed north on Arizona Route 89 to visit the Sunset Crater Volcanic National Monument and Wupatki National monument. So hopefully, more photos will be possible then were possible today.

We wish you happy travels of your own! Cheers!