July 2015 – Week 1

Where did the week go? Last I reported, we were crashing overnight in Trinidad, CO – that was last week Friday.

The second day of our driving journey brought us through the eastern edge of Utah where the weather was amazing. There were high clouds, low handing clouds, clear blue skies and lightening. all you had to do was look in another direction and the weather seemed to change.

Had to take a detour stop in Winslow, AZ on the way to Flagstaff. For anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, here is the video. Funny thing about that was we blew into town, parked the car, walked down the block, shot the video (in one take because we are that good) and left. Didn’t event take time to look around Winslow – we were in a hurry to get “home”.

Tried to stop in Flagstaff for a beverage before heading down the hill into Sedona but being it was the Fourth of July, the town was crazy nuts so we took a pass. Also took a pass on driving down Highway 89A from Flagstaff into Sedona. Normally, one of our favorite drives but on holiday weekends, the backups and delays can be horrid. Took the interstate down instead and finally blew into town unleaded the car and settled in.

First stop of course was PJ’s Village Pub – one of our new favorite places to catch up with some old friends and make some new ones.

The monsoon season is here in AZ the beginning of July hosting ominous looking clouds, frequent lightning, downbursts of rain and then it’s done. Almost like Mother Nature is throwing a tantrum and gets over it. Pretty cool to experience.

Working has proven to be an easy transition. Conference calls and great internet access are pretty much all we need to do what we do.

Theresa was invited to a Women’s Business Meet-up by a friend we met last fall when we were here … resulting in a couple face-to-face appointments to talk about social media management – something we definitely want to explore if we are looking to increase our physical presence out here.

The rest of the week consisted of a small hike around Bell Rock loop (one we have done in the past) just to get our feet red, a day trip over to Prescott because 1). its a neat town to visit and 2). we could. Took a decent hike to Teacup Rock (see the gallery).

The coming days we are looking at temps in the upper 90s which will make hiking real enjoyable! Looking forward to our next one!

 

July 2015 – Day 1

Driving day 1.

Left friendly Fridley at 4am for the big trek to the southwest.

the first 6-7 hours was a normal road trip, Twin Cities to Des Moines then on to Omaha and Lincoln, NE. That’s where the fun really started.

Kansas and Colorado each brought their own little adventures. Somewhere in Kansas (it all looks the same), we started following a “wide load” vehicle hauling one of those big ole wind mill blades. Being we weren’t on anything that resembled an interstate, we ended up following this thing at a crawling speed (or so it seemed). Mrs. Mario finally caught a break and threw the Civic in turbo mode and left the tractor trailer in her dust.

The joy lasted all of five minutes when we caught up to another “wide load” vehicle, this time hauling something that resembled a grain silo – only a hell of a lot bigger. The driver wasn’t taking any chances and for the most part rode literally down the center of a 2-lane highway. Oncoming traffic rode off the shoulder to pass and the rest of us behind him could do nothing but smile through our gritted teeth.

Things got a little dicey when another “wide load” vehicle carrying an earth mover (kind of like what you find in the mining towns in northern Minnesota) was coming head on to the silo carrying truck – like two elephants trying to pass each other on a city sidewalk. Happy to report the little dance they did was a huge success.

Our map had us turning off onto another highway and I guess the big silo thing wanted to go where we were going because he turned onto the same highway. Thankfully they pulled off the side of the road and allowed all of us to pass.

We entered Colorado close to Cheyenne Wells for another bout of navigating 2 lane highways bisecting ghost towns where the speed limit would go from 65 down to 35 (guess they wanted to make sure the ghosts were safe). Big open spaces with long flat roads between most of our slow downs allowed us to open up the Honda Civic and see what that baby would do. For any of my law enforcement friends out there, I will not disclose what the speedometer read so as not to participate in any sort of admission statement which could potentially lead to several years of being incarcerated in a town jail in one of those those towns we blew through.

We hit Trinidad (in record time I might add), found a place to sit down and have dinner and a place to crash for the night.