Great Loop: Camp Verde and Albuquerque

Crossing the Colorado River into Arizona brings a big change in the ecosystem and landscape.  The California desert is harsh and monochromatic.  Years of drought have not helped much.  Once you cross the river into Arizona, you see saguaro cactus and the presence of multi-hued red rock which gradually builds into a crescendo as you move toward Sedona, Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon and Lake Powell.  In other words, Navajo country. 

Camp Verde is very close to Sedona, which we visited 2 years ago.  Being aware of the twisty mountain roads and high traffic in Sedona, we chose to not visit this trip.  So we stayed adjacent to our route of travel, a necessary compromise.  None the less, this area is scenic in it's own way and the river was flowing with cold clear water and surrounded by much greenery.  In fact, the hills in Arizona were surprisingly green.  Something you notice right away when coming from California.

We had a nice pull through space for our rig and were surrounded by others in RV rigs of every size and description.  I was awestruck by the amazing collection of off road vehicles people brought to explore the desert backcountry.  

As usual, we inspected the boat and trailer closely to see how they were travelling.  We found the following items:

• The "Rocket Box" was moving towards the outside of the rack.  So we used hose clamps and hose to fashion hard stops to hold it in the correct location.
• We also found that one of the trailer tires, although new, was losing about 10psi of pressure overnight.  We made an appointment to get that fixed in Albuquerque.  We checked the pressure repeatedly during the next day of travel and it did not change.  We'll check again in the morning.
• We also bought a battery powered air compressor in case we needed to add air while in transit.

From Flagstaff to Albuquerque, Hwy 40 parallels the BNSF mainline.  We saw a continuous stream of  trains loaded with empty shipping containers.  We speculated they were headed for Pacific ports for the trip back to Asia.  You could tell they were empty as only two engines were pulling long lines of cars.  The westward trains were running with a separation of about 10 miles.  On the parallel track full containers were headed eastward to distribution centers.  There trains had 4-6 engines pulling and pushing their long strings of rail cars.

We arrived at our next overnight stop just before 6pm.  We drove almost 400 miles today.  It was a long day.  Tomorrow we are going to visit Beth's sister and her family.  So we have a rest day before with knock out the final three days of driving.  Our destination is Joe Wheeler State Park in Alabama.  There we will meet other Loopers who are gathering for 3 days of classes and seminars in preparation for starting the loop.  It will be exciting to meet others who have the same ambition as us, the journey and experiences that will be encountered as we undertake and complete the 6000 mile circumnavigation of the eastern US.  A voyage which is 100% by boat.  We are eager for the adventure to begin!