Again the wind

"is that my sister?"

Yesterday morning we all had a de ja vu moment as we broke camp and prepared to leave the Holbrook KOA.

Missy swoons, Elvis investigates possibilities

The motor home in front of us was packing up to leave also and when their door opened, a big old black lab girl spilled out.     Dave couldn't resist and had to go over to meet her.    Her tiny "brother" Elvis immediately found the treat pocket as
Dave petted and scratched old Missy.

Note to self.....remember to read notes to self.    We had vowed not to drive on a day that high wind warnings were issued.      Yesterday we ignored our own advice and drove west on I-40 on another of those horrendously windy days.

Flap, flap, flap went Beluga's bra.   Once again we pulled over and Dave tore off the remaining snaps and wrestled it into one of the basement compartments.

once again the wind tries to rip Beluga's bra away from Dave

A little further down the highway and the slide topper began to unroll and blow up over the roof and then crash down over the side window.    Sheesh, how stupid were we to start out on this kind of day....again!

This time a huge Casino came into view so we pulled into their large parking lot, out of the wind, and Dave used what supplies he had to wire and tire the slide topper and window shade down.      We had the choice of staying in the parking lot overnight (it was just noon) and wait out the wind, or continue 50 more miles to our next reservation in Williams, Arizona.     Since everything that could flap or unroll were already taken care of we decided to push on.

We arrived safely and settled into our site at the Grand Canyon Railway RV Resort in Williams.   We'll be here for the next week.  

second cup in the sun

Lewis enjoys postprandial play in the stones

We originally reserved only one night, but we're all happy here and with our Passport America discount we couldn't find a cheaper place to stay so we've extended to a week.

We're in a back in site on the end of a row and have a decent view of the piney mountains and grassy fields.    The railroad tracks are directly on the other side of the park and trains rumble through, horns blaring.    Its funny, neither of us mind the trains one bit.    We both talked about that fact this morning as a passenger trains passed us at second cup.     We're not sure if it was our Mexican motorhome/train trip experience in 2002 that instilled a pleasant association with the noise or if the distant rumble and staccato horn blasts remind us of the ships passing through the St. Lawrence River in the 1000 Islands.    No matter, we do enjoy seeing and hearing trains.

Our original plan was to drive Beluga down to Sedona tomorrow and stay at the Elks Lodge at the foot of Airport Mesa but,  since they don't take reservations,  we were hesitant to make the difficult drive only to find out there was no room at the inn.   Today we took the Jeep down to check out the situation, to see how full they were.

On the way we encountered two separate prescribed burns in the National Forest.  It seemed foolish to us to burn on such windy days, but they were doing just that.

We stopped above Oak Creek on 89A for lunch.   Lewis was with us and the plan was to stop for a quick romp in the water after eating, but we hadn't foreseen how many people we would encounter in the canyon.

We scrapped those plans and just enjoyed the spectacular red rock views on the way to the Lodge.

Sedona has embraced  so many people, it offers its beauty to all.    We selfishly wish it wasn't so, that we still had it to ourselves as we did in the 70's when it was a sleepy little town at the feet of those unbelievably magnificent rocks.   Almost a secret place.

Today accessing it's beauty requires a bit of patience.