Saturday 1/8/22, Silver City, NM to Prescott, AZ

Saturday 1/8/22, Silver City, NM to Prescott, AZ

Up at 7am to 39 degrees temperature and beautiful and clear morning.  It's suppose to be 55-35 temperature today.  This town of Silver City is really a place I want to look into for the future.

 I think I already mentioned that.  Sorry if I am repeating myself, I'm just so excited about it.  

We got on the road at 8:3am and are taking a mountain route to avoid Phoenix, and Tucson.  We were going to stop to visit a friend in Tucson but they are in Flagstaff at the moment.  

We crossed the Continental Divide at 9:15am heading SW.  At this point, water flows to the Rio Grande and to the Colorado River from the other side of the Divide. 

 

All of a sudden we encounter some Major excavation which turns out to be a Copper Mine in Morenci, AZ.   It's hard to imagine such a thing until you see it in person.  It's like a James Bond movie.  This is U.S. Highway 191 and it goes literally right through the middle of the mine.  We were just about to start when we saw the "Next services 90 miles" sign.  Per our totally unreliable car indicator, we had 110 miles.  Eldon chose to return to the gas station behind us.  Lucky and intelligent that we did. 

We did not know what was coming, but the Google Earth image below gives you a clue.  We (the blue dot) were going north, straight up.

Clara and Moreno as a hero shot in front of the mine.

Copper minerals make very pretty rocks.

Just amazing but we are literally in the middle of the mine at this point.

Almost instantly upon leaving the mine we were in the forest.  We saw some beautiful views along this mountain road.  It added more time to get to Paul and Sandra's in Prescott, AZ but it was worth it.  90 miles, 25 mph and 4 hours, who knew?  GPS knew.  Even on the road for an hour it refused to navigate us onto that road - saying instead that no routes were available.  Seriously, this is a wonderful drive if 1) it is not covered in snow, 2) you are doing the driving, 3) you are not pulling a trailer with a questionable brake assist, and 4) you are not in a hurry.  We knew none of that, but survived.  The road was only icy in the 15 mph curves in the dark canyon cuts, and only one lane at the top where the plow had just barely made a space for us.  90 miles and we were never passed (Eldon was driving) and only met 3 other vehicles, none pulling a trailer.  We popped out finally at Alpine (appropriately named) and from then on it was smooth sailing.

Moreno not a fan of snow.

Finally free of the snow, we are driving through lava flows and see a perfect volcano cone in front of us.

Finally we cross into Arizona.

Typical beautiful Arizona rocks at sunset.

We finally arrived to at Sandra and Paul's beautiful home in Prescott AZ at 7:15pm.  Just in time for dinner.  GREAT timing on our part.  Actually, thanks for waiting on dinner for our arrival.  It did take a bit longer than we should have to avoid you having to wait for dinner but ... U.S. 191.

Moreno was a bit standoffish, at first, to their dog Nala.  Maybe it was the fact that she was in heat and was trying to get his attention.  Flirting I suppose.  After a while they were ok.  

They hosted us and we are able to sleep and shower here.  It's always nice to shower.  We pretty much had shower access most of the time (at a camp or at a house).  But Eldon set the Alto heater to be on overnight at 50 degrees because it was (and ended up being) freezing that night and that would have been bad for our water pipes.  To have survived at least 15 days of freezing temps and then lose it on the last night, not good.

So tomorrow is our final leg of the trip.  It saddens me a bit but it's ok to know we overcame a lot of variable weather conditions and that we saw so many places that we might want to visit during other Seasons.  Not to mention the many friends along the way.