Moving north to Mesa

After our night in the hills overlooking Las Cruces, we drove northeast to visit my friend Bill in Mesa, AZ.  As usual, the drive gave me many surprises, mostly the snow banks and snow covered mountains we drove past. Since we were driving east to west, I got to appreciate just how much snow Arizona gets each winter.  At one point, Leon pointed out something on the side of the road that was covering the fields.  It couldn’t be snow!  It turned out to be cotton!  I read cotton was one of the industries around here.  Of course we had to stop and pick some up just to be sure.  The whole time, I have been crocheting while Leon drives.  My goal that day was to finish a pair of socks I started when we left Langley.  I am usually a lot faster but I kept undoing my work until I got it to my taste.  I’ve since started another pair of socks with some yarns I bought in Palm Springs.

As we kept moving east, we drove through Apache Nations where the Reservation residents were cheering on their local basketball teams with signs made by putting coloured cups in chainlink fences.  They were certainly showing their pride.  I wonder how the teams did?

I have to mention how varied the terrain is.  At times you are in cactus city, thousands of them all around.  Then you go higher in elevation and find you are surrounded by pines and snow banks and you almost feel like you are in southern BC.

We drove further east through Globe, clearly a mining town with a big rail yard.  It seems Globe was named after the large piece of silver that was found there in the early mining days. After this town, we came to the scenic route that lead us to Mesa through Devil’s Canyon.  Holy cow!  What a view as we climbed and then descended through this little section of route 60.  Of course, I didn’t take any pictures as sometimes I just like to really look rather than take the perfect shot.  You’ll have to discover it for yourself.

We finally got to Mesa and the Suspicion Mountains just about cocktail time, errr, sunset.  My buddy Bill was waiting for us with open arms (I got a really good hug) and we spent the weekend at his RV resort, enjoying good times, good stories, good food and beautiful views.

Come Sunday morning, it was time to move north towards the Grand Canyon with a special drive through Sedona.