Wow. Just Wow.

With no good connection yesterday, today will be a bit of catching up. From New Mexico, through Arizona and now in YES! California!

I realized I've never been through Arizona and somehow always thought it was a desert. As in flat and scrubby and dry. It isn't, it is incredibly beautiful. Yesterday the wind was blowing so hard I was fighting the wheel the whole way, including going through Tucson and Phoenix (which was sort of like Dallas/Ft. Worth but not quite as awful). But today, there was little wind. Lots of rain. Lots of reported flash flooding. All the doors opened though; road closures became road open. Rainbows guided my way forward. And the Turtle just kept chugging along. Color me stunned.

Fresh jerky? Where?

I am soooo grateful that dust wasn't blowing!
There were lots of scary signs mentioning zero visibility dangers.
No dust. No danger.

New Mexico has mountains everywhere. I knew that.

This looked like it just melted yesterday

My photographer sucks. This was a cool looking ghost town.

More mountains. Everywhere on every side.

Fortunately, we skirted these for the most part.

I knew I wasn't too far from Arizona and suddenly, on the road on the back side of the moon, there it was.

Like that.

This is a place I wanted to stop but I could NOT find the exit for it. 

Here in the desert! Walnut trees, pecan and grapes too.
I'd have loved to have met those brave and patient people.

All the overpasses are decorated differently and in very arty ways.
Too often, trucks were around and I couldn't really photograph them.
One had iguanas (well, they looked like iguanas to me) peeking down from the bridge.

I hope so

I still marvel at the roadbuilding skills along the way

This was a place I also wanted to stop. For no reason I could tell
these balanced rocks just showed up in the middle of nothing like them at all.

This was the best I could get. Traffic suddenly jammed me up.
I was totally mouth agape through this part.

Down into a valley

I saw this truck coming up. Looks like it's ready for its paint job.

He zoomed by us like a road warrior. Very cool truck!

One of the neat overpasses

Ok, you get the idea now, I'm sure.

This is Picacho Peak. There is a park there I wanted to stay in.
They didn't have water on site and charged like it was a Hilton...
I moved along.

Today was just one of those extraordinary days of traveling. Even though it's been completely different than I planned, today felt just good instead of harried and hurried. Traffic was light, probably due to the fact that most of these roads were supposed to be closed. Instead, they opened up, right before I got to them. Literally. 

Flash flood debris was everywhere, but only in a couple of places actually ON the road and very easy to avoid. Lots of dirt on the road where the water had washed it over, some edges of the road were missing (think Zoni beach road a couple of years ago, but not as scary).

How morning looked

How what was ahead looked

I pulled into a rest area to think about what I wanted to do when this happened.
Who am I to ignore the gods?

From far away, these mountainsides looked like they'd been burned.
Instead, it was that the rocks themselves were black.

Every time it rained hard, a rainbow crept across the road until it was blazing

Yes, I'm really driving THROUGH THE RAINBOW!!!

More rain. More rainbow. They all were full, all were double.

More tomorrow on getting into California (because I'm in the library and left my camera in the Turtle. But I will tell you, when I saw the Welcome to California sign about an hour before I expected to, it was a very happy moment. The last supposedly closed road was where I pulled over for a moment to ponder heading on. Then along came a truck and I had my answer. If he was going, we were going!

Have a trial by testing Tuesday. Do something totally by touch.