Al's travels: 2 weeks in AZ

The next morning I got up and started driving to Camp Verde. You see, a couple weeks before leaving for my trip I'd bought a kayak on EBAY that was located in Kingman, Arizona for pickup only. I was lucky enough that Bob Suess volunteered to drive to Kingman one weekend and then store the kayak at his house in Camp Verde where I could pick it up. This saved me a few hours of driving on my trip and it was greatly appreciated because it gave me a little more time on my drive home so I could stop and smell the roses.

I met Bob at his shop and we went to see the kayak at his house. I would need to make some brackets in order to mount the kayak on my roof rack so we left it for the time being and went out to lunch. He was kind enough to leave me access to the tools in his shed while he went back to work. After a couple trips to Ace Hardware and usage of a few of Bob's power tools (which came in VERY handy) the kayak was loaded on my car and it was time to head out.

That night I slept somewhere a little east of Flagstaff. In case you weren't aware Flagstaff is somewhere around 7000 feet and colder then you normally think of Arizona. I planned on waking early in the morning and checking out the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest (which were close by). I was up pretty early and it was foggy with a dusting of snow on the ground. I got to the visitor center before the parks opened so I cooked up breakfast in the parking long while I was waiting. I began driving through the Painted Desert and I thought it looked a little odd, it had been whitewashed!

It might have taken some of the color out of the painted desert but the combination of fog and snow made for some interesting looking views.

I drove down through the Petrified Forest in hopes that by the time I got back through the loop some of the fog and snow would be burned off and I could actually see some more color. I was happy to see some bare ground when I came back through about 45 minutes later. I took a few more shots and couldn't resist a quick shot of my outdoorsy looking car

The Final Leg