DAY 03: Calico Ghost Town to Flagstaff

Wednesday, April 2nd

Woke up early and went out to the bathrooms. The sky was bright, and it was so quiet I could hear the wind blowing. I like that quiet, I only find it occasionally. Tried to stay in bed until a reasonable hour, then ventured into the shower. It occurs to me that the worst place for hot/cold knobs--especially ones that aren't labeled--is where you have to lean through the stream of water to adjust them. I leaned forward and turned the right knob and jerked back, out of the stream of....cold water. Then leaned forward quickly, through the stream, turned off the right knob and on the left, jerked back. The water was...cold...warmer?..hot! Now I could adjust, still having to lean into the water to make changes. Still, hot water in a campground is a delightful thing.

Drove up and wandered a bit through the Ghost Town proper to find the guy to give our key to. Funny how familiar ghost towns and general gold rush-related attractions are. I spent most school field trips at these places growing up, and lived in a small town that had once almost been the capital of California during the gold rush. This place was way touristy, though. I was more used to being warned against falling into mine shafts than having them picturesquely framed in the hillside. And the dedication of the town was to the "heroic silver miners". Er...heroic? From what I know gold and silver miners did what they did to make money, and while the stories are great, I'm really not sure how you can slap "heroic" onto them (and think they would have been highly surprised and amused if they'd known about it). In any case, for a tourist trap they had a lot of stray cats, and clearly took good care of them, and so they are probably nice people.

After a late breakfast at "Peggy Sue's 50's diner" (it's everything you could imagine), we drove off through the desert, which means past a lot of military bases, but also past a lot of beautiful country. I forgot how many colors the earth comes in, and it was quite green, for the desert. April seems a nice time to travel through this area. Dr. Suess-looking cactus, long vistas with bright yellow wild-flowers (and bugs that seemed to be the exact same hue when they hit our windshield--coincidence?). I just stared and stared. After two days of driving, I didn't even blink at 6 hours in the car, though I think parts of my lower back have just numbed out. We ate a nutritious lunch of a shared root beer float and a few handfuls of cheetohs, then made it into Flagstaff, AZ with plenty of daylight. We'd meant to go into Sedona, but realized we have a long driving day tomorrow into New Mexico, and as we were just planning to stay at a motel, the extra driving time might not be worth it (if we had more time, sure, but not this trip).

We drove around a bit, got lost near the campus, but found the brew pub I located on my iphone as we drove in. Good. Nice sandwiches, good beer, though I think I am actually getting sick of cheese and salt (and if you know me, you will know how extreme a statement that is). We found a little motel I liked because of the quaint shutters (and because Dave noticed it had wifi). We checked in, then found out the wifi was iffy, and I realized I tend to pick places like this, so maybe next time we travel I'll encourage Dave to choose where we stay. We sorted out the wifi enough for me to send these, then decided to walk into town to get a little exercise and drink more beer.

Walking into town, at least the up and down parts, left me a little breathless. I swear I'm not THAT out of shape, and when we got to the (other) brew pub we were aiming for, we found that the altitude of Flagstaff is about 7000 feet. Having spent time in Denver with Dave's family, I realized the symptoms and forbade Dave from allowing me any whiskey (a long, sad story that many of you have heard). We hung out at what was clearly a colleg-y place, going by the clientele, the music, and the gigantic portions of food, that we made small headway on. We wandered home, noting that there was still snow on the streets (and being happy we'd come when we did, and not when there was snow everywhere, as we hadn't brought chains), and now I'm sitting and writing and about to curl up with my mystery and then to sleep.

Missing you all, but happy to be on the road. Alison asked me today if we were warm yet*. While it's chilly here, we did pass through 81 degrees today in the desert, and were warm to being in tshirts and shorts and sandals most of the day. It is nice. My horoscopes said it was a good time to take a sabbatical/that I'd experience long periods of doing nothing with short periods of busy and interesting activity/that I'd experience different climates and textures one after the other. Right on.

*on twitter--if anyone is on twitter and wants to follow me/be followed, I'm "modemeter". Yes, I am a geek.