West Quest Part Deux - Day 63
Oracle, Arizona to Gallup, New Mexico
Tuesday, 11 October 2022
Before leaving Oracle this morning, Frieda took this wonderful picture of me and my 93-year old dad:
There are selfies and then there are selfies. The next picture is one of the best I’ve ever taken and I’ll treasure it forever:
Having parked overnight on the street last night in front of my parent’s house, it was easy to load up and leave this morning:
Another selfie with my wonderful Dad just because…
The trip today looked like this:
The driving today was the most challenging to date with multiple thousand-foot climbs and descents. Oracle is a 4,524’ and Gallup is at 6,468’ and we saw altitudes lower than the former and a bit higher than the latter a couple of times. The most interesting section was a descent and climb out of Salt River Canyon which I estimate involved descending more than 2,000’ and then climbing up on the other side. You absolutely MUST engine brake or else. Here’s what that part of the drive looks like on a map:
I love trains. One of the most amazing things you see out west is entire trains. All 100+ cars rather than just a few at a time as is the case most of the time back east.
It was train Nirvana today…
We added New Mexico to Oliver’s Travels today:
Our “home” for the night, USA RV Park in Gallup, New Mexico.
That’s it for today. Stand by for an exciting multi-state adventure tomorrow!
They had never occurred to me about trains. Now I’m a tried and true east coast girl, and could never live out west, but I do love seeing the pics!!!
From a photographers point of view.... Love the photos with your Dad and Frieda! Need to frame those!