Trip03

Friday.

Got our twelve. Now that felt about right. We were up and about and washed and off by eleven. Rolled down the highway, across the Great Divide (all 7,200 feet of it), and out of New Mexico.

Drove through Gallup, Holbrook, Winslow, and Flagstaff. Got to Oak Creek Canyon early Friday afternoon. Oak Creek Canyon is so beautiful, and they have several campgrounds there, but still, we got shut out. We wanted to stop for the night at the one closest to the top of the canyon. Then we kept checking each campground as we went farther down the canyon. By the time we got down to Sedona, Sedona was so crazy with traffic and people, we just wanted to get out. Come to think of it, we had the same reaction the other time we drove through Sedona.

We drove on, and found a nice quiet RV Park outside Camp Verde Arizona: Zane Gray RV Park. Down at that low an altitude, 4,000 feet, we really needed to plug in for the night so we could run the air conditioner. This RV Park is a place Dad would have admired. It was the neatest place we’ve ever seen. Every site was perfectly level with freshly laid gravel. The freshly laid gravel in every site was freshly raked. There are only fifty sites, but there must have been six people raking, trimming, spraying, and picking up, all day long.

Saw several nice birds: western kingbirds, black-chinned hummers, a hooded oriole, a peregrine falcon, and a hepatic tanager. We hadn’t ever seen the hooded oriole or the hepatic tanager before this.

Oreo cookies. Has anyone else noticed how much of a pain the packages are for Oreo cookies? They are really hard to open. And once you do get them open, can you close them to protect the rest of the cookies from getting stale? Have you ever been able to? Well, finally, Oreo has improved their packaging. Now there is lots more plastic to protect the cookies from getting broken. But was that the biggest problem in the first place? But have they figured out how to make the package open without ripping to shreds? Did they figure out how to make it resealable? I can buy flour tortillas in a resealable bag. I can buy shredded cheese in a resealable package. Oreos? No way. I know what it is. It’s a conspiracy to get me to eat the entire package all in one sitting because the rest will just go stale anyway.