The first adventure was coming up out of Patagonia State Park which we took nice and slow and steep but we made it out. Whew that was a relief. We typically use Google Maps on our iphones for directions and today was no exception. As we got close to Nogales, Google maps directed us onto a one lane, 10 ton bridge. Yikes, so we stopped for a minute and a utility truck drove around us and motioned us to go on ahead. Really? Well, maybe.....but as we rolled a few feet closer to the bridge Rich noticed a low hanging power line crossing the bridge. That was the deciding factor....nope we are not taking the chance and so we started the arduous task of backing up a 39 foot fifth wheel. When we first got to the bridge, there wasn't a soul around but now that we had to back up the area turned into Grand Central Station. Where did all this traffic come from? And of course there was a pretty steep drop off to the shoulder, so we had to make sure that Rich didn't get too close to the edge of the pavement. There were some pretty stressful moments, but I think Rich and I handled it well. We finally got the 5er backed up and onto the highway and I jumped back in the truck and we were off. Usually Rich will use Google Earth and look over our route but because we had no cell service in Patagonia, that didn't happen this time. Oh well, we survived that adventure.
We were surprised how big of town Nogales was, I guess in my mind I thought it would be a sleepy little border town.....not so. We finally got on the highway that would take us to I-10 and Tucson. We went through an area called Green Valley which we have heard was a very pretty area from several folks throughout our travels, but I have to say it wasn't what I was expecting, first it wasn't all that green and looked pretty much like the rest of the desert area we'd been driving through. I guess we all like different types of scenery.
Our next adventure was while driving through Tucson on the freeway. I was on my cell talking to my daughter and noticed Rich kept glancing in the mirror, so I looked out my window and there was a pick up truck with an older gentleman trying to merge into the side of our pickup and 5er.....I don't know how he didn't see us on the freeway, so Rich had to put the brakes on so hard that it made our brakes smoke......I know, I know, we have the right of way and it's the other cars responsibility to safely merge onto the freeway, but we'd rather not have an accident if we can help it. Sheesh we sure don't like close calls like that.
Our next adventure was also on the Tucson freeway which is a 3 lane freeway almost the whole way to the Casa Grande area where it goes down to two lanes for a bit. Well the traffic was absolutely awful.....it was wall to wall vehicles and big semi trucks for the full 3 lanes and was pretty much stop and go. Wow, we've never seen this freeway so busy before, it was like trying to drive through the Seattle area. Finally after miles and miles and miles of this slow stop and and go traffic, we saw what the problem was. There was an over size load with police escort traveling through the area which took up two lanes of the freeway. What in the world?!? Why would Arizona let an over size load travel on a major freeway and take it down to one lane in the middle of the day? Didn't make sense to us, but maybe that's why they had a police escort? Maybe they didn't get the proper permits, etc? Who knows, all we know is that it made an absolute mess of the freeway, I wonder what they were going to do when they hit the two lane stretch of the freeway.....at least we were passed them.
Because we had a long travel day for us, we had to stop and fuel up which we normally try not to do when we have the 5er attached. But we remembered the nice fueling station in Gila Bend from our previous trip, so that was our goal. The fueling stop went without a hitch and we were back on the road. We finally arrived safely at The Palms around 3:00 p.m. Whew....glad we don't have these types of travel days very often.
We plan on being at The Palms for a couple weeks and then we will be heading back to Oregon. I know we are leaving the sunshine early but we have some business that we need to take care of.
 |
| The Palms, site 271. We chose this site so our fridge side of the 5er would be in the shade in the afternoon. It's on a different street than we were on a couple weeks ago. |
No comments:
Post a Comment