Prescott and all the area up North

It now appears that we will be leaving on Sunday morning, since the really cold part of this storm that is crossing the West and Midwest seems to be on Saturday night.  It will be cold here too, if you call mid forties cold.  With some luck, it may stay above freezing a few degrees as we trek East on I 40.

The weather man could change his mind before then and that would change ours as well.  We looked tonight at last years blog, and we decided that we arrived home on March 22nd last year.  We may be a few days beyond that this year but not by much.

So with a few days at our disposal, we decided to drive North from here on Arizona 89.  This road climbs over a mountain and arrives in Prescott.  Then beyond is Prescott Valley.  We drove thru quite a bunch of hairpin curves and reached 6,100 feet in altitude, passing thru another lodge pole pine forest.

When you get on top of these mountains it is hard to remember you are still in Arizona.  Prescott is at 5,000 feet above sea level.  It is at the same altitude as Denver, and is much different than the lower elevations here in the state.  The city is built in a valley that is surrounded by peaks and has quite  a bit of charm.  It is quite old.  The new area is Prescott Valley, and has all the new shopping areas that we have become accustomed to in our larger cities.

We are told that the Prescott Valley area is a large retirement mecca.  Our short shopping excursion didn't verify that however.  We then took the long way to the West thru Skull Valley on the way back home.  As we were advised, it is not nearly as mountainous of a drive.  On 89 trucks and vehicles are limited to 40 feet, but no such limit was necessary on the Skull Valley roads.

The problem with all of this is that the Prescott area is a lot of city driving and stop and go lights.  I think that since we have experienced this area now, we will go South out of here and then over to I 17 North of Phoenix.  That will be farther, but will be at normal highway speeds.  From a time standpoint it should be faster, and much less stressful on the motorhome driver.

Tomorrow we hope to go experience Wickenburg to our South.  Also we are only about 40 miles from Sun City, Sun City West and all those areas that we visited last month.  So if we find we need another shopping fix...........

Retired Rod