“Where is Aztec and what are you doing there?”  Good question!  It’s not exactly a destination and it’s definitely not on the beaten path.  Our friend Alan from Mammoth mentioned it in his blog.  It sounded interesting and was close enough to where we are heading, so why not work it in for a couple of nights.

The reason we are in Aztec.

And ride it for a couple of days!  It was fun, and it was different, but it’s definitely not Phil’s World or any of the Hurricane rides.  We are glad we did it and it felt great to get those endorphins going again.  The entire world is a better place after a good ride.  The beer tastes better, your spouse is better looking, and all problems become small.

Nice rock at the beginning.

Definitely go right.

I believe it!

The first day we did the 10 mile loop. The second day Outer Limits.

Dry water fall on the Outer Limits. This thing dropped a 100 feet.

Awesome $20 full hook up site at the Ruins Road RV Park. Mostly permanent residences. But we scored the sweet spot.

Why do dogs like squirming around in night crawler remnants?

The first evening we had some great lightening and thunder with light showers. This is looking east from our site. Behind the cottonwoods is the Animas River. All of a sudden the sun broke through in the west and for a few moments gave us this beautiful view.

Then an hour later this awesome sunset.

Birthday Moscow Mules! (Thanks Vinny & Diane!)
This is what 55 and 47 looks like. I’m thinking 47 looks pretty good, but that 55 year old man, I don’t know.

Kicking it.

Amelia all giddy as only Amelia can get. We just arrived at KOA Cortez. Amelia went in the office to check us in and they all remembered her from last year. Of course! And then we were laughing as we followed the golf cart escort to our site.

7am, trying to beat the heat.

To get to where we want to go, Crested Butte, Colorado you have no choice but to drive through H E double toothpicks. Pick your poison, Vegas, Kingman, or Phoenix. We picked the lower route, Phoenix. It was 120 degrees at 4pm when we were driving through on the I-10. Why do people live here?

Day one was 550 miles and 10 plus hours of towing.  We normally would not drive that far, but we wanted to get as far as we could and out of the extreme heat zone.  Our destination was Holbrook, Arizona, Gateway to the Petrified Forest National Park.

Nice evening pee stop at the junction of AZ 277 & 377. The drive from Payson to Holbrook was beautiful.

Kachina Point Painted Desert.

Tiponi Point, Painted Desert.

Lacey Point, Painted Desert.

The Tepees.

Blue Mesa Trail.

Just amazing.

Amelia strolling through Blue Mesa.

Dead of summer and there were still an amazing amount of wild flowers. This is the Woolly Paper-Flower.

Collared Lizard on a petrified log.

The next 6 shots are of petrified wood, logs, and stumps. Bizarre.

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Once upon a time when the Joad’s were driving through Holbrook on the 66 the town was probably something. Now it’s a whole lot of nothing and this kind of shit.

Sara enjoying her last evening at the dog park in the KOA Holbrook.

In case some of you were wondering how the kitchen remodeled ended: it’s beautiful. Oh yeah, we are also already in escrow on the condo!

The time has come.  We are selling my brother’s condo in Mammoth Lakes.  It has always been his condo and never really ours.  We kept it for 21 years, spruced it up, remodeled it, and even tried living in it.  We’ve had some great times in it and wonderful memories.  People are different and brothers are different.

It’s crazy when I think about how many times I’ve driven up the 395 to Mammoth.  The pilgrimage began in the 1970’s.  Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth.  Forty years of going back and forth.  I guess being a slow learner is better than not learning at all, but there are many places to go to besides Mammoth.

So, no condo means no sense (cents) in buying a season pass, something I’ve done every year.  No season pass means, no sense (cents) in keeping the season locker that’s been in the family since the 80’s.  No season pass, really ultimately probably means no more skiing. I honestly can’t envision coughing up over a hundred bucks for one lift ticket.  It is just not worth it.  For me, skiing is just not as fun as it used to be.  I’ll spare everyone my diatribe about skiing being a dying sport and industry, but trust me it is.

There is one apropos story worth sharing.  The “last” trip to Mammoth just couldn’t be a piece of cake.  We took my mom up so she could see her son’s condo one last time.  We set a new worst time record, three and half hours to the 395.  From Amelia’s school in Escondido to the 395 is typically 90 minutes.  We left at 1:30, thinking we would beat traffic, we were wrong.  The culprit was all the crazy construction they are doing where the 15/215 merge at the base of the Cajon Summit.

Here’s the kicker, I had a 2pm conference call so Amelia was driving the first leg.  She was ready to crawl out of her skin.  Just like her dad, she does not do well in traffic.  I was in the back seat and Ruth was up front.  Thank god I was dehydrating and not needing to urinate. The same was not true for the two ladies in the front. When we finally got on the 395 and pulled into the Outpost they ran into the store to relieve themselves.  When Amelia came out, she had a bag of Doritos and a 24oz can of Modelo Especial Chelada, she got into the back seat and said, “Drive.”

“I don’t understand.  What do you mean you are selling the condo?”

Clearing out the season locker in many ways was tougher than the decision to sell the condo.

Skis and snow shoes in the rafters. Will they ever be used again?

A picture of a picture of our Mom from the late 80’s. The hey day of Krystal Villa East.

June 13, 2015

At least we saw a spectacular sunset in Independence on our drive up.

Closing up shop.

Now let’s hitch up that Airstream and go somewhere!