The date was March 8th; a Saturday in early spring.
It was a month ago that I got my
car, and so far the farthest I'd driven was Globe, which wasn't very
far away, and that was at night anyway. As such, I never really
considered Globe a true road trip. I'd had my car a month now, it had
1800 miles on it, and it was time to stretch out. This is the only
trip that I've really ever documented, so I'll walk it through as
I recorded it. The trip began at 10:20am at my house, with 1.1 miles
on the odometer. It's a nice sunny day in March, which in Arizona
means a high temperature of around 75-80 degrees or so in the
afternoon. The perfect day for a long drive.
I set off heading north
through the freeway system into, through, and out of Phoenix and on
north up the I-17. By 11:19am, I had reached Black Canyon City, having
covered 65 miles since I left. The I-17 is sometimes called the Black
Canyon Freeway, after this tiny town of 1500 or so who probably do not
think of the Internet when they see the word "surf". 4.5 miles
further up the road is the exit for Bumble Bee, which I mostly just
noted because I like the name and a few of my friends had this thing
for Bumble Bee at the time.
Just a few more miles up the road, with 74 showing on the odo, it was
11:32am and I decided to take a photo break at a rest stop. I snapped
off a
first and second
picture of the view. It's mostly just some Arizona brush and the
mountains behind. Of course, I wasn't done taking pictures until I
snapped off a shot of my car in the lot. You should see that picture
at the left here. Not staying long, I was back on the road pushing
farther north.
Cordes Junction, the junction to the AZ-69 to Prescott was my next stop
with 85 miles at 11:49am. Not a whole lot of anything there but a
Texaco station. Not stopping here, I took the 69 northwest with
Prescott as my destination. Serious road construction and a very long
stretch of 35mph driving hampered my enthusiasm for reaching downtown
Prescott. By 12:29pm I had 118 miles on the odo, and I had reached
the Prescott Wal-Mart, which is around 10 miles from downtown Prescott.
I stopped here for a six-pack of Twix bars, and to take a picture of
Wal-Mart from inside my car, as well as
a picture of my car at the back of the lot. I guess I liked this
shot because there's no mountain range at the end of any parking lots
by my house.
Since I had decided not to head into Prescott any further, with there
not being a lot to see there, I headed back to the Cordes Junction
after leaving Wal-Mart. By 1:25pm I was back at the junction with
151 miles behind me since leaving that morning. I headed north up the
I-17 to Flagstaff then, stopping only at the rest stop in the picture
here. It was maybe 30 miles outside of Flagstaff, although I did not
record the exact mileage. By the way, that is indeed a Cadilac that
someone chopped the rear half of the roof off of and turned into a
home-made truck. The linked picture provides a slightly better view
of this interesting creation.
Leaving the rest stop and the duct-taped Caddy behind, I made my way
to Flagstaff. It was 3:03pm, I had 231.5 miles on the odo, and the
twix just weren't doing it for me anymore. I stopped at Smith's and
grabbed a gatorade for refreshment. I headed off from the Smith's to
Arizona Snowbowl. The reason for this being that it wasn't far from
downtown Flagstaff, and it was a nice climb up to around 9500 feet or
so of altitude. I thought it would be interesting to see how my car
took the steep hill climbing and thin air. It proved to perform very
well as long as I only used first and second gears. This wasn't a
problem since the speed limit for most of the road was 25-35mph and
the 25-45mph zone is perfect for just putting the car in 2nd and
leaving it there. The 6 mile drive to the top was entertaining, and
from there the drive back down was pretty nice as well. I stopped and
parked by an area where a lot of people who don't want to pay to go
skiing can sled down the hills for free and took the pictures at left.
As with previous, click on the picture to see the second angle. It's
interesting to note that as I logged my mileage on the hill here, the
fuel gauge was still pointing at half full.
After leaving Snowbowl, I made a quick run down the
Route 66, taking the picture which leads off
my Road Trip page. Since I didn't really want to go to California
from Flagstaff, I turned around with 269 miles on the odo. It was
now 4:25pm and I stopped for Life Savers at the last Texaco before
the road through Flagstaff opens up into highway. Showing 274 miles
on the odo I started my way home.
With a sign at the side of the road saying I was 116 miles from
Phoenix, and 302 miles now on the trip odo, I stopped at a scenic view
to take the last picture on this journey. It was 4:56pm now, and the
lighting was a bit harsh, but the picture still came out ok. Most of
the snow had melted away except for the one protected hillside in the
picture here. It was getting a little late for still being as far from
home as I was, so I hopped back in my Civic and took the I-17 straight
south non-stop for the remainder of this road trip. I reached Cordes
Junction with 351 miles on the odo at 5:46. Finally, by 7:22pm, with
434.6 miles showing on the trip odo, I had reached the Texaco station
on the corner by my house. I topped the gas tank off, as I always do
when I buy gas, with the pump showing I used just 9.7 gallons of gas.
This averaged out to 44.75 miles to the gallon for my one day road
trip. With the sun set, and my first Civic road trip completed, I
could only think of all the other places to see and roads to drive.
It would be only a week later until my next road trip, but that's
another story, for another day...
