Day 12 - For the "Hail" of it!

Today was a 400 mile day (trip odometer at 2500 miles) leaving New Mexico, crossing Arizona and stopping in southern California. The landscape has changed again. From pine trees in northern NM to Palm Trees in CA. Gone are the Prairie Dogs challengin me as they try to cross the road. Now the challenge is to cross the Mojave Desert without breaking down, dehydrating or running out of gas. My 4th of July will be spent in California at the Santa Monica pier and then a ride up the Pacific coast.

But that's for a future blog. Todays journey started out cool and dry and ended up hot and dry, but there was precipitation inbetween. I traveled through no less than 10 different showers and thunderstorms. I gave up taking off my rain gear because I could see the next storm on the horizon. Just outside of Kingman, I believe that I was pelted with hail for a brief period of time. But I dried off heading towards Yucca. I got a picture of the mountains along with a rainbow. I hope that the digital camera captured it. In Yucca, the winds started picking up coming from the mountains. It made it difficult to keep the motorcycle straight on the road.

I took side trips through Flagstaff, Winslow, and Williams. Winslow, AZ is the town that the Eagles song "Take it Easy" made famous. I had been to Flagstaff and Williams before,but I wanted to see if they had changed. One Yes, one No.

Temperatures at 10:30pm CDT are 97 degrees. I need to get to bed because I want to start tomorrow morning about 5am. I have been told that the temps. at that hour are already in the 80's. So, a happy July 4th to you and your families.