ARIZONA - DESERT, PINES, CANYONS AND STARS

 

We entered Arizona on Wednesday, October 19, around 3:30.  It was warm and sunny.  We stopped at the Welcome Center at the border to walk the dogs and look around.  Two of the pictures on the Nevada post, the wall painting of the horse and the one of the statues on the cliff, were taken just before the Arizona border.

Buddy & Scrounge Join Me at the Welcome Sign

We are nearing the end of our trip.  One more night on the road and then one long day tomorrow and we will be at our destination, Modesto.  At the rest stop, they had a natural area with a sign to stay out of the area as there were poisonous snakes and critters.  You didn’t have to tell me twice to stay away.  I am not a snake fan, let alone the fan of a poisonous snake!

Back in the car we continued our journey west.  The Eastern Arizona landscape is much like New Mexico – brown, rocky, sandy, dry, gullies, canyons and mountains.   The further west you travel, you actually see trees, greenery, and it looks much like North Carolina especially around Williams, Arizona where we spent the night.  Our family visited Arizona in 1994 while traveling from California to Maryland.  At that time, we stayed at the Williams KOA Campground.  This time we stayed at the Days Inn. 

United States at Night - Artificial Light

Ever take a minute to look up at the sky at night and see the stars.  They look small and sometimes you have to look real close to see them.  Most of them look like little tiny lights.  Well in the Southwest, when you look up the sky at night, the stars are big and bright and they look like they are right in your face.  Do you know what the difference is between the two locations?  Artificial light (not sun light).  The east coast is far more populated than the Southwest.  There are more people, larger cities, and cities are closer together.  Where we live, the artificial light obscures or hides the stars.  As you move west, the population thins out and the cities become more spread apart, thus reducing the amount of artificial light.  Take a look at the sky one night!  What do you see?   If you look at the picture of the United States, you will see there is more light on the east coast where we live, than in the Southwest where Arizona, New Mexico and Texas are located.

Williams is a small, scenic town.  Its claim to fame is its proximity to the Grand Canyon and the historic Grand Canyon Railway.  This train is made of renovated Pullman cars from the early 1920s.  The train ride to the canyon takes a little over two hours and you are provided entertainment to and from the canyon.  When we rode the train in 1994, we were entertained by musicians dressed as if from the1900s.  On the return trip, we were treated to a train robbery.  Actors, dressed as 1800’s robbers with handkerchiefs over their nose and mouths, road up on horses, boarded the train and demanded the train stop.  They pretended to rob the passengers of their possessions (anything they took, they returned before they got off the train).   Everyone thought it was great and very entertaining!  No one was hurt and nothing was ever taken.  Train robberies were very common in the early days of the railroad.  

We departed Williams at 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, October 20.  The temperature was in the 60s as we headed out.  By mid-day, it 89. 

The scenery in Arizona is again spectacular – flat to mountainous, barren to green.  One of the things that jumped out as me as we drove along the barren highway was a yellow tree.  I do not know want kind of tree this was, but it was bright yellow and stood out against the brown landscape.  It reminded me of a maple tree turning colors in the fall.    Around Williams, AZ it is very green and there are lots of pine trees.  According to the Arizona State Parks website, “The City of Williams is located in the largest stand of Ponderosa pine trees in the world, at an elevation of 6700 feet above sea level.”  Middleburg’s sea level elevation is 470 feet.

Golf Ball House

In the southwest you travel for miles and do not see houses or towns or people.  It is very desolate!  With no one around, it is strange to see such large manufacturing or processing plants and power plants or even odd shaped houses.  How would you like to live in a golf ball?

Cholla Coal-fired Power Plant

The Cholla Power Plant in Joseph City, Arizona is the perfect example of a huge plant in what I call the “middle of nowhere.”   The Cholla plant is a major coal-fired power plant.  The coal that is used in this plant comes from the McKinley Mine in the neighbor state of New Mexico.

Griffith Energy Center

Another power plant seemingly in the middle of nowhere is the Griffith Energy Center near Kingman, Arizona.  According to information found on the Summit Power Equipment LLC website, this facility “is a natural gas-fired combined cycle site.”  Now having said that, what does that mean?  I had to go do some more research.  Wikipedia tells us “that the exhaust of one heat engine is used as the heat source for another, thus extracting more useful energy from the heat, increasing the system's overall efficiency.”  In the case of the Griffith Energy Center they are using gas and steam.  The cooling towers at the plant remind you of the towers at a nuclear power plant.  How many cooling towers are located at this plant?

Another research assignment --- as we approach the borders of Arizona and California, another major river divides the two states.  Look at a map and find the name of the river.  Also, research the river to find out how long it is and identify the states through which it flows.

We are now at the California border and still have about 9-10 hours of driving time; however, I will stop here for now and prepare a new post about California.  I will meet you on the bridge of that river (the one you need to identify) that divides Arizona and California.  California is a big state and there is lots to tell you‼ 

See you later.