Phoenix to Santa Fe

I have been struggling to catch up ever since our three days in Marble Canyon with no Internet. Every day from Lee’s Ferry through Grand Canyon seemed to have too much to write about. Since leaving the South Rim on Saturday, things have slowed down. The primary reason to go to Phoenix was for Mom to visit her “baby” sister (age 82). We stayed in a lovely resort hotel and had lunch on Sunday with Carol in her cute little mobile home. We left Mom with her for the afternoon and came back later to pick her up.

Phoenix is lower altitude and further south from Grand Canyon. It was 30 degrees when we got up Saturday morning at the South Rim and 90 when we arrive in Phoenix in the afternoon. Phoenix is a huge sprawling city with heavy traffic. My mother had TB when she was in high school and wintered in Tempe in the late 1930s. Tempe is now a suburb of Phoenix. Mom died in 1997, but everything in me wanted to call her up as we whistled by the Tempe exits on the freeway and say, “Guess where I am!” After 80 years of changes, she would have recognized none of the town. But the mountains are the same. I remember how her voice would soften when she spoke of Superstition Mountain.

Steve's mom has been struggling with an infection. She was able to see someone at the well-equipped clinic at the South Rim, and she was feeling better, but it was clear that we had worn her out. Phoenix was our furthest point out. What remains is days and days in the car to get home. We ended up putting her on a plane Monday morning. Our daughter picked her up, got her some groceries and took her to her own apartment where she has spent only an occasional night since March of 2020. We have talked on the phone and she seems to be doing just fine.

 

We had an itinerary of scenic routes planned when we left the airport. Salt Canyon was a twisting switchback descent and climb up the other side on AZ60. 

 

As we entered the higher altitude the scenery changed to a forest of tall Poderosa pines. Another yummy local café lunch at Bertie’s in Show Low.

 

We took AZ 260 through the White Mountains, but after Grand Canyon none of it was quite as impressive as it would have been a week ago. We found we hadn't judged the driving time right. Everything was in shadow by the time we reached El Malpais in New Mexico with it huge black lava rocks and sandstone cliffs, and I didn’t get any pictures. We didn’t get to Santa Fe until well after dark and fell into bed exhausted.