Tuesday March 9

We say goodbye to Florence, AZ the weather has not been good the last 2 days. I wake up with a stomach ache and as the morning progresses I become very sick. Bob packs up the car and the weather in Florence is not bad. Bob has studied the map and figured out the best route to take in order to avoid all the snow that is falling in the upper elevations. Just as we start out we get a phone call from Kathy & Jerry and they inform us that interstate 70 is closed at Glenwood Springs which is the direction we were heading. We know have to go through the middle of the snow storm we were trying to avoid.

As we head out of Phoenix it is raining and by the time we hit the higher elevations it is snowing like crazy. From Phoenix to Flagstaff is usually about a 2 hour drive at most. It took us 4.5 hours to get to Flagstaff. The picture at the left is the traffic that we sat in for 2.5 hours never moving just sitting on the freeway. There were 3 accidents ahead of us and when they stopped the traffic the semi trucks were all getting stuck.

When we finally get moving we notice a bunch of search and rescue vehicles and sheriffs at a stopping area on the other side of the freeway. It turns out they were looking for a woman who disappeared on Monday night. We saw a flyer in a gas station right outside of Flagstaff and it has been on the nightly news.

Our plan was to get to Gallup NM but we ran into more snow and ended up stopping in Holbrook, NM enough driving for one day. There are several hotels in town and we looked around and settled on a Days Inn. Accommodation's are better than some we have had on this trip. There was a restaurant down the street named Mesa Italian Restaurant nice place the Italian food looked really good but I am still having stomach issues so a baked potato was my meal of choice and Bob had a nice steak dinner.