Changes

Wow,  a lot of changes today! We woke up early and outfitted ourselves for the first 2 days of our 2 weeks of camping.  Then: driving. We have already hit 2000 miles,  and today, another 500 is in the agenda. So most of what we are seeing will be at 65 or 85 miles per hour. We began in Deming, NM and took a small scenic route through the Gila and Apache forests. That took us upwards, to 8550 feet, and a rainstorm that brought the 100 degree heat down to 57 and then up to 104 within a couple of hours. The dry scrub became almost a forest at that elevation, then something more like the Badlands of South Dakota, with flat topped buttes and eroded rock formations. In Arizona that let out to a grassland that looked like a sea of blueish  grass. Finally we reached rt 66, now 40, and the petrified forest. After a quick rest stop to figure out how trees become rocks, we moved on to get an ice cream on a corner in Winslow, Arizona.