LEAVING MESA AND ARIZONA

A friend in scrapbooking group at Mesa, Linea, said she was staying in AZ until the first of May.  Everyone else gasped and asked why?  Her answer was that this is the most beautiful time in AZ, even though it is getting hot!
I can see what she means.  Here are the pictures that I took as we left:

Note the pollen under these trees!!
No wonder everyone is sneezing, including me!!

The above were all in landscaping settings.  The cacti are all coming in to bloom with fruit also.

The next picture is one that I took of a wall poster in a museum of the many cacti blooms.  So prickly, but beautiful!  The prickly pear cacti fruit is one of the common made into jelly in the area, but it is costly.

4-1-15 Wednesday, leaving Camping World in early afternoon and driving north and west, after having new tire monitors installed on the motorhome tires.  We also had the experience  of seeing it work.  We stopped when the beeping started and Gary had to let some air out to get the tire pressure back where is shouild be on one of the inside tires.  Guess we were giving it a real test! We stopped in Walmart in Kingman AZ for the night.  We pulled out of there at 5:38 am and driving more north and west we had some awesome scenery as the sky began to lighten.    

Daybreak in Arizona

Colorado River winding through Arizona 

Sun is up but still low in the sky.

Bridge over a valley before getting to Hoover Dam Valley.

Hoover Dam and the beginning of Mead Lake behind it.
So we are quite high over the canyon, but a wonderful highway.

We love the change in terrain!!  We just don't tire of it.  I think that the interesting difference is that what you see is not hidden by trees as it is in the mountains in the east.  The growth on these mountains is quite short.  I can't keep from snapping many pictures!! And I probably deleted half of them.  

 

Green growth on the mountains, quite green because
they had more rain in this winter season.

We were so thankful for the new black shades that we made last year for the upper half of the windows beside the driver's and passenger's seats.  We have to depend on the visors on our hats when the sun is in front of us!  Some of the more pricey motorhomes have shades there also.

These mountains took us through Nevada land before we passed by Las Vegas.  Arriving at our campground in Pahrump NV (near the California state line), our first view was snow on Mt Charleston at 11,918 ft. We arrived here at 9:30 am and the sun was high enough to make the visibility hazy.

Mt. Charleston in NV, between Pahrump and Las Vegas
11,918 ft. altitude

We began sight seeing the next day so stay tuned for more, but no scenery.
No, Pearl, we probably will not go far enough into California to see Uncle Howard as it would be a good day's drive each, over and back.  Another time, hopefully.