Goodbye Flagstaff, Hello Open Road!

Welcome friends and family to the blog of our adventures making it back to Michigan the "long" way! We'll be sharing pictures and stories when we have internet connections along the way.

Please make suggestions of places to go to, things to see and places to camp when we are going through an area that you know! We have a rough route planned out (Flagstaff, AZ west to Pacific Coast Highway north to Vancouver then east to the Upper Peninsula and into Michigan) but we aren't on any strict time schedule or route besides getting back to Michigan around the last week of June. So, if you know a cool place or thing to do that's in your neck of the woods or where you've traveled before please let us know in the comments section.

And so the adventure begins...

Today we finally left Flagstaff at 2:20pm (AZ time). Yes, that's right today, THURSDAY, we finally left Flagstaff when we had been planning on leaving Monday or Tuesday morning at the latest. We where moved out of the "little blue house" by Tuesday afternoon at a little after 3pm and stayed at the Flagstaff KOA campground the last two nights taking care of NAU and other business as we did not have any time to pack or take care of last minute running around that always comes with moving until a week ago.

The nice thing is - I'M DONE and we're out of Flagstaff!! I turned in my keys and the stack of library books almost as tall as I am. It still hasn't set in that I've graduated yet or that we've moved but I figure in a couple of days (most likely in the the most random of places) it will hit me and it will be wonderful.

Back to the road trip...

So, we left Flagstaff this morning...and got 74 miles down the road to Seligman and decided to stay at the KOA here after spending the nicest afternoon I think we've both had in while because of the famous Angel Delgadillo (http://www.route66giftshop.com/angel.html) who Pete got his hair and beard cut by. Angel is a legend around Route 66 folks for helping found the Route 66 Associate of Arizona and lobbing the Arizona legislature to preserve Route 66 in Arizona...and he is one of the nicest people I've ever met and what makes trips like this so special. He's semi-retired from cutting hair for 60+ years and isn't always in his shop so we lucked out that he had just come over to the shop from his house to hang out when we walked in. He was great to talk to and I can't think of a better way to spend an afternoon.

After the haircut we went next door to Angel's brother Juan's place Snow Cap Drive In for a snow cap (basically an icee, ice with flavor) and walk through Juan's "garden" of old cars, outhouses, and other odds and ends. Juan's passed on but his place is still great.

As it was getting late we decided to stay at the KOA in Seligman so we didn't have to set up our tent in the dark.

Mom - you'd be proud, I'm sitting here at our campsite with a cup of tea :)

Tomorrow we're off to see where Route 66 will lead us.