NY to AZ, Day Three (The Final Chapter)

I started today at a more reasonable hour, about 9am. I was out of Texas and into New Mexico in about an hour. The speed limits for today's trip were 70 and 75 so I was able to keep my speed up and make the drive quicker. Just before I left TX and entered NM the terrain suddenly changed from flat and grassy to hilly with small shrubs and lots of rocky plateaus. It amazed me that it seemed to change instantaneously; I expected the change in landscape to be gradual. I'm glad that NM has a sense of humor about their overpasses and chose to paint them the color of a clay pot. This is the same red/beige color of the soil and seemingly all of the houses and buildings in the southwest. Driving through NM took half the day but I really liked the shrub-covered rock formations and small mountains. I stopped for lunch and gas on "Historic Route 66" which I believe I-40 has now replaced. There are lots of nice small towns all along Route 66.

I came across some more construction today, actually another area where there were construction signs up but no construction going on. This particular section of highway was in desperate need of some repair, as I hit the world's largest pothole at about 60~65mph (sorry no pic). No joke, it was about 2 feet across and probably 8-10 inches deep. I've never heard such a bad noise from my car. My first thought was I had to have done something very bad to the wheel, tire, or suspension. But I checked it out and there was no visible damage plus the car drove the same. Ironically the car had been pulling very slightly to the right up to this point and now it seemed to bang the alignment back to straight. I'm pretty sure that having the pressures up to about 45psi for the trip helped keep the rim in one piece. Once I got to Flagstaff, AZ I had gone as far west as I needed and made the turn south toward Phoenix. It was here that I drove through a national forest for about 25 minutes. I was impressed that they had trees like this in AZ, I had no idea. When I was through the forest and down the mountains, I began to pass some cactus. Again this landscape change was instantaneous, there seemed to suddenly be tons of big-ass cactus. I was in a coma briefly. Actually I was just driving through.

Now I was approaching Phoenix which has some really cool banked highways. I got off at my exit around 8pm local time. Turns out Most of Arizona doesn't participate in Daylight Savings time so the local time is now equal to Pacific daylight savings time (aka -3hrs from eastern). In the 15 minutes I've been on the roads in Chandler tonight I've seen 3 accidents being cleaned up with lots of flashing lights. I think the lesson is don't run red lights, and especially red turn arrows.

I'm in a hotel for the night (Best Western again, the official hotel of this road trip), and I sign the lease and move in to my apartment tomorrow morning. I start work next Tuesday so I have the next few days to get settled in and find some furniture for the apt. The final numbers for the trip are: 27.1 mpg, 2540 miles 69 avg mi/hr and about 36.5 hours (this includes driving around towns for gas/meals/hotels). Thanks for following my updates and for the responses.