Alan & “Mac” Margaret

Mathison

S/V “Effie”

Four Thousand, Six Hundred, and Fifty Nine Miles in Thirty Eights Days……

             On July 31^st, 2007 at 6:30 p.m. we left Ensenada, Mexico for a trip that would take us 4,659 miles, through 3 countries, and 8 states/provinces.  First stop was El Centro, CA where we spent the night. 

On August 1^stearly the next morning we headed for Casa Grande to visit the family.   We had a great visit with Aunt Joanne, Cousin Bonnie and husband Roger, and Cousin Sharon and her hubby CH.  On the second day of our visit we went out to the airport where they sky dive, what a treat.  Apparently it’s one of the most popular sky diving areas and divers from all over the world come there to sky dive.  We had a great visit and Aunt Jo make chicken and noodles, our favorite.

Mac “Margie”, Sharon, Aunt Joanne, Bonnie

On August 3^rd we headed for Prescott Valley to visit with friends Sandi and Peter.  We had another good visit and drove around the Prescott area stopping by their zoo.  For a relatively small town they have an impressive zoo and we had fun walking around.  Sandi had another birthday party for us (Aunt Jo and Sharon also made a fuss about our birthdays) where we got to see other friends, Lynlee and Ron, now living in PV and met a new friend Val.

On Monday August 6^th we left Prescott Valley and drove through Jerome and Sedona on our way to the Grand Canyon.  We love Jerome a little town hanging on the side of a hill and thought Sedona was beautiful.  Both places we would love to spend more time at.  The Grand Canyon was spectacular.  We spent several hours driving around to different vantage points around the rim.  Then off to Laughlin, NV to spend the night.  We had dinner at one of the buffets, did a little gambling then off to bed so we could get up early and head out the next morning.

Jerome

 

Sedona

Mac & Alan

Grand

Canyon

Tuesday, August 7^th we left Laughlin and headed for Reno.  We opted to go up hwy 395 through parts of California before heading back into Nevada.  At first we thought we might have made a mistake.  The landscape was very baron but once we got up in altitude we were happy we made the drive.  We stopped in Carson City for a “Sonoma Valley Style” dinner which was truly enjoyable then off to Reno and Brother John and Steph’s house.  We had a great visit and even happened to land on “Hot August Nights” week (a yearly huge old car show) and had fun on Wednesday walking about downtown looking at all the old cars.