We started our day at Ellyn's place and while she went to church, Kelly & Richard went on a hike through the wilderness across from Ellyn's house.  We were following Ellyn's directions to a ravine where she had found petrified wood previously.  Kelly found a few pieces

(pics)

and we returned to Ellyn's house around 11:30, just after she had returned from church.  We then packed up and got out around 12:30-1pm.

It was only just under 250 miles to the "OK RV Park" at Holbrook, so we weren't too worried about time.

Even before we got to I-40 (just west of Albequerque), we were already encountering rather extreme winds.  That along with the bad roads, made the drive a little exciting, not in a good way.  We had only been on I-40 for a little while when the GPS said to turn off on an exit a few miles ahead.  Strange.  We've seen it sometimes direct us off to another road and then back onto the freeway sometimes before so we ignored it and continued on.  After a little while, we found the reason for the exit!

We hit upon a part of I-40 which was marked on Google Maps as about "1 hour 20 minutes delay" and the backup was marked as red for miles!  Oh, so that was the reason for the exit a while back and now we're stuck in over an hour worth of stopped traffic on I-40!  Suddenly, we noticed there was a cross-over to the other side of the freeway so away we go with our trailer, across to the other side of the freeway and back to the exit we should have taken!  (As we were getting up to speed, which takes quite a while, a truck passed us on the right and blew their horn at us, but we came to the conclusion he was probably just warning us that he was passing on the right, because we had our right turn signal on, trying to get over, at the time.)

So, we were finally safely on the frontage road around the massive freeway backup and were feeling good about our decision.  We travelled along, watching the stopped freeway until we finally saw the cause of the backup.  A large semi truck was totalled, with the entire cab sheared off!  It was a big mess!

After many miles, the GPS was saying for us to get back onto the freeway, but we actually hadn't completely passed the stopped traffic yet, so we ignored it.  (You would think we would learn, but apparently we didn't!)  A few miles later, we found out why the GPS had wanted us to rejoin the stopped traffic.  The traffic on the frontage road was completely stopped and Google Maps sad it was a roughly 30 minute delay!  Wow!  Can't get around one delay without encountering yet another!

We soon found, however, that the cause for this second, frontage road, delay was simply that so many people had used this alternate route, that when they all finally reached the entry ramp to get back on, it was a mess getting through the intersection!  So, we had exchanged a roughly 1.5 hr freeway for a 0.5 hr frontage road delay.  That's not bad, actually!

Having finally rejoined the I-40 freeway, the rest of the trip was rather uneventful and we arrived at the "OK RV Park" with no further incidents.  The wind continued to be very high throughout the entire trip, but amazingly, once we entered the RV Park, we didn't notice that much wind.

So, we are safely in Holbrook for the evening and through all of the next day, when we plan to visit the DoBell Ranch and look at more petrified wood that we should reasonably buy!

The next day...  we had a slow start day, had breakfast, and finally made our way to the DoBell Ranch sometime after noon.

Kelly had a really great time digging at the site most of the day.

She had a great time.  Don't let her tell you otherwise!  😀

Coming back home (with two Home Depot buckets full of rocks), we had a great Taco Salad supper, watched the usual news, etc., etc.  You know the drill!

Tomorrow, we head out to Prescott Valley to collapse at Willow Lake RV Park and visit with Kelly's Dad for the next 2 days.  The drive is a little short (187 miles) and Richard's Father suggested we should take highway 89A instead of going on I-17.  Looking at various points along the road using Google Street View, it doesn't look that bad as long as we just drive the part through Sedona which parallels I-17, and then rejoin I-17.  We agreed that we don't want to drive the trailer through Jerome.  We've been to Jerome.  It's a very small town with very small streets.  We'll give it a try and report back!

Do we need more "adventure"?  Apparently so!