Wow! Did we call that one right! Just talked to a couple that rolled in from Grand Canyon and Flagstaff this afternoon. They went to sleep last night to driving rain. When they woke up this morning it was all quiet and they thought the rain had gone away. Oops, there was a foot of snow covering everything. Indeed their coach had a foot of snow on top. They also reported five inches of snow in Flagstaff, and the snow extended to within ten miles of Camp Verde where we are currently staying. The difference between here and 10 miles up the road is about 2,000 feet of elevation.

Now we did get to enjoy Flagstaff a bit before the snows came. We found a parking lot near the fire station that would handle Arcturus, our Alpine Motor Home. We dug out our tandem bicycle for the second time that day and rode up to the Lowell Observatory. Yes folks they build observatories on the tops of hills, so we did our walk-a-while, ride-a-while routine and made it to the observatory just in time for a guided tour of the eight ton, 24 inch Clark refracting telescope that Percival Lowell used to sketch the “canaille” on Mars. We also got to see the 13 inch camera telescope used by Clyde Tombaugh to discover Pluto in 1930. Yes Pluto was discovered right here in our own back yard. The only planet discovered from the American Continent.

In last weeks series we told you we were going to ride over to the Meteor Crater just off I-40 in Arizona. We did indeed do that. We made an early morning ride over and up to the rim of the crater. There was some wind but not bad. After a couple hours poking around at the edge of the crater we noticed that the wind had picked up considerably. We got a ride back to the RV park that is totally unprecedented. It was down hill and with a 20 mph wind at our backs. Yes, I know it is unbelievable but I swear that it is true; miracles can happen.

With this e-mail we are welcoming aboard a new reader, Ed Mauget from North Carolina. Eddie and I were eggheads together in Rogers High school back in Spokane Washington in the 1950’s. I suspect that he is going to copy some of the good stuff into the John Rogers Class of 1960 web page .