Holbrook to Phoenix to Atlanta

On Wednesday, June 1, Mark left early from Holbrook for the drive to Phoenix via I-40 and I-17 because he had an early afternoon flight to Atlanta. The rest of us were going to spend the night in Phoenix, so we had a little more time. We decided to take the cross-country route through the Tonto National Forest since we had not seen tha route before.

From seeing the old type of small windmill for pumping water on a farm, we went to a view of a large wind farm of large modern wind generators.

As we turned onto Hwy 260 we encountered more forested mountains and had some distant mountain views.

We reached Payson and turned south on Hwy 87, which is called the Beeline Highway. It was a wide open four-lane highway and we got views of the hills like that at left.

We rolled across the hills on the wide open Beeline Highway. We got one view of a large corral with horses, but otherwise didn't get much indication that we were in major rodeo country. I had read that some of the longest running rodeos in the country were in this area.

It was time to make the trip back to Phoenix to stage for our flights out to Atlanta and New Orleans on June 2. We traveled from Holbrook, Arizona down 377, 277, 260, and 87 to Phoenix. Highway 87 is called the Beeline Highway. Above, Ashleigh, Jordan and Elyse are shown along that Highway about 50 miles from Phoenix. The desert there was dotted with the giant saguaro cacti. At left, Jeff and family pose in front of a saguaro which must be 30 feet tall.