We left Congress (North Ranch) AZ Sunday morning about 9am to start the trek home to Ohio. Kathy and I both wanted to stay longer, but we both have responsibilities back east to attend to.
Our route took us north about 2 hours to Flagstaff, AZ where we caught the I-40, a good smooth four lane divided highway. The travel was easy, setting the cruise to 65 mph, and not a lot of traffic.
And then it happened — as we traveled eastbound, we noticed a plume of black smoke up ahead in the distance. Traffic came to a complete standstill and we sat in one place for about an hour. We figured it had to be a car fire. Although today’s weather was cooler (about the high 70’s) we’ve been told by others about cars frequently overheating and actually catching fire on the freeway. We have seen many instances of that along the shoulder of the roads with charred asphalt.
As we (finally) began to move, we crept up the freeway about 2 miles merging into one lane when we were finally able to accelerate back to comfortable cruising speed. The only evidence of trouble left at the scene were a police car and an ADOT truck (Arizona DOT). The fire trucks had departed from the scene although we could still smell the odors of tragedy as we passed by. 
It’s hard to shoot pix with a cell phone and drive at the same time, so this photo isn’t the best, but it appeared to be the carcass of a motor home pulling a jeep behind it.
Since these diesel pusher motor homes have the engine in the rear, and the “bus” style door is right up front in front of the passenger seat, it seems probable that the occupants got out safely before the fire consumed the coach. At least we pray that’s the case here.
We got in to our campground for the night “LavaLand RV Park” in Grants, NM. We sauteed some boneless chicken breasts and had those along with a Thai pasta/rice mixture, fresh tomatoes, and cottage cheese.
We’ve still got some ICE CREAM left to have a little later on as a bedtime snack (Yum!)
