Day 5 – June 10 – On day five of our tour, we drove another 350 miles to Tuba, AZ. With this distance, we had driven over 1,022 miles in just three days. After driving from Albuquerque to Gallup, NM on the interstate highway with hundreds of 18-wheelers whizzing past us and sometimes coming too close to our rear bumper for comfort, we abandoned our route and took a new route through the Navajo Indian reservation to get to Tuba, AZ. On the route Ben discovered that the roll pin in the drive gear on his alternator had worked out and we had to stop, purchase and install a new roll pin. We arrived in Tuba, AZ just after sunset.

The drive across the reservation took us through some starkly beautiful but really lonely country. Much better than semi-trailers on our back bumper, we sometimes drove for 20-30 minutes without seeing another car.

Driving across the reservation on our way across Arizona. We had talked with the others who were a day ahead of us and decided not to take the planned route that involved the interstate. It was a little longer but certainly a better route.

Ginger Hardeman and Ross Lilliker at a gas station on the reservation. We were a popular attraction there and were quickly surrounded with people who were fascinated by the cars. There were very few communities on the reservation and those we saw were terribly isolated.

The reservation was mostly desert but there were some pretty high mountain plateaus. Here, Jennifer and Ginger reach the top of an 8,000+ foot plateau. The turn-off they are approaching lead to 4 or 5 small houses, miles from anywhere.

Ben and Ross top the same hill, followed by some modern cars. We were going pretty slow by the time we made the top of some hills but all the T’s made them and we rarely encountered someone who was impatient or irritated by the delay.