OP here...
The Beeline gets an incredible volume of traffic especially on Friday's as folks from the Phoenix area flood it to access the Mogollon Rim, White mountains as well as Pine, Strawberry, Happy Jack and on to Sedona and Flagstaff. Conversely Sundays see same same volume of traffic only southbound.
On Sunday afternoons it is fairly common to see westbound 260 backed up for miles where it intersects the Beeline in the center of Payson. A mile east of the Beeline on the 260 is a Circle K gas station with a double dump station and from October through May it is the first and only dump station you encounter between Show Low and Payson. {the two up on the Rim shut down with the seasonal close of the campgrounds on October first above 6,000'}. Dozens of RV's are lined up awaiting their turn from Sunday morning throughout the day with the wait often being an hour or more. If I need to dump I head over on Tuesday morning,{ it is half a mile from our house} and usually find it deserted. :B
The point being while the Beeline is a convenient get you where you want to be highway choose you moments wisely. We get a lot of very nasty weather, it was closed from Mesa to Winslow last January for 4 days when most of the Beeline was inundated with heavy wet snow {we had 2.5'+ here in Payson}. It is definitely NOT a road you want to be on when the precipitation turns white. The robust monsoon {that we were blessed with this summer} also brings some serious challenges with torrential rain and extreme high winds that can really impact the winding, twisty Beeline as it climbs and drops precipitously.
Here is a shot taken of our C lass C in the driveway on January 26th.
Keep in mind we are just one mile east of the Beeline and half a mile south of the 260 at 5,000':
:E
