Category: On the road

Today we visited Petrified Forest National Park.

In addition to petrified wood this park has a number of other interesting sights.

Painted Desert

A portion of the Painted Desert is in Petrified Forest National Park. The painted desert is an area with colorful layered buttes and mesas. Very pretty landscape.

 

 

 

Historic Buildings

You may have figured out by now that I love old historic buildings. The Painted Desert Inn is a national historic landmark. It was originally built in 1920 and then purchased and re-modeled but the National Park Service in 1935. It was a well known stop on historic route 66 and now serves as a museum & gift store.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Route 66

A portion of historic route 66 used to run through the park. The old road no longer exists here but this old Studebaker is there to commemorate it.

 

 

 Dinosaurs

A large number of dinosaur fossils have been discovered in this area of the country. A number of them that were found in the park are on display at the Rainbow Forest Museum.

 

 

Flora and Fauna

We have seen ravens in many of the National Parks in the Southwest.

 

 

Flowers in the desert are rare and beautiful.

 

 

 

 

Petroglyphs

 

 

 

Ruins

 

And finally, Petrified Wood

Beautiful and amazing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday we left Carlsbad, NM on our way to Holbrook, AZ (Petrified Forest). About 50 miles out it became very windy and Bill decided to pull off so we could tie down the kayaks better. As we pulled into a parking lot it started snowing and sleeting. The wind picked up even more and we started to feel like we were in a blizzard. The weather report had not said anything about snow and at first the weather apps on our iPhones showed nothing happening. We were pretty sure we were not imagining it. Eventually things started to calm down and we headed out. There was still some wind and a little bit of snow later on but Bill handled it, as usual, like a champ.

 

 

Also on the way we drove through Roswell, NM. In 1947 and unidentified flying object (UFO) crashed on a ranch just outside of Roswell.  Many think it was an alien space craft but the government says it was a weather balloon. At any rate Roswell has claimed much attention over the years due to that event. We saw quite a few green aliens as we passed through.

 

 

 

 

We went back to Carlsbad Caverns for another look on Thursday. During our previous visit we had entered the caves via the man-made entrance down the elevators under the visitors center. This time we went to the natural entrance.

There is a large population of bats that live in the caves. Every evening at sunset they fly out of caves to eat. There is a large amphitheater at the natural entrance where people sit to watch the flight. In a way it is really neat that you can go see that but on the other hand I find it a bit bizarre that flying bats is the only performance ever viewed in this theater.

 

 

 

 

We did not go at sunset to see the bats but we did descend into the caves through this entrance. A long hike down (over 750 feet) we used the elevators to come out.

 

Yesterday we took a trip up to Santa Fe, NM. Santa Fe is a wonderful old city with Spanish flavor that has history and an art. Just walking around is great fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We visited the Georgia O’Keeffe museum. Georgia O’Keeffe was a famous and very talented 20th century American artist. She lived many years in New Mexico near Santa Fe. A photo of her and some of her works are shown below. They remind me of the paintings my sister does (my sister, Jane Lux, is a also a very talented artist).

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow we head out to Carlsbad, NM to visit Carlsbad Caverns National Park  and Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

Saturday  we visited the Albuquerque Bio Park. The park consists of a zoo, an aquarium, and a botanical garden.

ZOO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AQUARIUM

 

 

 

 

BOTANICAL GARDEN

We did not walk through the Garden due to a rain storm. But we did get to see some of it on the train ride from the zoo to the aquarium.

We were back in Mesa Verde National Park on Wednesday. We saw lots more amazing ruins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And some nature sights also.

 

 

 

Today we arrived in Albuquerque, NM for a few days. We’ll be taking in some more modern and urban sights this week.

Yesterday afternoon we spent a few hours at Mesa Verde National Park. The purpose of this park is to preserve archeological sites of ancient Pueblo people. In this park you can learn about Pueblo culture and visit ancient cliff dwellings.  We hiked down to what is called the Spruce Tree House.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a lot more to see at Mesa Verde and we will be going back later in the week.

Yesterday we visited Arches National Park.

Arches National Park

 

Sand Dune Arch

Sand Dune Arch sits on a floor of fine pink sand.  There were children building sand castles during our visit.

 

 

Landscape Arch

Landscape Arch is the largest in Arches National Park.  In 1991 a huge slab fell out of the arch but the arch has stayed connected. I heard that people were allowed to walk under the arch before that but fences are in place now to prevent it.

Windows

The Windows section of the park has several well known arches. We can also see these from our campground a few miles away.

 

 

 

Delicate Arch

Delicate Arch is the most well know arch. We did not take the long hike to walk around the base of the arch. I liked Landscape Arch better.

 

Not Arches

There were some other interesting sights that are not arches.

 

 

Canyonlands National Park

Today we visited Canyonlands. It was not nearly as impressive as arches but we saw some interesting and beautiful sites. The Green River and the Colorado River both run through the Park. The rivers have carved impressive canyons over the ages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today we drove from Arizona up to Moab, UT which is near Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. On the way we drove through Monument Valley and other scenic places on the Colorado Plateau (please excuse the spots on the windshield).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are staying in ArchView Campground in Moab. We can see Arches National Park in the distance from our campsite.

 

 

 

Tomorrow we go see Arches up close, and Canyonlands the following day (I’m retired and I cannot remember what day of the week it is 🙂 ).

We have stopped for a couple of nights at Fort Beale RV Park in Kingman, AZ.  We left the Grand Canyon yesterday because we had seen just about everything we wanted to and the weather was getting colder and windier – not much fun outside. Since we already have reservations in Southern AZ starting tomorrow we decided to take off early and visit another Route 66 town.

 

We visited two history museums, The Route 66 History Museum and the Mohave Museum of History and Arts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We drove east about 30 miles on route 66 and visited Hackberry General Store. It’s a crazy place that was may have  once been a gas station and general store but is now more of ad-hoc collection of old route 66 memorabilia.