Sunday, July 18, 2010

A Beautiful forest without a single standing tree


What a day we had yesterday! We made it to the Petrified Forest National Park but not before staying a night at Love's truck stop near Holbrook, AZ. Holbrook is on the old Route 66 and offered a Wigwam Motel, giant colorful dinosaurs and just about as much petrified wood for sale as the forest has to look at!

South to north we hit the Petrified forest where there was major wood then the Painted Desert/Badlands where the colorful dirt and rocks were so amazing to Marisa that our first born will be jealous while looking through photo albums. (no Mom's, don't worry, not any time soon) There was also petroglyphs sprinkled in there, none of which explained why they lived in the desert...


On the advice of Kern River Preserve Manager Extraordinaire, Reed, we made a side trip trip to the Canyon De Chelly National Monument in NE Arizona. We were treated to a beautiful canyon oasis with an ancient Anasazi dwelling built into the canyon wall and an 800ft. rock tower sticking up from the canyon floor. Pretty impressive, and free. Its in the Navajo Nation, Those guys are alright. Guided tours can be purchased to see more, check it out.


A late night drive followed, four corners was a bust and we stayed at a Walmart parking lot in Cortez, CO. Surprisingly nothing too crazy went down there. This morning we went to the Cortez Recreation Center and showered (twice!) worked out and swam in the indoor pool. The afternoon consisted of lunch in the park, reading in the shade and chilling at the Spruce Tree Coffee House. We now sit in front of the Dolores River Brewery where a Pizza, cold beer and live music await...
(lesson learned: Rec. centers rock)

P.S. We drove through Winslow Arizona and failed to stand on a corner... next time.

(currently having technical difficulties uploading pictures....may try again later.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why was four corners a bust?

A&M 2010 said...

It was closed! granted it was a little before midnight, but it was closed due to construction. Check out the flickr page for a photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/44315404@N06/
but from what I hear it's not much to see, and it costs $3 to get in.
We saw mountain ranges of all four states (and where the four corners might converge) when we went and looked at cliff dwellings and tried to find some arrowheads yesterday--way better.