Desert Southwest Trip, Flagstaff; Montezuma Castle National Monument

We are waking up in Flagstaff, AZ, and we are taking our time, still trying to decide what we're gonna do for that day, while still heading towards Phoenix.  We started off just going out for a cup of coffee and found this place:

A coffee shop called "Late for the Train".  I suppose it's called that because it's close to a train depot, so they use that for luring people in if they're trying to kill time waiting for their next train, or so I suppose.    We noticed that the parking meters in that town were really weird.  I can't remember now what was weird about them, but they were weird.  We wanted to leave our car parked there in front of the coffee shop so we could stroll around through town and had to ask the guy working in there if that would be all right.  He said it should be fine.

So we finished our coffee and began our own walking tour through the historical downtown, just admiring all the old buildings and reading about the history on them.  It was such a beautiful morning weather-wise, so we decided to keep walking into the neighborhood section to see what the houses looked like.  One thing me and Chuck like to do is look at old houses.  I don't know why we are intrigued by them, but it's a relaxing and fun thing to do.  We saw a really old house that looked like a business, so we went in there and it turns out it was an old house turned into a ski shop.  People in Arizona buying skis??????  I guess people do buy them and go skiing in the mountains.  The lady in there knew her stuff about skis, but didn't know a whole of information about the house (we told her that was the real reason we went in there).  Anyhoo, we kept walking and then Chuck saw this old truck sitting in someone's driveway:

So he stopped to get a closer look at it.  He felt that it was a shame to just let it sit there and get rusty, and he really wanted to knock on the door and ask if it was for sale.  Of course he didn't, but if we lived close enough to get it home, he might have.  We heard a dog barking and started to feel awkward loitering in a stranger's private driveway, so we moved on.

We ended up at the town Heritage Center, which is sorta like a mall (in a historical building), and we went inside to see what kind of stores were in there.  We ended up buying fudge from a fudge store.  

We found a place to eat lunch and then headed south and went to a place called Montezuma Castle National Monument.  Again, we got in free (tee-hee!)  This was another place of ancient remnants.  This community was built by the Sinagua people around 1100 to 1425 AD (so they say).  Whatever the real dates were, again I was amazed at how people survived in the past.

This is a model of what they believe the dwelling looked like when it was inhabited:

Anyway, it was pretty neat to walk around there and see close up where these people lived, and where they had their different rooms separated, etc.  It's fun to use your imagination and "see" people living here so long ago, or maybe even yourself living among them.

After that we still had some time to kill so we randomly went to this park and hiked on the trail.  There was no one else there except another couple, but they went off in a different direction, so we were entirely by ourselves.

The trail led back to a small river so we hung around there for a bit.  Nothing exciting, but it was still a nice relaxing way to kill the rest of the afternoon.

After this we headed to Phoenix and tried to decide how we wanted to spend our last day before going home.

 

Desert Southwest Trip, Monument Valley; Grand Canyon

Today we are heading over to the Monument Valley!  Another scenic hike!

The trail basically makes a big loop around this big rock formation, but the trail is long so there is lots of scenery to look at on the way.

I loved the trees and took lots of pictures of them.

It was a nice hike and we had nice weather for it.

After we got done with that, Chuck decided to change our plans.   Our original plan was to go back to Santa Fe, NM and see more stuff that way, but we had to get back to Phoenix on Wednesday, so Chuck didn't want to go in that direction and back again (too much driving), SO.........!  we decided it would be better to start heading in the direction of Phoenix instead, and stop and see what there was to see on the way, and one of those things was THE GRAND CANYON.

 

We were gonna save this for another trip when we knew we would have more time to spend there, but since we were in the area,............why not?

Neither of us has ever seen it before, so this was gonna be exciting.

I also want to insert here a little piece of gratitude that, because of Chuck's military vet status, we were able to get into ALL of the national parks absolutely free.  We went to a lot of national parks on this trip, so I don't know how much money we saved, but I'm sure it was a lot.  All Chuck had to do was show his military ID, and we got waved in.  Heh, heh, heh!

So anyhoo, we entered the park at the Southern Rim, and you basically just drive down the road and stop and get out in various places.  Some places were more popular than others, thus the crowds.

It was........magnificent to behold!  Surreal!

Like Chuck said, it was like looking at a huge painting.  This is why I almost like Canyon de Chelly better, because that wasn't too magnificent to be real.  This is so magnificent, it can't be real.

And of course, all I could think about was the Great Flood.  There is nothing else that could've possibly caused this.  If this is a painting, none other than God's signature would be down in the corner of it.

Someday we hope to come back here again and do more exploring, rather than just staying on the road which ends at a touristy area.  Chuck says he would like to down in there and go camping. I know there's a lot of things you can do there besides just drive on the road, but that would have to be a separate trip.  Even though we didn't stay there very long, at least we finally got to see it. There were some Navajo ladies there selling some jewelry that they made.  I bought a necklace with a flute player that looks just like the one that guy painted on that rock we bought at Canyon de Chelly.

So after that, we decided to go to Flagstaff to bunk for the night.  Chuck really liked Flagstaff; he would probably move there if he could coax me into it.

Our trip is almost over, so at this point we were trying to decide how we wanted to spend our last day and a half.  There were some places nearby that I really wanted to see, but in the end, Chuck makes the final decisions.

Desert Southwest Trip, Canyon de Chelly

 Today is Sunday, so after a night of hanging out at the hotel, and doing our laundry, we felt refreshed and went to church in Show Low, AZ.  I wanted to get a picture of the church building but Chuck wouldn't let me because I think it's embarrassing for him for some reason if I am taking pictures of it.  But part of the reason was because of the way the building was situated so close to the busy road, I would have to stand close to the busy traffic to get a good picture.  Anyhoo, the interesting thing was that we happened to pick the place where we sorta knew the preacher.  I have met him before because he used to be the preacher in Sparta, WI, where my sister goes to church.  So that was pretty cool talking to him and his wife about my sister and whatnot.  Lots of really nice people there!  We even met a lady from Alpine, where we stayed two nights prior; she drives an hour and a half to go to church in Show Low.  We told her we were looking for a hotel in Alpine, and of course she said "you could've stayed with me!".  Now we know.........

So after church, we got in the car and drove for 3 hours to our next fun stop:  Canyon de Chelly.

That was a really cool place and another of my favorites (I know, you can't technically have more than one favorite, right?)  I have 72 pictures of this place and I wish I could show you all of them, but I will have to just randomly pick some.

Looking at pictures is just not the same as being there.  It was like a mini Grand Canyon.  I was so awed by it and kept thinking "man, if this is a little Grand Canyon, the big one must be ........ what's a good word here?"  I just loved this place.  It was really breathtaking to look down into this ginormous hole in the ground.  

On the far side, half way up the wall, there was this cleft where you can see remnants of a past civilization.  I know it's hard to see because of the shadow, but look real close and you can see some structures between the rocks.  It's amazing how people can live in places like this.  I never noticed before until I looked at this picture, but it looks like they could've lived on top of the rock also.

Way down on the bottom we could see some modern structures of homes(?) and trucks driving around.  We learned that you can take a driving tour down there, which we didn't do.

Way down in another corner there were some more remnants of a homestead.  The picture is blurry because my camera isn't the best one to use when it's zoomed in all the way.

When we came back to the parking lot, there was a young man (a Navajo indian) painting pictures on these slabs of stone that he finds in the area.  He sells them to anyone who wants them.  He was very talented and made some really nice ones, and they sold almost as fast as he could paint them.  We couldn't decide which one of these we wanted, so we bought both of them.  He said we could have both for $30, but Chuck only had $28, so he let us have them for $28.  He was an interesting guy and explained some of the symbols to us.  The flute player petroglyph is a common one that we saw quite a bit.

Anyhoo, that was a really awesome place to go and one of my favorite highlights.  As we left the park, we knew we had to find a place to stay for the night, but close by there was a lodge right outside Canyon de Chelly.  The lodge is owned and run by Navajos and it was a really nice place with reasonable prices.  It's a place of several buildings (hotel rooms) and it was like walking through a park to get from your room to the restaurant, which was also owned and run by Navajos. I loved all the old looking trees.

 The restaurant was kind of like a buffet where you take a tray and tell them what you want from the menu.  We both ordered a "Navajo Taco", not really knowing what it was.  I was expecting just a normal size taco that you hold in your hand. I wish I had a picture of it to show you, but I was shocked at how big it was.  It was bigger than the plate, extending past the edges.  This is not the type of taco you hold in your hand.  It was more like a big giant pita bread with all the fillings spread over the top, and at first I just stared it, not knowing how I was supposed to eat it.  After struggling with a knife and fork, one of the waters came up to me and showed me an easier way to eat it.  (how embarrassing.......).  It was a good taco, but of course I could not eat it all.  If we knew that they were gonna be that big, we would've shared one.

So that was our Sunday.  Tomorrow we're off to Monument Valley!

Desert Southwest Trip, Petrified Forest National Park

 

Today we are going to the Petrified Forest!

I have to say that this was the only day that we had bad weather (see those dark clouds?). It was cold, very windy, and occasionally raining.  But it was still a really fun day.

Every time I think of a petrified forest, I always envision in my own mind a big forest of trees that are still standing, except the trees are made of wood.  I don't know why I always think that, but because of that, this was not what I was expecting.  So I guess this was very educational for me.

This is a self-guided driving/walking tour.  The sights are beautiful and interesting to see, but you miss out on a lot if you don't get out of your car and walk down some of the trails.  I know, I know......"the weather outside is frightful",  and when you get out of the car, you can't wait to get back in the car again, but trust me, you don't wanna miss out on these goodies.

So you drive on this road, and every now and then you come to a trailhead, inviting you to see what's out there.  The drive itself is really pretty.

The first stop on the road pointed us to Puerco Pueblo, where some people lived ages ago.

There were also some petroglyphs there.  I love petroglyphs!

If you like games, see if you can find this footprint petroglyph on these rocks:

I'm glad this trail was very short, less than 1/2 a mile, cuz the weather was really cold and windy.

So we continued driving on to the next trailhead, which led to what they call "Newspaper Rock".  I can see why they call it that.  You could spend hours trying to read it.  Supposedly there are more than 650 petroglyphs on it, some of them as old as 2000 years (but again, how can they really know that?  from what I read, petroglyphs are very difficult to date)  For me, it's satisfying enough to know that they are old.

It was hard to get a good picture of it because you can only see it from a overlook, which wasn't at a very good angle to get a good view of the rock, so I ended up buying a postcard with a better picture of it.  With my camera, I tried to zoom in on some of them.  It's a really big rock and it's completely covered with symbols.  So very cool!  If the weather was nicer I would've wanted to stay there a lot longer.  Too bad we didn't have our binoculars with us.

So the next stop was the "Blue Mesa".  This was one of my favorite parts.  We got out of the car and walked this mile long trail that loops around in these really pretty formations.  By this time the weather improved somewhat, which made it somewhat nicer.

As we were walking on this trail we could see pieces of petrified wood scattered around.  Whatever happened there at that forest, some of the trees got carried away to this area.

more petroglyphs!

I absolutely loved walking on this trail!! It was like being on a different planet!  I am trying so hard to limit the amount of pictures I want to post.  I sure would like to know how those rocks got formed that way!  Look at all the interesting stripes of layers in them!  Once again, my mind defaulted to the Flood of Noah's day.

Our next stop was the area of the petrified forest itself.  It looks like you can roam around freely, but there is a trail and they expect you to stay on it.

As you can see, it's not a standing forest like I thought it was going to be.  It's an area of land littered with fallen trees that have petrified.  They say the trees are from the "Triassic Period" 200 million years ago, and would be the same trees that dinosaurs roamed around in.  I disagree with this dating of course, but something big and catastrophic definitely happened here a long time ago.

Some of the trees were really big.  Supposedly they were some kind of conifers.

Here is a tree that fell and spanned across a gully.  (The wooden beams were added underneath it to give it support).

A lot of them look they fell and broke in pieces when they hit the ground, so did they petrify before they fell?????  I don't know anything about this kind of science.

Some of them even look clean-cut, like someone went in there with a chainsaw and then just left them there.

Anyway, it was really neat to walk around there and imagine a whole forest there.  The whole entire landscape would've been different.

I could get carried away showing you tons of pictures, but I have to stop somewhere.  Anyhoo, this was a day well spent - very interesting!

There were a couple other things to stop and look on the driving tour, but we were less interested in those, so we left the park and headed towards our next destination.  Being a Saturday, we knew that we wanted to find a nice hotel with a laundry room so we could wash our clothes, and get a good rest before going to church the next morning.  So we headed to a city called Show Low.

Next stop:  Canyon de Chelly