A chilly wake up this morning. It was 30 degrees in Gallup when we got on the road and you could see snow by the mountains. We passed Indian City, the largest Indian Reservation, on our way to the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park. It wasn't too far off route 40W on the way to Vegas so we stopped. Ron was thrilled that we got to use the senior pass (62+) he bought yesterday at White Sands. For $10 you get a lifetime pass for you and 3 other adults in your car for entry into all national parks. If you qualify, hurry and get yours soon because the cost is going up to $80 but they don't know exactly when. Painted Desert is 7500 square miles and Petrified Forest is within that area. The painted desert got its name from Coronado who called it el Desierto Pintado. The Petrified Forest has the greatest concentration of petrified wood in the world. Locals began to realize that the area should be protected in 1895 but it wasn't made a national park until 1906 by Teddy Roosevelt. Even though it was made a park the resources weren't well protected until much later. The opening of historic Route 66 in 1922 "brought America to the desert". We drove the 28 miles through the park which reminded me of a moonscape or even the Badlands. There is a lot of "freaky" landscape out west. We walked the mile loop through the Crystal Forest with all the Petrified logs. After leaving the park we passed through Holbrook AR, which still looked like a page out of the 50s. There were dozens big dinosaur statues outside stores, wigwam hotel rooms and vintage retro looking motels. Outside of Flagstaff there was deep snow on the side of the road. The roads were clear of snow but 40W after Flagstaff was pot hole ridden - hard to believe speed limit was still 75. From there it was on to Henderson, NV. - just passed the Hoover Dam. We were going to Vegas but because we made an unplanned, but totally worth it, stop at the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest we were running behind even with gaining another hour as we just crossed into Pacific Time Zone. I wanted to catch the whole game, halftime and commercials so we stopped at Railroad Pass Hotel and Casino. That's how we roll - we have an open schedule subject to change at any moment. Of course we watched the Super Bowl rooting not so much for the Falcons as against the Patriots. And no we didn't gamble. Glad we didn't bet on the game as it wasn't the outcome we had hoped for. Went down to get some dinner at the Casino - I had the Prime Rib and Ron had a chicken wrap and just walked around checking out who frequents Casinos. Time for bed as we are approaching the end of our trip. Not sure if we'll get to Sacramento tomorrow or Tuesday. It depends on what we see along the way tomorrow.
BTW We added two more states - Arizona and Nevada. Only need to add California now!!! I'll update our mileage and hours at the end of our trip.
PS I forgot to say that we passed over the Rio Grande yesterday.
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| I do get into a few pictures |
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| Petrified wood |
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| Painted Desert |
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| Painted Desert Inn |
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| Found by workers looking for sandstone - when they turned it over they found this |
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| Ceiling in the Painted Desert Inn done by the CCC |
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| Mural done by a famous Hopi artist |
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| The striations show the different periods of the rock |
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| Glad none of these fell while we were driving through |
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| Wood from the Petrified Forest |
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| Hard to believe this started as wood |
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| View from Crystal Forest |
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| Looks like a gem |
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| Some of the logs are huge |
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| Views along our drive |
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| Views of the San Francisco Mountains |
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