The Wandering Adventurers: Heading East

April 13
Fun day today - We stopped at our last ruins. I think we are all pretty much done with that. With Walnut Canyon, I think we will have seen examples of all the types of ruins in this part of the US that were built from 1,000 to 1,500 AD. The canyon is beautiful on it own. We hiked down into the canyon which meant we had to walk back up with almost 300 stairs. The dwellings were built into the cliffs at different levels. From the hike we looked across the river valley to the ruins and we walked through the ruins on our side. I can’t imagine living right on the side of the cliff. The dwellings were nothing like those at Mesa Verde or Montezuma Castle. The women had to go down by ladders to the river below carrying clay pots to fill with water and then back up again. They would have to store enough water in clay pots to last for 100 days! The men had to go up to the rim to farm and hunt. They must have been in top shape and so strong yet they died by the age of 40. What does that say about exercise. The cliffs provided protection but what a spot to pick. The river no longer runs because of the dam built at Lake Mary to provide water for Flagstaff.
Our next stop was Meteor Crater. This is one big whole in the ground! It happened over 50,000 years ago and was discovered by a man that was with Kit Carson. A mining engineer took out 4 claims thinking he could mine it and it has stayed private with ranch land surrounding it. It is said to be the best persevered meteor crater in the world. The family owning the company has done a great job with a visitor center and viewing area. A well done movie explains how it all happened and the history of the discovery of this one in particular. Edwardo gave a presentation after the movie that held our attention with lots of humor. He could make anything interesting and fun to listen to. Everyone clapped and yelled out thank yous when he was done. Norm wasn’t excited about making the stop but Edwardo made it all worth while. You lose all perspective of size when standing on the rim. 20 football games could go on simultaneously at the bottom. A small looking boulder that had been thrown up with the power of the crash and now sitting on the edge in the distance was actually the size of a large two story house. All this meant more than the dimensions. The Apollo crew practiced here in the 60’s before landing on the moon because it is so similar to that of the moon’s craters. Interesting stop.
Our last stop was Winslow which is on Route 66. Most of you probably remember the lyrics “Standing on the corner of Winslow, AZ…” and the song by the Eagles. Well, this is the claim to fame # 1 for the town of Winslow. They have made it a destination with a two story mural painted on a building with a statue of Glenn Fry, we think. From research Norm did later, he was the one who finished the song started by Jackson Brown. The red flatbed truck is parked on the street in front. It’s terrific. There was a steady stream of people taking pictures. The store selling Route 66 and Eagles things was playing Eagles music on a loud speaker outside. What fun. Claim to fame #2 is the La Posada Inn. The Spanish style Inn was designed by Mary Jane Coulter for the Santa Fe Railroad and Fred Harvey Co. It is right off the rail tracks and was an embarkation point for tourists wishing to see the “Indian lands.” They must have gone to the Petrified Forest also. Fred Harvey had a fleet of luxury motorcars in a garage across the street for touring. It was built in the late 20’s and closed in 1958. It was saved from demolition in 1997, and is now a beautiful Inn and restaurant. It made the 2009 Gold List of the Worlds Best Places to Stay by Conde Nast. The chef, John Sharpe, just made the top 20 on the James Beard list! We abandoned our pledge to simple home cooked meals is a flash and had a delicious lunch. We are staying in Holbrook, another small town on route 66. Driving down a stretch of route 66 and realizing that it began in 1929, was a quite a trip. The Teepee Motel is a throw back to the Route 66 heyday. In 2002, it gained National Landmark status.

Clif Dwellings at Walnut Canyon - click on this one to see the dwellings

High on the Clif at Walnut Canyon

Meteor Crater

La Posada Inn

"Standing on the corner in Winslow, AZ..."

Teepee Motel on Route 66

　
　
April 14
I have wanted to see the Petrified Forest since I was a kid. Today is the day! We entered at the south entrance to visit the visitor center and see the film educating us on how the logs came to be rock almost on the hardness level as diamonds. We took the walk through Rainbow Forest walking by hundreds of gorgeous petrified logs spread over the landscape with colors of red, gold, magenta, purple, blue and white. For some reason I have always thought of it as still a forest which it isn’t. It’s forest days were some 250,000,000 years ago. Dinosaurs roamed this land and many fossil remains have been found here. Seventy different dinosaurs were discovered here before any place else. Now this land is rolling grass land. After we ooh’d and ahh’d over the magnificent logs and many photos later, we continued driving through the park stopping at all the vistas. Crystal Forest had another walk. Sorry to report that the crystals and gems found imbedded in the petrified rock had been removed long before it became a National Park. We did see a sample in a store of amethyst crystals sitting in a piece of petrified rock! Our next stop, Blue Mesa, was an amazing sight with such vibrant colors of sandstone, claystone and mudstone mounds in blues and purples. At the pullout at Newspaper Rock, we looked through telescopes to see about 600 petroglyphs that had been made over decades some dating back to 1,000 AD. An area named Teepees was another different geologic area with deep red formations looking like teepees topped with white sandstone. Each site was so different and the petrified wood logs were everywhere. Our final stops were views of the Painted Desert. The Painted Desert stretches for miles and miles. We looked out to the amazing pinks and reds as we had a picnic. Chris and I were remembering our grandparents talking about their trip to the Painted Desert and wondering which part they had gazed at with wonder. Our last stop was the Painted Desert Inn. It had originally been built out of petrified wood! In the 30’s the CCC did a remodeling job and changed it to a southwest pueblo style. It closed in the 60’s but is now this lovely refurbished building is open again and is a historic building for us to enjoy. Too bad the soda fountain is just to be looked at, we would have had fun ordering a malt or banana split.
There are signs throughout the park telling visitors to not pick up any rock. As with any National Park, “Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but foot prints.” They verbally tell you to leave the rocks behind when you enter the park and we even received a paper telling about the fines if you get caught. With all of this, one ton of rock still disappears each month! Unbelievable. The biggest offenders are men from 35 to 50 years old. The rock is so beautiful it is tempting to pick up a little piece. The area of the park is only 1/10 of the actual Petrified Forest. There are many stores selling thousands of pieces from $1.00 to $15,000. The store we went to has the rock and mineral rights to land outside the park and is mining the rock about 30 feet underground. So, if you visit this amazing place buy your rocks and leave those in the park alone. My preaching for the day!