Arizona continued
The radio stations in Arizona were littered with Eagles songs. Was it perhaps because we were approaching Winslow, Arizona? It was a small town. There weren’t many corners to be standing on.
We took a turn off Highway 40 with signs that drew us in to come see the Meteor Crater. Every billboard overly emphasized the importance of the place, but they were convincing. We were wandering our way to the east, so why not see what all the fuss was about. We were expecting a hole in the ground. It didn’t immediately dawn on us that the big hills we were driving towards were the upper rim and walls of the crater. Holy guac! That’s one big crater! We pulled up to the parking lot and went to make our way up to see the inside of it, but it was going to cost us $20 a piece. Screw that. We could see the outside walls from where we were. We just Googled some ariel photos of the crater for free. There’s even a photo sphere. Cool crater. Let’s move on.
You know what’s really cool? The Petrified Forest National Park is really cool. Much cooler than the lame old Grand Canyon. We wound up spending most of our day in this park. The petrified trees were over 220 million years old. There were a bunch of ancient animal and dinosaur bones on display in the museum. Archaeologists even found shark teeth in the area from when this section of Arizona was once covered in ocean water and was located about where Chile is today. Amazing!
The petrified trees were now made of minerals in all sorts of colors. The landscape was arid, but it was interesting with its different colors of sand and varying textures of terrain. A beautiful, beautiful area. You must swing through if you ever pass by. Highway 40 divides the park, making it easy to access.
Apparently we took a lot of pictures here. We couldn’t take any souvenirs from the park, though. The raven would find us.
Right before leaving the park there was an exhibit with a stone which had been drawn on by natives. We could see dozens of petroglyphs which dated back thousands of years. We were kept at a safe distance. No one was allowed close enough to touch the rocks, for obvious reasons.
There were more great sites to be seen just as we traveled along the highway. We entered New Mexico. The state was just as beautiful as Arizona was. We made it to Albuquerque at sunset and set ourselves up in an Airbnb run by a gentleman and his two teenage kids. It was a pleasant stay in a big house up above the city’s downtown. Tomorrow it’s a long drive up to Kansas! See you in part 4.
Part 1 West Coast
Part 2 Arizona
Part 3 New Mexico
Part 4 Midwest
Part 5 The South
Part 6 The Border
