Arizona to New Mexico

Today was another adventure and new sites. Our first stop was here:

I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't this!

We felt like we were walking on some alien planet. All those logs you see are pieces of petrified trees!

If you're interested in the process read below.

Here are some close ups: 

Another shot of the "alien" landscape:

These next pictures are of an area called the Blue Mesa. I began the walk with Kent, but very quickly there was a steep decline which I "declined" [Kent's joke] to take. I took this picture in the parking lot. The car was parked next to ours. I thought it was funny, and would only work if they were facing the right direction:

😂

Here are Kent's pictures of the Blue Mesa:

On our way out, we stopped to see some overlooks of the Painted Desert:

We had planned to go to Canyon de Chelly. However, we would have had to add about 2 hours to our drive to go in and then come back out, so we went to a place called Window Rock instead. There was a nice museum there - the Navajo Nation Museum. Window Rock is the capital of the Navajo Nation. We noticed as we were driving that many of the businesses were handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. New concept for me!

The museum was not an archaeology museum but a political statement about the 1868 treaty between the US military and the Navajo Nation and on our treatment of the Navajo people. A lot of the story was told through art and craft work. It was a nice museum - and another reminder of a dark part of our American history. I thought we both took more pictures than this, but these were all I found:

Our day ended in Gallup, New Mexico.

Something we've never seen before

Today we spent the morning in the Grand Canyon [above the Grand Canyon?].  The best over look was called Yavapai. It was amazing!
In one spot we could see rafts along the river and Phantom Ranch.

Look at the cloud shadows!

We probably would have stayed longer, but we had other items on the itinerary!

Ravens became our companions for the entire trip. They are really entertaining birds!!!!

We made our way from the Grand Canyon to the Wuptaki National Monument. We had our lunch at the Box Canyon and Lomaki ruins. 

These were off to our left as we sat at the table.

This was called the Nalakihu Pueblo:

And here's an "ancient ruin". 😂

If we had known what was coming, we wouldn't have spent time visiting these first ruins. One of the most amazing things I have ever seen was the Wupatki Pueblo! Get ready to be wowed:

Because of the location, size [100 rooms], and height of this village it was probably not a typical household but a community gathering place. There is nothing like it in the region.

This is found just below the structure above and was used for community meetings:

This was a ball court:

These are close ups of some of the rooms:

Down by the ball court was another "something I've never seen before" - a blow hole.

This is me standing over the blow hole!!!

If you know what a blow hole is, you can scroll on down. If you don't, read on:

A blow hole is a crevice in the earth's crust that seems to "breathe". It connects to an underground passage called an earthcrack. They have no idea how big the passage is but it was caused by earthquake activity. If the outside air pressure is lower than the pressure inside the crack, then air is blown out of the hole. If the air pressure is less than inside then the air is sucked in. Guess which one the video shows!!

These wooden beams are 800 years old!!!

You can tell that we LOVED this place. 

We also made a short stop at the Wukoki Pueblo

Cool place!

Our next drive took us through the Sunset Crater Volcanic National Monument. It was also amazing. The whole landscape is either volcanic ash or lava.

This is Sunset Crater

We didn't have time for more than a drive-through because we had another stop to make before closing time. We went the the Meteor Crater. I've never seen a crater made by a meteor before! 

Here are some facts about the crater:

Other facts:

By the time the crater hit the earth it was traveling at 40,000 mph!

It was 4,000 ft across. At the time of impact the crater was 700 ft deep - it would have engulfed a 60-story building. It is now 550 ft deep due to erosion. But, you could have 20 football games going on at the same time in the base of the crater!

This is the largest fragment of the meteor that they found:

This was in the courtyard of the museum. I thought it was cool, even though it was a test capsule!!

Most of this day was spent in or just outside of the Navajo Nation, so most of the people we saw were Navajo. We found it interesting/funny that Chinese food is very popular in the Navajo Nation. That is what we had for dinner!!

Another wonderful day!!

A Long Drive - beautiful but long!

Today Kent and I left early for another road trip. We drove all the way to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. 

 

We saw some beautiful scenery and had a very nice day, but we were ready to be there before we actually got there!😊

We crossed into Arizona and made a stop at the Little Colorado River Gorge. That little river did some amazing carving!!

We finally made it to the South Rim

The South Rim is very different from the North Rim. The road follows along the edge of the canyon for over twenty miles and there are lots of overlook stops along the way. We did stop at one overlook on our way in, but most of our looking was done the following morning.

We did luck out and got a parking place right in front of our hotel - which was right on the edge of the Grand Canyon - in the Thunderbird Lodge. After we checked in we had a nice dinner at the Bright Angel Restaurant. We then took a stroll along the canyon. We could see some lights appearing and disappearing down in the bottom. Someone was doing a night hike! Me? I was ready for bed!!