We got up relatively early for the late night we had and went downstairs for the continetal breakfast (which wasn't too bad, I actually got half decent biscuits and gravy). After breakfast we got on out of Texas and drove for a while until we got to Santa Rosa, NM. We had lunch at the DQ, not necessarily the local faire I was hoping for, but since there are maybe 2 left in Oklahoma I wasn't feeling too bad about it. After lunch we drove some more (this will be a recurring theme), we passed the Laguna Pueblo which looked pretty neat off in the distance, but we didn't get a decent picture of it. I noted that our outside temperature gauge read 66 degrees and this was 3 pm...ah cool weather, my friend how I have missed you so. We drove until we reached the Continental Divide and pulled over for a quick photo op, the temperature was 58 and it was about 4 pm by this time. Near Grants, NM there was a noticeable difference in the terrain, lots and lots of volcanic rock; apparently there was a volcanic eruption near there a while back. Along the way I noticed a fair number of pronghorns.
We drove a bit longer and finally got into Arizona. This was my first time to go to Arizona and so to mark the occasion we took a picture of the welcome sign as we blew past.
Near Fort Courage we saw a Chevy Cavalier with logos painted all over it advertistinghttp://www.mein08.com/. I haven't checked the site out, but apparently this guy thinks he's as good a candidate as anyone else running and wasn't afraid to drive around with it on his car.
After a little more driving (anyone detecting a theme here?), we arrived at our first "real" stop,Petrified Forest National Park.
We made a fairly quick, more or less car tour of the park. We made a brief pit stop at the visitor center to get a map and our "mandatory" magnet. It was amazing to look at all the petrified trees and think, "that used to be a regular tree and this used to be a forest". The area had a beauty all its own.
For some reason I wanted ice cream after seeing this. This area is part of "The Tepees".
Crystal Forest.
Crystal Forest.
What's left of an old car. The telephone pole in the back ground runs along Route 66.
Agate Bridge.
Our new family portait.
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'
The common raven was the first "non-eastern" bird I saw on this trip. I went on to see turkey vultures, great-tailed grackles, violet-green swallows by the dozen, cliff swallows in good numbers and a lone house sparrow.
Emily kept wanting to wander off.
We were treated to an awesome sunset.
After the sunset, we went to a shop just outside the park where you can legally obtain petrified wood products and each got a small momento. We then headed to Holbrook, AZ and our "wigwam".
For some reason this reminds me of a Pixar movie.
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