Journey to California, Day 4
Jul. 5th, 2007 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragoness_eWoke up early in Gallup, but goofed around typing up my belated "Day 3" post and fighting the hotel's wireless to upload my pictures. Finally got around its tendency to block ftp by using sftp. Secure shell for the win! (I've also found out that "Passive mode" ftp does NOT work through hotel proxies. Non-passive does. )
Finally got out the door. Stopped at the gas station/souvenir stand down the block and checked out the souvenirs. The place was also a retailer for Navajo handicrafts, including the gorgeous silver and turquoise jewelry they are famed for, and some lovely pottery. Most of it was way over my budget, but I could not resist a lovely "horsehair" pot that was affordable. There's one particular artist that makes most of those, it looks like.
I hit the road. It isn't far to the Arizona border, which is good, because I am desperately wishing there was someplace to stop and take pictures. Fortunately, there's a visitor center at the border, and I take pictures.
Typical of what I've been seeing in this area...
I climb around and take pictures of various rock formations, and close-ups of interesting plants. Here's two for the plant collection:
Prickly Pear Cactus
Sagebush
Actually taken a few miles down the road in the Painted Desert, but typical specimen
The next piece of road cuts through a corner of the Navajo Reservation, so no McD's or gas stations to speak of. Several Indian handicrafts retailers, though. It's very rugged country, and the few habitations I do see speak to the poverty of the Navajo in general. The desert is more lush than I expected, up on top of the plateaus. Keep an eye on the pictures below and look at the grass in the background.
The colors of Indian and Mexican crafts are the colors of the desert: brick red, browns, dark green, gray-green, gray-blue. I saw those colors all around me.
Just past the Navajo Nation is the Petrified Forest National Park; I detour from my trip to drive through it... and get out and take pictures of interesting parts. The Petrified Forest is inside and part of the Painted Desert; the north half of the park is very scenic--they have overlooks of many beautiful canyons and formations in the layers and colors that give the Painted Desert its name.
Like this..
The National Park Service apparently thinks guardrails are for wusses. The above picture is not an aerial view, it was shot out my car window... parked about a foot from the edge of a very long drop. The park road weaves along at the edge of cliffs and gorges with nary a guardrail to be seen. Don't let your attention drift when driving, and make sure you see the road you need to turn on to when you follow the sign with the arrow. They put those signs ("Tia Point -->"> quite a few feet ahead of the actual turn, so if you turned just before the sign, instead of well after it, you'd go plunging off a cliff...
They do compulsively label things; whenever the road bridged a dry wash, there would be a little sign labeling it "Dry Wash".
This is a dry wash
(Note the grass.)
On the way to the lush plateau where the petrified logs are found, I drove through some interesting formations... as in they were right beside the road.
An interesting formation at 'The Tepees'
Still on my way south to the agatized wood, I stopped to look at Puerco Pueblo, an old pueblo that's been partially excavated.
The floorplan
One of the main buildings
A kiva
Around back, petroglyphs have been scratched into the tumbled rock from the cliff face. Indian graffitti?
One set of petroglyphs
Oh yeah, it was bloody damn hot while I was doing this. In spite of my AF30 sunblock, I accumulated some sunburn--forgot that high altitude makes you more vulnerable to sunburn. Gee--desert sun, high altitude, and medication that makes me sunburn easy. I should just play vampire.
Eventually, I passed fields and fields of petrified logs. For some reason, the petrified trees break up into sections that look for all the world like some guy with a chainsaw has cut them up preparatory to splitting them for firewood. So who was running around in the Carboniferous with their Husqvarna and why did they need that much firewood?
A whole log
I escaped via the south entrance and took some state highway back up to I-40. I noted that while the park had petrified logs all over the place, the exact same terrain just outside the park, on private land, was clean as a whistle. No petrified chunks to be seen. Heh. They're all down at the jillion-and-one souvenir stands in Holbrook, AZ.
I had to drive straight through Holbrook to get back on the I-40. I think Holbrook's whole economy is based on Petrified Forest and Indian reservation tourism--everything that wasn't an essential business was a souvenir stand of one type or another. Very old style--Holbrook was on Route 66, and a lot of the places look like they were built when Route 66 was. There's a lot of that along the old Route 66--now "Historic Route 66". Yes, Route 66 is now part of history. Among the "cultural artifacts" you can't remove from the Petrified Forest National Park is 60-year-old trash, if you find any.
I spend three hours on that sidetrip, so I didn't take the time to stop and take pictures for the rest of the day--just sped on down the highway, stopping only for gas and restroom. Around Winslow (of Meteor Crater fame), reefs of red sandstone started rising out of the prairie; beautiful, scenic, and probably not very useful to farmers and ranchers.
Again, the highway steadily climbed; the Petrified Forest area was over 5000 feet, and it climbed through 6000 feet going over the Mogollon Rim, heading for Flagstaff. Fortunately, I don't have a problem with altitude sickness.
Up on the Mogollon Plateau, I was greeted by a sign that said "Coconino National Forest"--but the surrounding forest was only ten feet tall! There was a forest of junipers there. The road continued to climb, and once we got to Flagstaff, real pine trees appeared. Flagstaff is a mountain city, set amid the pine trees. Overlooking Flagstaff is the highest point in Arizona, Humphrey's Peak, at some 12,000 feet. It's topped by cell phone towers and radio antennae, of course. Flagstaff itself is around 7000-7500 foot elevation. It's also quite a bit cooler than down in the desert. There was a brief rainstorm going through Flagstaff.
Alas, I had to leave the lovely city of Flagstaff and head back down hill. A long way downhill--there was a grade with all kinds of warning signs for trucks: "6% for 6 miles". I just set cruise control and let the car roll downhill--gas gauge electronics told me I was getting 70mpg during the downhill roll.
Somewhere over by Seligman, the pine forests changed suddenly into towering piles of sandstone boulders. There were whole mountains that looked like they were made of stacked boulders. Bizarre and interesting.
Beautiful golden-dry grass covered the desert-scape, except where cattle had overgrazed--then the range was just gravel with a few scraggly bushes here and there. Native desert does not look half as barren as overgrazed land.
Kingman is nestled behind some rocky crags, and sprawls along a valley in front of the next mountain range. It was also very damn bloody hot when I pulled in--112°F in the shade, the guy at the C-store told me. Stepping out of my car felt like how my husband described Kuwait: "turn a hair dryer on High and blow it in your face". There was a brisk desert wind, and it was as hot as a furnace. I grabbed food and went and hid in my air-conditioned hotel room. The scenic pictures of the Route 66 hotels and stuff could wait until the cool of morning, if there is such a thing.
Distance traveled: 383 miles, plus ~60 mile detour through park and back.
Tomorrow: Crossing the Mojave!
Finally got out the door. Stopped at the gas station/souvenir stand down the block and checked out the souvenirs. The place was also a retailer for Navajo handicrafts, including the gorgeous silver and turquoise jewelry they are famed for, and some lovely pottery. Most of it was way over my budget, but I could not resist a lovely "horsehair" pot that was affordable. There's one particular artist that makes most of those, it looks like.
I hit the road. It isn't far to the Arizona border, which is good, because I am desperately wishing there was someplace to stop and take pictures. Fortunately, there's a visitor center at the border, and I take pictures.
Typical of what I've been seeing in this area...
I climb around and take pictures of various rock formations, and close-ups of interesting plants. Here's two for the plant collection:
Prickly Pear Cactus
Sagebush
Actually taken a few miles down the road in the Painted Desert, but typical specimen
The next piece of road cuts through a corner of the Navajo Reservation, so no McD's or gas stations to speak of. Several Indian handicrafts retailers, though. It's very rugged country, and the few habitations I do see speak to the poverty of the Navajo in general. The desert is more lush than I expected, up on top of the plateaus. Keep an eye on the pictures below and look at the grass in the background.
The colors of Indian and Mexican crafts are the colors of the desert: brick red, browns, dark green, gray-green, gray-blue. I saw those colors all around me.
Just past the Navajo Nation is the Petrified Forest National Park; I detour from my trip to drive through it... and get out and take pictures of interesting parts. The Petrified Forest is inside and part of the Painted Desert; the north half of the park is very scenic--they have overlooks of many beautiful canyons and formations in the layers and colors that give the Painted Desert its name.
Like this..
The National Park Service apparently thinks guardrails are for wusses. The above picture is not an aerial view, it was shot out my car window... parked about a foot from the edge of a very long drop. The park road weaves along at the edge of cliffs and gorges with nary a guardrail to be seen. Don't let your attention drift when driving, and make sure you see the road you need to turn on to when you follow the sign with the arrow. They put those signs ("Tia Point -->"> quite a few feet ahead of the actual turn, so if you turned just before the sign, instead of well after it, you'd go plunging off a cliff...
They do compulsively label things; whenever the road bridged a dry wash, there would be a little sign labeling it "Dry Wash".
This is a dry wash
(Note the grass.)
On the way to the lush plateau where the petrified logs are found, I drove through some interesting formations... as in they were right beside the road.
An interesting formation at 'The Tepees'
Still on my way south to the agatized wood, I stopped to look at Puerco Pueblo, an old pueblo that's been partially excavated.
The floorplan
One of the main buildings
A kiva
Around back, petroglyphs have been scratched into the tumbled rock from the cliff face. Indian graffitti?
One set of petroglyphs
Oh yeah, it was bloody damn hot while I was doing this. In spite of my AF30 sunblock, I accumulated some sunburn--forgot that high altitude makes you more vulnerable to sunburn. Gee--desert sun, high altitude, and medication that makes me sunburn easy. I should just play vampire.
Eventually, I passed fields and fields of petrified logs. For some reason, the petrified trees break up into sections that look for all the world like some guy with a chainsaw has cut them up preparatory to splitting them for firewood. So who was running around in the Carboniferous with their Husqvarna and why did they need that much firewood?
A whole log
I escaped via the south entrance and took some state highway back up to I-40. I noted that while the park had petrified logs all over the place, the exact same terrain just outside the park, on private land, was clean as a whistle. No petrified chunks to be seen. Heh. They're all down at the jillion-and-one souvenir stands in Holbrook, AZ.
I had to drive straight through Holbrook to get back on the I-40. I think Holbrook's whole economy is based on Petrified Forest and Indian reservation tourism--everything that wasn't an essential business was a souvenir stand of one type or another. Very old style--Holbrook was on Route 66, and a lot of the places look like they were built when Route 66 was. There's a lot of that along the old Route 66--now "Historic Route 66". Yes, Route 66 is now part of history. Among the "cultural artifacts" you can't remove from the Petrified Forest National Park is 60-year-old trash, if you find any.
I spend three hours on that sidetrip, so I didn't take the time to stop and take pictures for the rest of the day--just sped on down the highway, stopping only for gas and restroom. Around Winslow (of Meteor Crater fame), reefs of red sandstone started rising out of the prairie; beautiful, scenic, and probably not very useful to farmers and ranchers.
Again, the highway steadily climbed; the Petrified Forest area was over 5000 feet, and it climbed through 6000 feet going over the Mogollon Rim, heading for Flagstaff. Fortunately, I don't have a problem with altitude sickness.
Up on the Mogollon Plateau, I was greeted by a sign that said "Coconino National Forest"--but the surrounding forest was only ten feet tall! There was a forest of junipers there. The road continued to climb, and once we got to Flagstaff, real pine trees appeared. Flagstaff is a mountain city, set amid the pine trees. Overlooking Flagstaff is the highest point in Arizona, Humphrey's Peak, at some 12,000 feet. It's topped by cell phone towers and radio antennae, of course. Flagstaff itself is around 7000-7500 foot elevation. It's also quite a bit cooler than down in the desert. There was a brief rainstorm going through Flagstaff.
Alas, I had to leave the lovely city of Flagstaff and head back down hill. A long way downhill--there was a grade with all kinds of warning signs for trucks: "6% for 6 miles". I just set cruise control and let the car roll downhill--gas gauge electronics told me I was getting 70mpg during the downhill roll.
Somewhere over by Seligman, the pine forests changed suddenly into towering piles of sandstone boulders. There were whole mountains that looked like they were made of stacked boulders. Bizarre and interesting.
Beautiful golden-dry grass covered the desert-scape, except where cattle had overgrazed--then the range was just gravel with a few scraggly bushes here and there. Native desert does not look half as barren as overgrazed land.
Kingman is nestled behind some rocky crags, and sprawls along a valley in front of the next mountain range. It was also very damn bloody hot when I pulled in--112°F in the shade, the guy at the C-store told me. Stepping out of my car felt like how my husband described Kuwait: "turn a hair dryer on High and blow it in your face". There was a brisk desert wind, and it was as hot as a furnace. I grabbed food and went and hid in my air-conditioned hotel room. The scenic pictures of the Route 66 hotels and stuff could wait until the cool of morning, if there is such a thing.
Distance traveled: 383 miles, plus ~60 mile detour through park and back.
Tomorrow: Crossing the Mojave!
