Monday we drove to Springerville, Arizona to find another Madonna of the Trail. Kinda funny that it was next door to a McDonald's!
Then we drove through some serious snowstorm, although the road was relatively clear and dry
Tuesday we went to the Snowflake Arizona Temple first thing in the morning
Then we headed to Petrified Forest National Park. All around it are places selling petrified wood (not sure if they really only charge 25 cents or if this is a retro sign)
Even the sign for the town of Holbrook used petrified wood
Not surprising that they have this sign in several places inside the park
And we saw a Planter's Peanut vehicle! (License plate says NUTS4U)
The park included the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert
There were some slabs of petrified wood in the Rainbow Forest Museum. The sign for this stated that it took about 5 times as long to cut a piece of petrified wood as it would to cut regular stone
Petrified wood everywhere!
The Painted Desert reminded me of Death Valley, specifically Artist's Drive
This is the Painted Desert Inn, a Route 66 stop and a Harvey Girls establishment
Now it is just a museum, still furnished like you could just stop off!
There were only 6 rooms, originally had 2 bunkbed sets in them, slept 4 to a room
Wednesday we went to the Hubbell Trading Post--a trading post on Navajo land that is still in use
Inside the visitor center, that was the originally the trading post school, there was a Navajo lady weaving a rug. I asked and she said it takes her four months to make an entire rug.
This was the school, now visitor center
Theodore Roosevelt stayed here, in the room under the bison head
This was the inside of the current trading post
This is the outside
Most of the area is off limits because it is Navajo land, unless you take a guided tour or you can drive along the rim. We spent our time at the visitor center and saw this example of weaving. So interesting how many cultures have a Tree of Life story.
Outside they had a reconstructed hogan and another open-sided shelter
Then we were off, to drive to Navajo National Monument and saw these amazing views as we drove
The monument has more pueblos, the trails were snow and ice covered, so we saw the visitor center and this sign which was in Navajo and English
Thursday we went to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument--the crater was pretty cool
We thought this trail through the lava field was a whole lot more amazing
Inside the visitor center J and S were looking inside this exhibit
And found this (very fake and MUCH larger than a real scorpion. Gave S a good fright!)
This was a pueblo and we got to walk all around it and inside of it
So interesting how they just built on top of and around the huge rocks in the area. See the rock jutting out? Look to the right, you can see the rest of it going into the room to the right
This rock was part of the ground floor room's wall
Our last stop of the day was Walnut Canyon National Monument--all three of these sites are within 45 minutes' drive of Flagstaff, Arizona. This one is a cliff dwelling/pueblo area
Dendrochronology is one of the coolest techniques!
Friday we went to Montezuma Castle National Monument--another cliff dwelling
Theodore Roosevelt had a hand in this one, although you could say he really made sure we had a national park system for the entire nation and signed into creation lots of parks.
Montezuma, the Aztec leader, never actually came here
Before the 1950s, tourists could climb up several ladders and go in the castle.
It was a lovely day and we saw green grass growing along the base of the cliffs--the last day of January even!
This is Beaver Creek, it runs by the castle and also past Montezuma's Well, where we went next
If you look at the left side of the photo, there is a cliff dwelling there. The water below had leeches and water scorpions in it (more like stick bugs, but they slightly resembled scorpions in appearance and had a nasty bite). Not too sure the Ancient Puebloans swam in their front door pool!
We walked around to where the water comes out of the rock from the pool and flows into Beaver Creek. It's crazy to just see water coming out of rock!
The view from afar
This is what the site looked like before excavation--the huge pile of rocks and pottery sherds were what led archeologists to excavate. Nowadays, they don't excavate, they just protect any sites they find.
We walked up and around the site
Seriously awesome view from the top!
Saturday we went to the Grand Canyon!
We saw some cheeky ravens who wanted to share our lunches (all they got were the crumbs)
We headed out to Hermit's Rest--a house that was built on the canyon rim edge, kind of into the rock. It had a HUGE fireplace (the Mr. could have easily stood in it) but there were people enjoying the fire and I didn't want to post their photo on the web.
The designer of the building
Not a good photo of the building--best photo would be bird's eye view, flying over the canyon, looking back at the rim. If you go behind the building, it just blends in with the canyon rim.
We also saw lots and lots of views of the Grand Canyon
We stopped in at the Kolb brothers' studio, also built right on the canyon rim
I took this photo while standing in a section that jutted out, you can see how vertical the land beneath the building is... Yikes! And they didn't have to build on the canyon rim, there was plenty of land behind it that was flat to build on!
And we saw corrals full of mules, the mules you can hire to rid in and out of the canyon on, if you aren't intrepid enough to hike it on foot.
Today we attended the Peak View Ward, Flagstaff Arizona West Stake. It was a very interestingly constructed building!
We started out with some promising weather!
Then we drove through some serious snowstorm, although the road was relatively clear and dry
Tuesday we went to the Snowflake Arizona Temple first thing in the morning
Then we headed to Petrified Forest National Park. All around it are places selling petrified wood (not sure if they really only charge 25 cents or if this is a retro sign)
Even the sign for the town of Holbrook used petrified wood
Not surprising that they have this sign in several places inside the park
We were driving Route 66 part of our way there
And we saw a Planter's Peanut vehicle! (License plate says NUTS4U)
The park included the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert
There were some slabs of petrified wood in the Rainbow Forest Museum. The sign for this stated that it took about 5 times as long to cut a piece of petrified wood as it would to cut regular stone
Petrified wood everywhere!
The Painted Desert reminded me of Death Valley, specifically Artist's Drive
This is the Painted Desert Inn, a Route 66 stop and a Harvey Girls establishment
Now it is just a museum, still furnished like you could just stop off!
There were only 6 rooms, originally had 2 bunkbed sets in them, slept 4 to a room
Wednesday we went to the Hubbell Trading Post--a trading post on Navajo land that is still in use
Inside the visitor center, that was the originally the trading post school, there was a Navajo lady weaving a rug. I asked and she said it takes her four months to make an entire rug.
This was the school, now visitor center
We also got to tour the Hubbell home, behind the current trading post.
Theodore Roosevelt stayed here, in the room under the bison head
This was the inside of the current trading post
This is the outside
We went to Canyon de Chelly next. It's on Navajo land also, run jointly by the Navajo and Department of the Interior
Most of the area is off limits because it is Navajo land, unless you take a guided tour or you can drive along the rim. We spent our time at the visitor center and saw this example of weaving. So interesting how many cultures have a Tree of Life story.
Outside they had a reconstructed hogan and another open-sided shelter
Then we were off, to drive to Navajo National Monument and saw these amazing views as we drove
The monument has more pueblos, the trails were snow and ice covered, so we saw the visitor center and this sign which was in Navajo and English
Thursday we went to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument--the crater was pretty cool
We thought this trail through the lava field was a whole lot more amazing
Not far away was Wupatki National Monument
Inside the visitor center J and S were looking inside this exhibit
And found this (very fake and MUCH larger than a real scorpion. Gave S a good fright!)
This was a pueblo and we got to walk all around it and inside of it
So interesting how they just built on top of and around the huge rocks in the area. See the rock jutting out? Look to the right, you can see the rest of it going into the room to the right
This rock was part of the ground floor room's wall
So many volcanic mountains--look at the mountain just above the tree, it's a cinder cone in the shadow of the taller mountains
Our last stop of the day was Walnut Canyon National Monument--all three of these sites are within 45 minutes' drive of Flagstaff, Arizona. This one is a cliff dwelling/pueblo area
In seeing all these sites, we've learned how they have figure out how to date the site, figure out how old it is
Dendrochronology is one of the coolest techniques!
Friday we went to Montezuma Castle National Monument--another cliff dwelling
Theodore Roosevelt had a hand in this one, although you could say he really made sure we had a national park system for the entire nation and signed into creation lots of parks.
Montezuma, the Aztec leader, never actually came here
Before the 1950s, tourists could climb up several ladders and go in the castle.
It was a lovely day and we saw green grass growing along the base of the cliffs--the last day of January even!
This is Beaver Creek, it runs by the castle and also past Montezuma's Well, where we went next
If you look at the left side of the photo, there is a cliff dwelling there. The water below had leeches and water scorpions in it (more like stick bugs, but they slightly resembled scorpions in appearance and had a nasty bite). Not too sure the Ancient Puebloans swam in their front door pool!
We walked around to where the water comes out of the rock from the pool and flows into Beaver Creek. It's crazy to just see water coming out of rock!
Our last stop of the day was Tuzigoot National Monument--another pueblo (I think J and S are tired of these...and we have a few more to see still!)
The view from afar
All of these pots were recovered from the site and reconstructed
This is what the site looked like before excavation--the huge pile of rocks and pottery sherds were what led archeologists to excavate. Nowadays, they don't excavate, they just protect any sites they find.
We walked up and around the site
Seriously awesome view from the top!
We passed this road sign on our way back to the campground
We saw some cheeky ravens who wanted to share our lunches (all they got were the crumbs)
We headed out to Hermit's Rest--a house that was built on the canyon rim edge, kind of into the rock. It had a HUGE fireplace (the Mr. could have easily stood in it) but there were people enjoying the fire and I didn't want to post their photo on the web.
The designer of the building
Not a good photo of the building--best photo would be bird's eye view, flying over the canyon, looking back at the rim. If you go behind the building, it just blends in with the canyon rim.
We also saw lots and lots of views of the Grand Canyon
We stopped in at the Kolb brothers' studio, also built right on the canyon rim
I took this photo while standing in a section that jutted out, you can see how vertical the land beneath the building is... Yikes! And they didn't have to build on the canyon rim, there was plenty of land behind it that was flat to build on!
We also got to see the Grand Canyon Railway go past
Today we attended the Peak View Ward, Flagstaff Arizona West Stake. It was a very interestingly constructed building!
Comments
Post a Comment