Seligman, AZ on Historic Highway Route 66.....24th Oct...

Seligman (population 465)  is a tourist destination town on Route 66........like so many towns Seligman grew up with the arrival of the railroad and then thrived when Highway 66 was built. Ok so most of you probably watched the Billy Connelly's TV series but here are some facts......it was commissioned in 1926 and was 2448 miles long, across 3 time zones and crossing 8 States starting in Chicago, Illinois and ending at Santa Monica Boulevard/Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, California.....in 1926 only 800 miles of the Mother Road or The Main Street of America were paved...it was 1938 before the entire route was paved but Route 66 was the first fully paved road...it was decommissioned in 1985, replaced by the interstate road system.....only sections of it still exist and we got to tow along 83 miles of it !!!

It's touristy, it's crass but it's loveable, we had a great couple of hours  poking about in the gift/memorabilia shops.....

And time for lunch.......I had a really yummy pulled pork sandwich. .......

Our boy at the city limit sign......

I'm in heaven the railroad runs along the back of the campsite near our spot........only downside is that there are no crossings locally so no hooter but then again with the amount of trains perhaps it's as well....
Heading off along 83 miles of Old Historic Highway Route 66 tomorrow and on to  our next campsite at Laughlin, Nevada....

Incredible Petrified Forest & Painted Desert, Arizona...22nd Oct

The Petrified Forest National Park, 23 miles from where we are staying at Holbrook, AZ  is one of the largest  petrified wood deposits in the world.....our first stop is at the visitors centre and the 1/4 mile walk past incredible petrified wood of all shapes and sizes.....we have to admit to not knowing a lot about petrified wood before this visit....

200 million years ago this area was a steamy, swampy, equatorial climate....the trees fell and a mix of salt, mud and volcanic ash buried the logs, the sediment cut off the oxygen and slowed the logs decay, then silica laden groundwater seeped through the logs replacing the original wood tissues with silica and petrifying the logs.....it's really amazing you have to touch them they look like wood but are rock....

Next stop is The Long Logs Trail a 1.6 mile loop trail through one of the largest concentrations of petrified logs in the park....

Yorkieman admiring the view and the solitude, the Japanese were all back at the gift shop !...

It's incredible and hard to believe that they have not been cut up  by a chainsaw  !! Water seeped into cracks, froze then expanded causing it to look like this....
The Park Service is trying desperately to stop visitors from stealing the rocks from the park....... 

Next stop on the 28 mile drive through the park was Blue Mesa...part of the vast Painted Desert and amazing....

We sat on the wall at the parking area eating our sandwiches looking at this spectacular view of The Blue Mesa and the vast valley....

Highlight of the day a 2 mile trail at Blue Mesa it descends down a steep path to loop through  petrified wood deposits and badlands hills of bluish bentonite clay....it was awesome....

More solitude.......the silence was total...well apart from me prattling on....seriously it was incredibly quiet...

Badlands are a type of dry terrain where softer sedimentary rocks & clay rich soils have been extensively eroded by wind & weather........

More photos to fill our walls back in Blighty....

We had seen a small portion of the Painted Desert when driving up from  Flagstaff to Page a few weeks ago and hadn't realised it was so vast.......

Driving on from this stunning landscape Yorkieman hit the nail on the head when he said " being in the Parks on our travels brings us such joy and contentment".....

Historic Route 66...the roadbed and the telegraph poles mark the path of the famous Main Street of America as it passed through the Petrified Forest & Painted Desert National Parks....

More painted desert, we also saw a large collection of petroglyphs and Puerco Pueblo ruins....

Last stop on today's trip just before exiting the park.....The Painted Desert Inn, now a museum but once a famous inn and landmark on Historic Route 66.....we had a great chat with the ranger on duty about the building and the changes it underwent from a small hostel made of native stone and petrified wood in 1926 to a thriving Inn in the late 1940s/50s.....It was made an Historic Landmark in 1987 and has since been renovated "modernising" some of the structural elements....
We have had another amazing day doing what we love....we move farther west tomorrow on I-40 to Seligman AZ, another town on Historic Rte 66......

Gallup, NM to Holbrook, AZ......21st October

A complete change of plan as the temperature was down again overnight to 21F . After checking the weather channel Santa Fe is put on hold for another time as there will be more overnight frosts, the elevation is 7000ft in Santa Fe......

We turn left and head west along the i-40 back into Arizona to Holbrook....

Holbrook is another Historic Route 66 destination......we are still singing the song interspersed with "It's  A Bloody Mary Morning".......

The Wigwam Motel on Route 66.....

We had forgotten that Arizona don't change their clocks for daylight savings so we spent  most of the day an hour out....oh shucks it's even longer to 5 o'clock !!!
Staying here tomorrow to visit The Petrified Forest National Park.....

Cortez, CO to Gallup, NM........18th October

Back on the road and headed straight down the 491S to the 1-40  and Gallup, New Mexico....yes the same Gallup as in the song Get Your Kicks On Route 66.....
The route is mostly desert with the occasional lump of rock/monument...as the crow, or should I say raven, flies we are not really that far  from Monument Valley........

There are warnings of dust storms....

And yes there are many dust storms........it's quite fascinating.......

Hey Alan S not seen one of these for a while !!

Camp Harris at Gallup, New Mexico on Historic Highway Route 66.....spooky as we turned off  highway 491 onto the Old Route 66, Dallas Wayne (we love that name) our favourite  DJ on Willie's Roadhouse, Sirius XM Radio played the song  Get your Kicks On Route 66.....very spooky !!!!

The Conundrum of Fascinating Mesa Verde National Park....17th Oct..

Mesa Verde National Park entrance is  just 7 miles from our campsite.....needless to say, like us,  staff and and fellow visitors  are so happy that the parks have re-opened.....
It's a 23 mile scenic drive from the visitors centre via switchbacks up along Chapin Mesa with great views back across the valley......
We have booked Ranger guided tours of 2 of the cliff dwellings.....
Sorry I'm having to caption the photo below here as for some reason the blog site is fighting back and won't let me put a caption under that photo...anyway it's a shot from the view point of The Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde's biggest cliff dwelling and our first hour long tour.........there are 600 cliff dwelling in the park and 4,500 archeological sites....

After the ranger's introduction and safety speech we descend down stone steps 100 ft to this amazing dwelling...... it is thought that this dwelling was of significant importance to the Ancient Puebloans and may have been home to the chief or leader...it was built over a  20 year period and housed approximately 130 people.  There are toe and hand holds on the rock face that were used by the cliff dwellers to climb to the top to tend their crops...luckily our way back to the top will be slightly easier although it is via 3 steep 10 foot ladders.....

It really is incredible and as our ranger said at the beginning of this tour we will leave Mesa Verde with more questions than answers....the main one is why after 800 years of living up on the mesa did they move down in 1200AD from their pit houses to the caves/cliff dwellings and then only live in them for 100 years before abandoning the area....there are all sorts of theories the main one being drought or over farming.....
There have been some renovations to protect the fragile environment by the parks service but most of what you see is original......

The little "rooms" right at the top are thought to have been storage rooms probably for food to protect it from animals... 

The Cliff Palace viewed from across the valley.........

Soda Canyon....many of the cliff dwellings are in this canyon and in "walking" distance from each other which leads archaeologists to believe it was a small community.....

Our next guided tour is Balcony House... more strenuous and interactive than Cliff Palace......again we will descend 100 ft and during the tour will climb a 32 foot ladder, crawl through an 18 inch wide and 12 foot long tunnel and then climb a 60 foot open cliff face with stone steps and 2 more 10 foot ladders to exit !! This Ranger again stresses the importance of taking enough water with us and that we are at an elevation of 7000 to 7500 ft so could experience elevation sickness....... 

The 32 foot ladder to get to the actual dwelling....

The ladder seen from the dwelling...

This is a Kiva, all dwellings have them and usually built to the same design......they had a roof with a hole to let out the smoke form the fire which would also have been the entrance, some dwellings have 2 that are connected by a tunnel....
The archeologists believe them to be the communal meeting place and work area....

This tour is much more interactive than Cliff Palace.....we are able to walk amongst the buildings and touch the stone which is usually not allowed as the oils on our hands darken the rocks.....

We were able to walk along this space at the back of the dwelling the first time we have been able to do that, usually, like the Cliff Palace, all viewing is from the front...

The entrance to the tunnel......

Yorkieman exiting the tunnel...

The first ladder to get back to the top.....

I couldn't quite get the angle with the camera but these steps go straight up...

Yorkieman nearly at the top.....
This was fantastic our favourite of the 2 guided tours....I will say again here how much we appreciate the Rangers and the Parks Service.....
We finish the day stopping at various view points on our way back out of the park and also in case we haven't had enough exercise today.a half mile walk down to view Spruce Tree House. Self guided with a Ranger at the dwelling to answer any questions....
As we wind our way down from the mesa we are full of questions about the Ancestral Pueblo People.....we have now visited several sites of cliff dwellings and pueblos from Cottonwood, Arizona to Cortez, Colorado and the people all abandoned their homes about the same time.....many theories exist but it is all speculation...
We've had another fabulous day and so glad we were able to visit Mess Verde........tomorrow we are headed 200 miles south to Gallup, New Mexico and will decide then whether we turn left or right along the 1-40......we really want to get away from theses below freezing temps at night !!