Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

even the small chips appear to be petrified logs

We enjoyed a tour through Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.  The northern section of the park has great views of the painted desert. Our photos don't do justice to the colors.  I guess it was a bad time of day or something.  Following the painted desert the road leads to the Blue Mesa then on through an area of petroglyphs (again poor lighting due to time of day) and then through a large area of petrified forest...Awesome!!!

painted desert

snow in painted desert

Blue Mesa

Blue Mesa closeup

Poor lighting but pics at bottom left and right

petroglyphs at newspaper rock

petrified log

agate

petrified log

agate bridge (supported beneath for preservation)

petrified log

petrified logs

petrified logs everywhere

petrified logs

petrified log

 

New Mexico

A beautiful drive today across New Mexico and into Arizona.  Very cool seeing all the mesas and canyons.  Lots of wilderness and awesome scenery along great highway.

Cuervo, New Mexico

A quick side trip on route 66 brought us to a ghost town, Cuervo, New Mexico.  I haven't done the research yet to discover why but all the buildings in this little town have been abandoned.  There did appear to be an ongoing oil/gas operation at one end of town but everything else sat empty and untouched with lots of no parking and no trespassing signs.

abandoned home with old couch inside

inside boxcar home

roof of boxcar home

boxcar house

washed out dirt road with street sign

old home down washed out side street complete with truck in yard

abandoned church

church and rectory

old adobe home

not much left to this one

the adobe home

crumbling adobe

Alburquerque, New Mexico

In Albuquerque we finally stayed in a motel with a swimming pool, Yeah!  Next morning we headed out to the Petroglyphs National Monument and hiked a few short trails. It was SO COLD that we were the only fools out there. Very interesting place and would have been even better if we were in better shape and warm enough to enjoy the entire site and all the trails.

There were hundreds of petroglyphs on well maintained trails.  We chose to check out the portion with the shortest trails and even then only walked part of the trails.  Unfortunately there was also lots of vandalism noticeable in the park. So sad! 

Amarillo, Texas

We made our way to Amarillo, Texas before the storm hit and settled into our motel room with a BBQ'd chicken from WalMart along with salad and some snacks. Overnight the snow started and closed down the city and surrounding areas. Snow and wind continued through next morning with drift of up to 3 feet forming.  Highways were closed and we ended up staying 3 nights in that motel. Lucky we always carry coffee maker and had food with us. Storm ended up being 19 inches of snow according to news it was a record storm.  The city did not plow the streets much other than highway.  It appears that in Amarillo they simply shut down the city rather than trying to clean things up. Following our second night when highway was reopened we did venture out in  the city. OMG!!! There were huge ruts and cars stuck on side streets.  Following a short tour we happily went back to motel for night 3 before hitting the highway and escaping the city the next morning.

Window is  not made for winter weather

Under the canopy at the motel entrance

Pathway shoveled under the canopy

Poor visibility across the parking lot taken from our room.  The mail truck was parked sideways along the lot.

Washitka National Battlefield

An interesting but very cold hike through a national Battlefield where Custer killed hundreds of  innocent Cherokee.  The park would have been nice in warm weather when I'm sure there would have been lots of songbirds.