Road Trip...

Albuquerque, NM...Enchanted Trails RV Park was our next stop.  Once known as Hilltop Trading Post with its 1940's flat roof style building...it was altered many times to attract folk traveling Historic Route 66.  In the 1970's the property was converted into a campground.  The building was used as a backdrop for several mediocre films and recently their Hudson's and vintage travel trailers were featured in a Route 66 travel video.  While here a trip to CW with us coming home much needed folding ottomans.   Another trip to Discount Tires in Albuquerque with us coming away with 4 new Michelin tires giving us a Cadillac ride. This store was awesome...very nice and efficient. With rain on the horizon, we decided to work on our homeward bound road trip.  NM metal art (below).

Leaving NM we drove at 6000 feet where the elk reside. No elk seen; but, we saw at least a baker's dozen antelope.

McCall's Pumpkin Patch at left.

I-10 is billboard road EXCEPT when traveling through Indian Reservations.

Today being J's birthday, we stopped at a Pilot in Tucumcari buying a whole pizza for lunch and dinner eats.  YUM!

This was 18-wheeler Sunday with the highway full of big rigs.


Horses along the way (below).

Glad this light was NOT flashing.

Going to be a short trip across Texas on this route.







Overcast and foggy morning with miles and miles of  "green energy" windmills.

                              Then the Quality Beef cows in several paddocks.  Pewee!!!

One nite at AOK campground near Amarillo, Texas, was different. Arrived...greeted by no one...office CLOSED. So, a phone call to the place with person saying go to end of the road and take any empty spot. Pick up an envelope there at the CLOSED OFFICE and drop payment in slot in door at our leisure and do have fun.  Definitely a different campground. After a partial set-up without unhooking, we gazed out the back big window to see 2 Llamas and a donkey in the nearby field.  A little later a Jackrabbit with black tipped long ears and a black tail scooted along the grassy edge of the field.

J up early waking me at 5:30 a.m. to hit the road. Rainy and cold with low clouds and fog.  UGH!

Wind out of the south at 18mph.  UGH!

Along our route we saw a bison, Canadian geese with goslings, and lots of road kill.   TX was skunk hollow for sure.  Pewee!  A gobbler with 6 hens was strutting his stuff.

We passed several brave souls roughing the odds as they peddled along on their bicycles.



The Oklahoma Visitor's Center was very nice with an attendant who knew the area.

Here a crane is putting together another wind powered device.









             Below...Oklahoma City, Oklahoma bridge work.

The split tail fly catcher is Oklahoma's state bird. Here is metal bridge art depicting the bird in the middle of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Here is my patch with the split tail fly catcher.



Below A truck transporting one windmill blade.

Next stop was Terra Starr for one nite.  More rain overnite and morning.  A good nights sleep with NO noise...no road noise...no airplanes...no trains.  Yoo Hoo!
Wide load trucks, lots of road construction, & mowing along today's route.

 Arkansas had lots of armadillo roadkill.

Beautiful Visitor's Center (above) with very friendly and knowledgeable attendant.  At Spadra there was a doe with a spotted fawn alongside the highway. Then more trucks hauling windmill blades.

We finally arrived at beautiful Maumelle Park along the Arkansas River at Maumelle, AR, near Little Rock.  This COE campground is set on the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System...a series of navigation pools to help ships navigate upstream to Oklahoma and Arkansas.  Camping here for at least 5 nites.

We were greeted by Canadian geese with little goslings & a ton of squirrels scampering around acting silly.

Here we are with the Arkansas River in the background.  Love it here.
Until next time...take care...be safe...see you by the campfire.

Painted Desert & Petrified Forest

Thursday...May 12...Another move day.  A short I-40 East drive brought us to a campground outside Holbrook, AZ.  After a quick set-up we headed out for the Painted Desert & Petrified Forest.  This is a tapestry of time with countless colors, hues, and shades that stretch as far as the eye can see...shaped by wind and water.

Those stumps to left are petrified wood.

What is petrified wood?  This is Greek meaning "rock" or "stone" or "wood turned into stone".

 Holbrook is home of the Hashknife Pony Express depicted in the mural above.

As we drove along there was Geronimo's tepee up on the hill.

                                        We passed by Meteor City Trading Post (below).

Located in Navajo and Apache counties of AZ, this was a winding 28 mile drive with an average elevation of 5,400 feet.

This park is noted for its fallen trees from the Late Triassic Period...about 225 million years ago.

The Painted Desert is a desert of badlands in the Four Corners area that runs into the Petrified Forest Ntaional Park.  It gets its name from the Chinle Formation and has varied colors with the common red and shades of lavender.





Our first stop was the Visitor's Center for info and patches to add to my growing collection.

Our drive stops were as follows...

1.  Tipani Point...where the colors began.

2.  Tawa Point...a pinyon-juniper shrubland atop volcanic rock.

3.  Painted Desert Inn and Pilot Rock...

4.  Chinde Point...

5.  Pintado Point...what looks like a light colored road is a dry wash.

6.  Nizhoni Point...means beautiful in Navajo.

7.  Whipple Point...

8.  Lacey Point...

9.  Route 66 Alignment with a 1932 Studebaker where Historic Route 66 once cut through the park.

10.  Puerco Pueblo with ancestral Puebloan homes.

As we pulled into our next viewing area, we were greeted by a Raven.






11.  Newspaper Rock...displays over 650 petroglyphs...some over 2000 years old.  What is a petroglyph?  it is a drawing or carving on rock made by prehistoric people.

12.  The Tepees...

The layers of color are awesome.

Petrified rocks.......

Petrified rocks and logs.







The rock (below right) looks like the head of a bird with beak and eye.

13.  Blue Mesa...the badlands with colorful petrified wood.  If these hills could talk the brown/yellow sandstone layers were deposited in the river channel.  The blue/red mudstone layers were laid down in the rivers floodplain.  The white ash layers record volcanic eruptions in the area. Fossilized trees and plants show that this was once a tropical environment.

14.  Agate Bridge (below) is a 110 foot long petrified log bridge.

15.  Jasper Forest and Crystal Forests have high concentrations of petrified wood.

16.  The Flattops...

Dessert on our way back to our fifth wheel was a photo shoot of a Pronghorn Antelope family grazing in a roadside field.  Look for the little fawn.  Two does, a buck, and fawn.  Awesome!

Until next time...take care...be safe...see you by the campfire.