April 24, 2021
From Albuquerque (or Tijeras in reality) we went to Gallup, NM. Gallup is a pretty cool place. At least they have some cool trails. We went into the Navajo Nation and (interestingly enough) took the window trail on very sacred Hopi ground. Interesting that they share like that. The window is surrounded by a business district and it is hard to even see the beauty of this place for the that reason. Just kidding, it is beautiful, just have to look past all that. The Navajo Nation chose to build their justice center, and many other municipal facilities in the most beautiful area of their nation. It is absolute desert surrounding these amazing rocks and formations that just pop out of no where. Why would you ever crowd these amazing rock formations with tin buildings and parking lots. IDK.
This was a really well engineered step assist.
See the window?
Have I told you how tired of the wind I am. I cannot believe this constant 40 mph wind. My mouth and eyes cannot take any more sand. We are all full up. Stop it already.
We did find a really nice bar in Gallup. Kinda in the main Route 66 area, Sammy C's Rocking Sports Pub and Grille. Met the owner, who is a broadcaster, you can tell by his voice. The walls are covered with his memorabilia from the many years in music and sportscasting. During the Rotary meeting earlier that day (we don't really eat lunch until 2-3 pm) they had a guy who made authentic Navajo fry bread and they made burgers with it. They had extras so we had to try one. We should have shared. They were amazing with the Hatch green chilis - what??? Sweet Jesus, I love that about NM and AZ. I could survive on green chili stuff, for sure.
The RV Park we found in Gallup was the USA RV Park. Very patriotic place.
BBQ Restaurant wasn’t open, but it was really cool
Artificial turf here for the kids to play on. LOL.
I wish I had taken a photo of this waterfall on the day we arrived, but the winds kicked up so much they shut it off. It was really pretty when running.
From Gallup we went to Winslow. AZ - New state on the map!
We stayed at the Homolovi State Park in Winslow and it was very nice.
We found this cutie on our walk around the campground.
We went straight into town to stand on the corner! We stood on the corner of Winslow, AZ, it was such a fine sight to see. And a girl, my Lord, in a flat bed Ford was slowin down to take a look at D. Okay, you get the idea. We found a brewery across the street from the square dedicated to standing on the corner and did some people watching and enjoyed a cold one.
The state park has some ruins, old pueblos, in 4 locations in the park. Two have never been open to the public, but we took the hike to see the other two and am so glad we did. They are no longer actively digging in these two sites, but you can find pieces of pottery everywhere. You can’t take anything from the sites but it is cool to see all the pieces. We figured it must have been easier to make new stuff than to haul it all with you when you move.
They have a graveyard out there as well. Some of the graves are pretty new, some are not marked at all.
Even found a long lost relative. My maiden name is Morris.
This marker listing all who are buried here is double sided. There aren’t near that many markers here.
We spotted this beautiful snow capped mountain on our hike through the desert. It is way off in the distance, but it just mesmerized me. We looked it up and apparently it is the San Francisco mountains and the highest peak in Arizona is seen here, Humphrey’s Peak. Humphreys peak is actually 11 miles outside of Flagstaff, so it is 60+ miles away.
Since we are having a tough time finding places to stay for more than a couple of days, we are off again - now we are in Seligman, AZ. We found a KOA there with an authentic looking Teepee. Still in the desert with no grass or trees, but we have a teepee right across the road.
Still following Route 66, but this was not really on purpose, just happened that way. Some of the towns have a really cool historic area, and Seligman is one of them. Now don’t get me wrong all of the junk stores sell the same junk, but these have some character.
We saw the Road Kill Cafe and had to stop in for supper. The reviews were amazing. We went in and I had an amazing steak and Dennis had the ribs. They were both really good. They have a bar and, of course, a gift shop. In the gift shop they had bags of animal ‘poop’ that was really jelly beans. So, of course, I had to put together a gift boxes for all my grands. Who doesn’t love getting animal poop in the mail.
My mountain is getting closer!
Next we land ourselves in Verde Valley Thousand Trails in Cottonwood, AZ. Our slip was enormous. Finally room to spread out and we weren’t staying long enough to do that. Dang it! This park is so clean and neat. Even found some green grass and trees in the area.
And as an extra added bonus - do you see what I see? Looks like a vineyard to me!
We were overlooking this great site - well, it was really across the street from us.
As we come to the gate of the park, there is a road to the left. Follow that road to a vineyard and winery. Yes, really! We could almost walk!
We did a VIP tasting and all of their wines were really good. But the price was a little more than we usually pay for wine. Remember, even though we don’t have a boat any more, we are still box wine people. You can get 5 bottles in one box for $20. They were asking $38 for one bottle. Okay, we did buy some - what can I say. It was delicious. So if you ever see this on the shelf, I highly recommend any of their wines.
We woke up the next morning to a beautiful rainbow. I was afraid the rain would keep us indoors, but it skirted around us and we were able to get on with it.
I have really always been pretty fascinated with cliff dwellings. So we headed into Camp Verde to see Montezuma Castle National Monument. We purchased the national park senior pass some months ago and, I gotta tell you, it has so paid for itself. We get in free to all national parks, monuments, COE and BLM parks. So we went here for $0. It was a great trail and we really enjoyed this place. I think these dwellings were Hopi Indians. I even found some pretty cool Hopi made earrings in the gift shop. Turquoise, of course.
This picture is of a model, but it is so cool.
This is what is really left of the castle.
We are so close to Sedona, we just had to make a mad dash there. We drove the amazing 89A pass to see all the amazing sites. We have seen all of this before, but it NEVER gets old.
Bet you never had a spicy tuna egg roll before! Well I have and it was spectacular! We stopped at this place called Shore Birds, primarily because I had to use the restroom. Such great luck to stumble into this place. Food was pretty and different and just darned good.
There are no Mobils or Exxons in Cottonwood or Sedona - we be wantin that discount, you know. So we stayed on 89A and went on towards Flagstaff. They have several there and it wasn’t far. Besides, it is such a cool drive. Remember the mountain I found - it is in Flagstaff and so was that storm that was causing that rainbow that morning. The closer we got to Flagstaff we kept thinking the weather was really turning. You could see that mountain and you could really tell it was snowing up on top. We kept going and the temperature kept dropping. It was 58 when we left Cottonwood and 38 when we pulled into the Exxon in Flagstaff. There was snow everywhere and we drove through some flurries, they don’t photograph well, but I really tried.
This was next to the gas station. Did I tell you Flagstaff still has over 100 trains come through every single day. But it was the Martian thing that really caught my attention.
Next stop - Williams, AZ. We have been here before when we came to the Grand Canyon in 2017, but we did a VRBO then. Now we have our house with us. Williams calls itself the ‘Gateway to the Grand Canyon’ and has a historic train that can takes you to the park and even has robbers on horseback rob the train during the trip back. We did that our first time and found - although it was a lot of fun - we just did not have enough time in the canyon. It felt like we ran through it to get back on the train in time. This time, we decided to take the scenic drive and stop at all of the points along the way. By the time we got to the end of the drive (I think it was 22 miles long) we had stopped about 10 times and checked out the views. It never does get old. This is also a different part of the canyon than we saw last time, which was neat. We saw quite a bit of the river and even caught some of the rafters and kayakers taking some of the rapids. We remembered the binoculars or we wouldn’t have ever seen them.
We saw an elk having a snack on the side of the road.
This tower is at the end of the scenic drive, but it was closed (stupid Covid)
Notice how much more snow my mountain has on it?? That was from yesterday.
Some of those white spots are rafts and/or kayaks
Is this not gorgeous?
We found Walnut Canyon National Monument and decided to hit that while we are here. There are a lot of cliff dwellings at this park and you really get up in some of them. I was pretty excited. I love cliff dwellings. But someone forgot to tell me that the climb was 12 stories. We got down there fine, but the trek back up was rough. My body felt fine, but I couldn’t catch my breath! We stopped 3 times to breath. I would do it again though. It was really cool. Oh, did I tell you we got in there for free too?
So we will be leaving Arizona tomorrow and I have really grown to love this place. It has some of the most beautiful landmarks I have ever seen.
We will be in Vegas tomorrow for a week and then we will finally be into Utah, which I am sure is gonna rival the beauty of Arizona.
Take it easy, folks! Catch you on the flip side.
