First order of the day was to get gas and start the drive from Grants, NM to our destination of Sedona, AZ. While we were in the gas station Matt noticed a little stand of wild sunflowers and picked one to add to our collection of car things. Very pretty.
And then we were off for real. The drive was supposed to take only four hours so we decided to find something to see on the way. We decided on a meteor crater because it sounded cool. Then we looked at the price and it was gonna be $16 each to look at a hole in the ground. We are going to see the Grand Canyon, a much more epic hole, so we passed on that and headed for our second choice, the Petrified Forest. We got lucky here, because it was so completely amazing, no crater could have lived up to it.
We drove about 2 hours and then we were at the park. You drive in and there are all of these little pull over spots where you can park for a bit and see the view. What was really funny is that for many of them you don't know what the view is going to be of until you pull off the road. As we are approaching the first one Matt says 'do you want to stop at this one, it doesn't look like much'. I said yes so off we go and as soon as we get to the edge he immediately starts swearing like a trucker. And yes, it is swear-worthy. The next few stops were also just as wild. This is what we saw:
That is the Painted Desert which borders the Petrified Forest to the North.
This one is the Painted Desert transitioning into the Badlands.
And this is the Badlands themselves. Now we were looking for a certain place to stop because there was a pueblo ruin from the 1300s located on the top of a hill and you could get out and walk around.
It didn't disappoint either. There was the ruin itself which has been reduced over the centuries to a low brick wall outlining what once were the rooms. The part I liked the best were the petroglyphs - pictures chipped into the surrounding rocks - which dotted the landscape. No one knows exactly what the different symbols mean anymore, but they are beautiful regardless of purpose.
A little more driving and we came to the location of the petrified wood that the park is named for.
The creepy bird was just an added bonus!
Matt had really wanted a piece of the wood but you aren't supposed to remove any from the park. However, and I find this odd, they will sell you a piece. I get not taking any so it's there for future generations, but then why are they taking it out of the park themselves? There was a booth at the exit of the park with signs leading up to it saying to prepare for a car inspection. We pull up to the booth window and here is how the scary inspection went:
Park Ranger - "Did you take anything out of the park?"
Us - "No"
Park Ranger - "Ok"
Wow.
We had spent a few hours in the park - much longer than we had planned but it was too pretty to rush through - so we called ahead to the Motel we were going to be staying at to let them know we wouldn't be checking in til 6.
For a little part of the way we were on the old Route 66 and passed a bunch of really cute old motels and restaurants. Our favorite was a place with fake wigwams that you could sleep in with vintage cars parked outside.
For some reason both of our phones changed to an hour earlier when we were almost at Flagstaff. This made no sense because the time zone is at the Cali border, not the middle of the state, so I had to google it. Apparently Arizona doesn't observe daylight savings time so it was an hour earlier than we'd been thinking all day. Our phones just took a while to pick up on that. This means we are now 3 hours different from the East Coast!
The last hour of driving was the prettiest of the whole day. You turn South from Flagstaff and head into the Coconino National Park which winds from about 7000 feet down the sides of mountains to Sedona at 4500 feet. About half way down the forest begins to transition into the red rocks that the area is famous for. Add to that a setting sun and a nearly full moon and it was the loveliest thing ever.
Here Matt is concentrating on not killing us around the super sharp turns.
The cute motel we checked into had a nice view - the truck really enjoyed it :)
For dinner our first night we wanted to have something nice and tasty so we went to a wonderful restaurant called L'Auberge De Sedona. Oh my it was tasty. Matt got their foie gras because he won't be able to have it in California (it is banned there) and he liked it better than the foie he had at Corton when we were in New York. They had a great wine list and the waiter was a trip so we had a good time. After all the driving and walking and the time changing we were tired early and didn't have coffee or desert.
We headed back to the motel to get a good night's sleep. Hiking and searching for a vortex was on the agenda for Saturday and we were both wiped out.
Zzzzzz
I'll tell you about Saturday next time.
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