Before we started this trip, Mom purchased snow chains for the tires and made me learn how to put them on and take them off the truck.
This was reasonable since it is January and who knows what kind of weather we might have run into in Kansas or Colorado.
I wouldn't have guessed that we'd need them in Arizona.
See, it turns out that the north-east part of Arizona is generally above 6,000 feet. Who knew?
We got held up because a bunch of people don't know that just because you have 4 wheel drive, it doesn't mean you can still drive like the road is clear. The ambulance and firetruck (it's to the left of us) were there to push cars out of the snow embankment. We thanked them as we drove past.
We get out of the snow and back onto I-40 and are cruising along when we see a sign for Meteor Crater Natural Landmark and decide to check it out.
For some reason they have an Apollo test capsule.
"The Holsinger Meteorite is the largest discovered fragment of the 150 foot meter that created Meteor Crater."
The view from the upper deck.
There is a decent museum/visitor's center.
Our first view of the crater.
Mom's being silly.
Finally, the crater in all its glory.
We're above the visitor's center and gift shop.
More of the crater. It was really cold and super windy up here.
Selfie #35: Meteor Crater!
It was really cold, so we wandered back inside and through the gift shop and then got back on I-40.
Along the way, we passed this really ugly looking storm. It's actually pretty far away.
This photo has no scale.
And then we went to the Petrified Forest National Park.
"This Petrified Log polished section...weighs 800 lbs and took 10 hours to cut and two and half hours to polish." (1952)
Matonia fern leaf.
"This polished section of petrified wood....took three days to cut and three weeks to polish." (1925)
An ambush is when someone jumps out at you, suddenly.
So spiky!
These guys look so derpy.
I feel like the name "forest" is misleading. It conjures the idea of things being vertical.
All the colors of the wood.
Dedication to Stephen Tyng Mather, who helped to established the National Park Service.
This tree is definitely not vertical.
The are was made a national monument in 1906 and a national park in 1962.
Somewhere over there is getting wet.
It was cold and windy here today.
This has mostly iron oxides in it, hence the yellows and oranges.
The wood gets its color from three main minerals: quartz for white, manganese oxides for blues, purples, and blacks, and iron oxides for yellows, reds, and browns.
As you can see, some of the pieces of petrified wood are quite large. It was really cold.
I'm wearing two gloves on my non camera hand.
Selfie #36: Oh No! I blinked!
The truck is going strong.
The landscapes out here are great.
It's almost depressing. It looks like a forest was clear cut and they left a lot of the wood behind.
How we got from forest to petrified wood.
Rolling hills and then BAM! big rock formation.
The average elevation is 5,400 feet. Bits of it go up and down quite a lot.
Mom and the horizontal forest.
The gateway to see the Agate Bridge.
The aforementioned Agate Bridge. (It's been reinforced with concrete.)
The bridge from a different angle.
Artsy departing shot.
There are so many colors in that hill thing.
The first people arrived here over 8,000 years ago.
This rock is covered in petroglyphs (all those scratchy looking things on the end). It's called Newspaper Rock. While we were here, a small hail storm decided to drop in on us. We were getting pelted (hence the white streaks in the photo). I don't know why, but it was really funny. We ran back to the truck laughing hysterically.
Sort of a lumpy landscape.
Selfie #37: Did I mention it was windy?
I think this is Chinde Point.
Supposedly "chinde" means "unwelcome ghost" or "evil spirit" in Navajo.
A little geology info.
Ah, the storm is over there now.
Oh no, I was wrong. It's Pintado Point.
"Pintado" maybe means "painted" in Spanish.
I guess that makes sense since the Painted Desert starts about here and goes north.
We would have explored the park more, but it was closing, and we didn't want to get stuck.
Back on the road.
Train!
Side view mirror sunset.
A real sunset.
We got off the highway to get gas or food or something and it was a mistake. Traffic was nuts.
Last photo before it gets too dark.
We rolled into Albuquerque, NM and unloaded and repacked and went out to dinner. We celebrated the road trip at High Noon Restaurant & Saloon. They had a cowboy on a horse made out of tinfoil. Unfortunately, I have to fly back to California tomorrow. Mom has to make it back to Virginia on her own. It's only....~1,800 miles. (Since I'm writing this past these events, I can tell you she made it home without any problems. You don't have to worry.)
Total States: 14 - I forgot Nevada was new. (Mom got 17, Texas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee)
Today's Miles: 275.4 - Total Miles: 4884.9
It was a great trip.
This concludes our adventures for today.
