Beautiful clouds but very changeable from minute to minute
At our first viewpoint - Antelope House Overlook - someone is trying to sell jewelry. They are sitting in their car and not bothering to come out when they see us. Guess we don't look like buyers! But she did shout at Pam, NO PHOTOS!! Just like in the fancy stores.
What kind of animal left this footprint in the native stone!?
Here is an enlargement. Ancestral Puebloans also scratched petroglyphs on the wall above the ruins, pretty high up. They are visible as what appeat to be white spots.
A well sheltered environment, here seen is the place where teo canyons join.
Another vendor at this viewpoint - this time selling handmade rocks (?)
with petroglyphs....he had a gift for gab. As a Native American, he has every right to recreate the rock carvings of his ancestors. Not a lot of potential customers on this day.
He's certainly mobile - Pam could use this van. Better than a cliff house.
Waldo is easier to spot today, having ditched the drab duds for the moment for this souvenier "T" from Taos.
A fertile land in which to setle down.
The skies are turning black - however, no amount of driving rain cleaned the Honda ( except the roof).
A selfie at Junction Overlook -
Pam hiked down to see this interesting rock - actually, 3 smaller rocks on a bigger one. They were all still slightly joined so no, it wasn't wiseguys playing tricks.
As noted above, as we left the town of Chinle iwhere we had spent the night it started to pour rain...then hail. The road looked like it was snowing.
It was just sprinkling very slightly by the time we arrived at the Hubbell Trading Post visitor center. John Hubbell opened his first trading post in the 1870's and at various times owned 30 in New Mexico and Arizona. He was the first trader on the Navaho reservation. The visitor center sets forth the sad, sad tale of how Uncle Sam treated the Navaho in captivity, a tale of genocide if ever there was one. Years later, only 7,000 made it back to the reservation and "freedom". In 1965 Congress made Hubbell Trading Post a national historic post with the understanding that it remain a working trading post.
Norm read so many sad tales of how the Navajos were mistreated by the USGovernment and Kit Carson back in 1864. We had purposely avoided the Kit Carson house and museum when in Santa Fe.
The world-famous Navajo weaving was being demonstrated - not just for show.
This is the trading post still open for operation
Weather gods looking favorable on us, it only began to rain and hail viciously once more once we were snug back in the car driving away from the trading post. After this there was only light stuff off and on for the rest of the day - and even then, pretty much while were tootling along toward the Petrified Forest.
Ah, that Beatles song, "The Long and Wet, Straight Road". Never forget it.
At this entrance monument miles and miles from de Chelly what had still been leaking from the spigot in the sky stopped.
What a great day to wear yellow. What few people there were at the visitor center couldn't help pointing at Norm and smiling. Let the sun shine in.
Another selfie on The Painted Desert Rim Trail, part of the north to south drive through the Petrified Forest.
Painted Desert Inn - built in 1920, purchased and remodeled by National Park Service in 1935 and reopened in 1940 as an inn offering Route 66 travelers food, lodging, and souvenirs. Over the years the inn declined. A public campaign helped to place it on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. In 1987 it was designated a National Historic Landmark. Route 66 is "dead", yet lives forever.
The following three photos are part of a Route 66 shrine placed at the point where the Petrified Forest road passes over I-40. New meets nostalgia. I-40 in its impersonal speedway fashion could care less.
By the time this 1956 Caddy bumper was affixed to the rest of the car, a Defense Act promoted by Ike and passed by Congress provided that America would be laced sea to sea with the finest federally funded highway system to match anything the Nazis developed with Germany prior to WWII - it was sold as a way to facilitate troop and materiel movement around the country in case of war. It seems to have had a side benefit. Anyway, the day the bill passed Route 66 was doomed.
Our next stop was Puerco Pueblo highlighting ancestral Puebloan homes and petroglyphs
A .3 mile walk to see all the sites - Pam's Jawbone bracelet counting the steps
Ancestral Puebloans once called these footings (part of a) home. Now it's a Spirit world.
Summer Solstice Marker - researchers have identified over a dozen calendric petroglyph sites and we viewed one, in the next photo.
Planting would begin when a shaft of light passing through a cleft in an adjoining rock moved downward and the tip if the light ended in the center of a swirl petroglyph carved into this boulder. Seems like only yesrerday, not hundreds of years ago.
We "found" more petroglyphs
Norm finds that his binoculars are better. And no, the telescopes do not require a coin to function.
Lightening, thunder and a rainbow up ahead
This famous fossilized tree trunk that forms Agate Bridge used to be a popular photo spot. In 1917, a concrete support was constructed as a way of preservation. Route 66 facilitated the stripping of untold amounts of petrified wood by tourists
Petrified wood strewn all around the Rainbow Forest Museum
The visitor center from on high.
Replicas...or are they?
In its day, the Terror of the Triassic.
A rainbow greeted us as we walked to the car - a couple of hours driving ahead of us to get to our hotel. We did experienced some rain the first half hour of driving. Then the skies cleared for good. Thank goodness. A prior day's rain had been a good omen for us on this day. We are hoping that this rainbow bodes well for our first day in Sedona.
Leaving the park - many miles still to go, so night driving it is.
One of the billboards on the side of the freeway- all class.
Free petrified wood?
We drove 337 miles today.
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