Takin' It Easy

Tuesday we left Albuquerque heading westward on I40, up over the Continental Divide no problem. Across the Arizona border...loosing another hour, that makes a 2 hour time loss in 2 days...thank goodness Arizona doesn't participate in Daylight Savings, no more time changes for 6 months. Moving right along since it's now downhill, soon ominous clouds started gathering in the west, so easy to see, as my mom says. "I can stretch my eyes".

I have the NOAA app on my I-phone, 5 miles from our exit it starts alerting we were in a tornado watch, then the skies opened up with hail, we got the rig off to the shoulder and along with other like minded souls waited out the storm. 20 minutes or so and we could move along to our last stop for 3 nights.

 We are staying at Homolovi Ruins State Park, just 3 miles east of Winslow AZ. We are in site 18 and have what we believe is one of the best sites in the park. Our views out our window is expansive, in the evening we can see the lights of Winslow off in the distance. Close enough to the interstate to be a great place to overnight, could be a place we come back to when heading into Phoenix.

 While here of course we went into Winslow.

 To stand on the corner with Don Henley.

This area is steeped in Route 66 history, we've traveled different parts of the Mother Road. In Arizona much of Route 66 is covered over by I40. Around here at times all you'll find left is old telephone lines and nearby if you look close you can see the remnants of the old road.




Homolovi Ruins SP was once where the Anasazi people tilled the Little Colorado River floodplain before finishing their migration north to join the Hopi living on the mesas. In 1986 in an effort to preserve the area the Hopi people supported the idea of a state park. The park is still part of their homeland and they continue to make pilgrimages here.

While Homolovi Ruins SP has a large footprint there are only 3 hiking trails here and two ruins. We spent one morning exploring the park, because of the rain and the muddy trails we only made it to one of the ruins. We enjoyed the two trails we hiked and one set ruins we toured.

Can you see our silver truck between the buttes

While coming west Tuesday we passed Petrified Forest National Park and the Painted Desert. Today we headed back to visit the park, 4 more stamps for my National Park Passport. We have been here before and that time spent most of our time in the Petrified Forest area, this time most of our time was spent in the Painted Desert and on the Blue Mesa. 

    



Painted Desert Inn a stop on Route 66 and now a historic landmark.

 Route 66 traveled through the Petrified Forest

Puerco Pueblo and petroglyphs.

We took a hike from the top of Blue Mesa down into Blue Forest.

 Then we had to hike back up to the top of Blue Mesa-got my cardio

Tomorrow we head in to Mesa and soon we'll begin our workamping jobs. Once we've got our schedule then we can start making plans with friends who are already in the area.

Until next time...