The Painted Desert Loop: Day 3, part 2

 

                                                                            

The Painted Desert Inn


Heading farther down US 191, we finally made it to Interstate 40 and headed west. Our next stop was Petrified Forest National Park, embedded in the Painted Desert. Signs described the desert itself as over 700 square miles. It takes up a good chunk of northeastern Arizona.





The Painted Desert Inn started out as a private enterprise but was taken over by the US Government when the park was created. It was renovated in 1934 by the CCC. A ranger told me the CCC areas were littered with whiskey bottles. It looks like they spent their scant wages on booze.


                                                                          



I told the ranger some of those bottles might be collectible. Her answer was that they were considered "historic trash" and had to left in place. That term was new to me.


                                                                  More Historic Trash




The original Route 66 ran through the national park, so this old Studebaker remains as a point of interest.



More man-made artifacts are on display further along. The Rio Puerco Ruin dates from about 1250 CE.


                                                                               


Most of the structures have been covered up to protect them. These foundations are the exception.

                                              There are plenty of petroglyphs, though.


                                                                             




Overall, this park was very cool and we hadn't even gotten to the area with the high concentration of petrified trees.



                    South of the ruin is a four-mile loop around Blue Messa that is mind blowing!



Scattered through the badlands are probably thousands of petrified fallen trees that range in size from a few feet to nearly 100 ft.

                                                                              



One of the largest is called "Agate Bridge". Thay claim it is 100' long. It was reinforced with concrete years ago, but they say it will collapse eventually.


                                                                                    



I was formerly unaware of this park. It's truly worth visiting, whether you are experiencing the high desert or Route 66.

Leaving Petrified Forest, we ventured on to Holbrook, famous for tacky Route 66 stops. Our choice was the Wigwam Motel, but more on that later. Rejoin me late today or tomorrow morning. Ciao!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day One - Utah

Image
From my front door I drove to Interstate 15 and headed south to U.S. Highway 6 at Spanish Fork, Utah, where, turning east I began my journey to the Santa Fe Trail. My traveling of an old trail begins in Spanish Fork Canyon where Route 6 parallels the Union Pacific rail line. This is currently the route of Amtrak's California Zephyr and is heavily used to haul freight and coal as well. The miles from Spanish Fork to Helper are steep and difficult but this line was developed to bring coal from Carbon County to the west side of the Wasatch Range to provide fuel for industry, especially copper smelting. This map shows my route to The Old Spanish Trail in green and the Utah section of the Trail itself in purple. Map courtesy of d-maps.com. At the top of Spanish Fork Canyon is Soldier Summit an area of windswept open range. The streams that originate here drain westward into Utah Lake or eastward into the Colorado system. Continuing past the summit, the serpentine highway be
Read more

The Oregon/California Trail: Fort Bridger to Fort Hall

Image
This is the second in a three part series of posts on the Oregon Trail. The first is titled The Oregon Trail, Fort Kearny to Fort Bridger , and the third is The Oregon Trail in Idaho and Oregon . I plan to continue to update and improve these posts and I appreciate your feedback and comments. After crossing the Continental Divide at South Pass the westward emigrants entered the heart of fur trapping country. This was the Green River drainage, an area that had been extensively explored in the 1830's by Jedidiah Smith on behalf of General Ashley's Rocky Mountain Fur Company. Not a trapper himself, Ashley, along with his partner Major Andrew Henry, recruited young men to follow the tributary streams of The Green River, harvesting thousands of beaver pelts during the last heyday of the fur trade. As well as exploring the region for fur trapping opportunities, Ashley had the secondary purpose of following up on the possibility of  a water route to the Pacific Ocean.
Read more

Crossing the Wasatch

Image
For most Americans in the mid-nineteenth century the westward movement meant relocating to the Willamette Valley in Oregon Territory or the Sacramento Valley in California. To cross the obstacle of the Continental Divide, the emigrants followed the valleys of the North Platte and Sweetwater Rivers to South Pass in today's state of Wyoming. This was not the end of their mountain barriers, however. After crossing the Green and Bear Rivers and resting at Fort Bridger they had to find their way through the Wasatch Range. Fort Bridger National Historic Sight Not impressive but functional  For most of these travelers this meant following the Weber River through the mountains then trekking north to Fort Hall and heading west along the Snake River. After a short distance along the Snake the trails diverged with the California Trail cutting southwest through City of Rocks and on to the Humbolt River and with the Oregon Trail continuing along the Snake. This was a
Read more