HANGIN' AROUND

Welcome to our latest home. We really like this park in spite of its drawbacks. One is the way it was laid out. All the spacious pull-thrus are on the wrong side of the road! I guess the engineers and architects who designed the place never hooked up an rv! Every pull thru is on the right side and therefore all hookups require running cords and hoses under the rig! There is one dumpster--at the head of the campground next to the dump station. There is one bath house--at the top of the hill. Let me explain that the campground is an oval with the road running around the outside. Inside the ground is open space. There is plenty of room to put the bath house and dumpster so they would be centrally located, but that is not the case. Other than that we have no complaints. We don't mind wind, and don't mind watching where we walk when we go outside.



Every day, especially during our evening walks we see jack rabbits bouncing around the campground. They are fun to watch.

Note the spacious sites, the wrong way hookups...

While we are waiting for our replacement spring, we are taking advantage of this beautiful weather to explore Winslow. Yesterday we headed downtown to play tourist and do a little geocaching.

Every time we pass this corner someone is taking pix! We are facing a store across the street called Standin' On The Corner. It is chock full of Rt 66 kitsch. (Note to our cyclin' friends, there is a wide selection of biker stuff in there!)

We visited the rest stop on the east end on 66, then on to

The official welcome to Winslow. We visited the garden and found a cache!

Being hungry by this time, we got our chops ready for bbq ribs at Bubba's in Holbrook, per the recommendation of friends Paul and Marsha Weaver. We took old RT66--which is I40 at this point. That white haze on the horizon is smoke from the Wallow wildfire.

Arriving very hungry on Holbrook (20 or so miles from Winslow) we were dismayed to find that Bubba's no longer existed beyond the sign. In its place was a defunct pizza joint. We drove around a while, stopping at a steakhouse which was only open from 4pm to 10pm. We finally decided on Joe and Aggies Cafe. Right off the bat we were told they were out of our favorite diet cola. Ok, we drank water and ordered what turned out to be very mediocre food. Cross that off your list of places to eat! Back on the road we came across this place. Shades of Pixar's Cars! I had to get a pic for grandsons Simon and Jack! But first a pix for our biker friends.

Ok, how many of you are telling your ages saying you remember staying in one of these (or wanting to really, really badly?

Tow-Mader!

When Duane was a boy he went traveling the west with his granny for several summers. He remembers stopping by a bunch of roadside stands to peruses Indian made jewelry and cowboy related articles. In honor of Grandma, we stopped here. They had lots and lots of petrified wood for sale.

We still had more caches to find so we drove north on 87 (past the campground) to a nice little county park called the Little Painted Desert. Who knew this beautiful spot was hidden out here? You can't see it from the road! We took our pix, got our eyes full of this wonderfulness, and found our cache before heading back toward Winslow and more caches.

Signing a log.

A visiual cache. We toured this old hotel. The original did NOT burn down. It was abandoned by the railroad, rescued, rebuilt and the lobby turned into a gallery for local artists. We walked the halls looking at all the different pieces on display: hand woven Navaho rugs, paintings, furniture, decorations. Wonderful stuff. There are outdoor gardens open to the public, too.

This is the main door. In the old building, this was at the back, as the front opened toward the railroad tracks on the opposite side. This was built to accomodate the train passengers, of course, by the railroad. This was the original home of the famous Harvey Girls.

Duane loved the handmade ironwork, lots of which was original. This gate leads to the tracks. It would have been the front of the hotel.

Another cache found!

West of the hotel gate, there is a city park space along the tracks for quite a way. The train cars above and this totem were part of this long park.

Remembering to always look where you walk is a good habit to develop when visiting the desert. One day we found this little (they don't get very big) Hopi rattlesnake crawling about 3 feet in front of our front steps. When it saw us it curled up by our fire ring for pictures. I was very excited. In all our rambling around Deming NM looking for rocks, around the national parks, and campgrounds, I kept looking for snakes. I saw none. I was going to have to call this trip a bust if I didn't see even one! At last I can go back east happy!

A little rattlesnake info FYI. Unlike the movies, which only use very big snakes for dramatic effect, most rattlesnakes you may encounter will be small and their rattling will sound like a little dry leaf scraping along the ground in a light breeze. It has to be very quiet for you to hear them. Most of the time you will never see them, unless you are watching where you put your feet, but often not even then. For the most part, rattlesnakes will rattle and warn, but not often strike, unless you insist on aggravating them. Rattlesnakes need to be coiled to strike. Small snakes strike a distance of about 1/4 of their body length, larger ones up to 1/2 or so. We were in no danger of being bitten, but we still kept a respectful distance and everyone went on their merry ways happy.

Stop shuddering its only a picture!

Louise and Duane

LIMPING DOWN THE ROAD

Rt 87 from Second Mesa to Winslow is beautiful with changing rock colors and many buttes. It was very interesting the first time, a different view the second time, and much less interesting the third time at 30 mph.

This Nipple Butte, interesting any time.

During our first trip we discovered this park. On the way back we noticed it had camping, and this was our destination on our third trip. Interesting. We arrived safely on Friday and got set up. Saturday Duane removed the broken spring, then we drove to the Park Office and signed up for a week. The rest of the day we spent driving around Winslow finding necessary stuff like the church, the laundromat, the grocery, etc. Duane found a place that had a spring, but it wasn't the right kind.

Sunday we explored the Holmolvi Ruins for which the park is named. The name means place of little hills and the ruins are of different towns of the Anasazi, the ancestors of the Hopi. There is some discussion on whether the people settled here then migrated to the north or from the north here and back north. Within the park are 4 town sites, but 3 & 4 are on the other side of the river and are closed. At 10am we biked to Site 1, one mile away. There are info boards at the parking lot, then this short walk to the hill. A marked path winds around the ruins

Broken pottery shards are everywhere. Someone had place shards on several different rocks.

The rooms are hard to distinguish in the pix, but are easily seen when you are actually there. The rooms are small, usually no more than 5x5 and sometimes smaller, but up to three storeys tall. They were walled, partially underground, and all connected outside. Inside some of the rooms had doorways. The rooms were built around a central plaza, but other plazas were built as needed. A lot of the rooms were used for storage. Others were kivas--used for special ceremonies, not unlike churches. Others were used for cooking, sleeping, crafting, etc.

This cleared space was a plaza. Across the flood plain the green strip grows along the Little Colorado River.

Water in the Little Colorado bed. Even if the bed is dry, water is not far down.

We kept on the lookout for wildlife, especially reptiles. This male leopard-spotted lizard was the only life we say at the ruins.

Biking back we decided it was already too hot and too windy. We refreshed ourselves with a nice drink of water, then jumped in the truck for the 3 mile drive to the Ruins II. This town was much larger--1200 rooms around 3 plazas. Rooms and plazas were added as the population grew. It is speculated that people from the other towns may have moved here for some reason.

This kiva was reconstructed for educational purposes. Walls were built up and entrance was by ladder through the roof. Behind the little bench there is a small rectangular hole. The people believed that they were formed in the earth and the gods led them through several levels before they emerged into the light. The hole (probably) signifies their entryway.

This was a women's plaza and was probably surrounded by rooms reserved for women's uses.

Flood plain, river, San Francisco peaks in west

The pink roof is a little picnic area. Winslow is to the right.

Winslow in the far right. Smoke from the Wallow wildfire makes the peaks hazy.

These excavated and partially rebuilt rooms give a good indication of what the inside of the village looked like. It wasn't clear whether they had outside doors or whether all the rooms were accessed through the roofs. The center wall on the right had an interior doorway.

Click on the pic below for some very interesting info.

I thought this sign interesting. This town was farther away from the river than the first town, yet this area still floods.

The green line of the river in the distance is about 1/2 mi (a guess) yet at one flood time the river deposited this log here, not far from the above sign.

Since we have been here we have learned some interesting things about this park. The park is very nice with paved (albeit somewhat bumpy) interior roads to the ranger housing, visitors center, campground, and ruins. The roads to the ruins are dotted with covered concreted picnic areas. There are two pictograph sites, but the pictures are hard to see. One site is a walking trail that is in progress. Their are numbered signs with points of interest, but the trail guides haven't been completed yet. The visitors center/gift shop is very nice. The staff are friendly, welcoming, helpful, and very informative. The campground is very pleasant with wide paved pull-thrus and back-in sites. Each has a picnic table, a small tree for some shade, a fire ring, and water and 50 amp electric hookup, and a nice view of the desert, all for the bargain price of $25 a night with no day use fee tacked on. If you pay for 5 nights you get 2 free. You are free to wander around the surrounding desert, but you must remember that it is a desert and has biting and stinging things in it. More on this park later, Louise and Duane

RESERVATIONS

Thursday June 2nd we said goodby to Gail and Keith and took 89 to continue our journey east. Passing out of the Kaibab Paiute Reservation we drove through more beautiful desert to Lake Powell.
This was our first view of the lake, which kept its sinuey river shape. That 'house' is called Lone Rock.

We followed the lake for a while until we came to

View of the dam.

West of the dam

East of the dam

Bridge and moorings on the Colorado River

Sculpture outside the visitors center. This area is known for its dinosaur connections.

This particular dinosaur looked pretty nasty. I'm glad I wasn't around to see it.

The visitors center is very small but nice. Its main interests are the gift shop and the unusual dinosaur discovered here. As with the Hoover Dam, no weapons (uncluding utility tools) were allowed here. There was no metal detector, but if caught with them you wouldn't see them again. Notice the size of those claws!

After lunch in the parking lot we continued rolling through the desert.

Now we were out of the red rock and into the gray

and tan.

I love these formations. They look like pudding.

Up the hill

and through the crack

and into the Navaho Reservation. This is a typical homestead.

There were several of these roadside stands selling jewelry and various crafts.

Back in the land of red rocks on SR160.

We stopped here for a break. From here Tuba City is north, Moenkopi south. Tuba City is a mispronunciation of Tuuvi, the Hopi chief who had a vision that the white brothers would return to be reunited with the Hopi. He welcomed and aided the Mormon settlers.

Notice the sign that says Hopi Lands.

From here we turned south on cr264. I believe this is Moenkopi. No town or villages on the reservations (that we saw) were very large.

Tilled fields in the protection of cliffs to help prevent wind erosion and to channel water.

In my mind I always associated the Navaho and Hopi with sheep. This is the only herd we saw. Mostly we saw cattle and horses.

Within the Navaho Reservation is the Hopi Reservation. As we drove the Navaho area, we noticed the beautiful red cliffs. Here in the Hopi Reservation the area was tan.

The Hopi divide their area into Third Mesa, Second Mesa, First Mesa and Keams Canyon, with different clans living in each area and making different crafts different ways. This is a village on Third Mesa. We drove by here and stopped at Second Mesa at a free boondocking spot. We visited the little museum and gift shop. In the museum were signs warning against taking pictures or even notes, so we have no pictures. One display was of newspaper clippings about the dispute between the Navaho and Hopi over land and how the Hopi were eventually granted land within the Navaho Reservation. I asked the lady at the desk if the disputes were ever solved. She said that the Tuuvi City area (the area in the pix of the Travel Center) was still in Navaho hands and still being disputed.

We got set up and had supper, then walked next door to the nice little restaurant for ice cream before settling in for the night.

Nighty night,

Louise and Duane

Not everything in this life is fun

Change of plans.....

Thursday night we stayed in the boondocking area at the Hopi Center. When we got up we went to breakfast at the Hopi Cultural Center restaurant. Walking back to the trailer I noticed a little lean in the trailer. Further inspection reveled a broken rear spring!! Of coarse there was no cell phone reception in the middle of the Hopi reservation. We eased down the road to a garage to see if they could help. He said I would have drive to Flagstaff to find a spring to replace the broken one. We unhooked the trailer drove the 60 miles to Winslow, AZ where we stopped to make phone calls trying to locate a replacement. I talked to the Heartland dealer in Flagstaff, no spring there. He gave me the number of his supplier in Holbrook, no replacement there. I called the dealer back and after he called the manufacture, he returned my call to tell me he could have one by Thursday. We found a nice little campground on our way back to the trailer where we would have phone and internet. The problem was it is 55 miles from where the trailer now sits. After a lot of discussion, we decided to try and make the 55 miles so we would have hookups and phone (and internet). I drove the 55 miles at 30 miles an hour with my flasher going. I was a nervous wreck by the time we pulled in to the campground but we made it with no further trouble. I got up this morning feeling a lot better and more comfortable about being broken down. This is a great life, that we love dearly, but it does have it's trials. You have to take the good with the bad I guess.

There are things to see in this are so we will make the most of our time sitting and waiting to see the sites around here. Winslow sits on old Route 66. We will drive downtown later today to check it out. The painted desert is near here, we may do some hiking there. I have been on the net checking out things to see nearby so we will keep busy.

Till next time

Duane and Louise