Day 6 - 6/29/2004 - Tuesday
- Was in the Painted Desert area. There is no National Park for the
painted desert, it is handled by the Petrified Wood park.
Here are some teepee rocks from the desert:
- Went to Petrified Forest National Park
- It was near the Summer Soltice so we got to see sunlight about to hit
an Anasazi Petroglyph. Alas we left before the spear of light
quite made it there. This was interesting as my Honors Seminar
"Ancient Astronomers" back 6 years ago was all about this kind of thing.
- There was lots of petrified wood everywhere. Impressive as a lot of
it was carried away back in the days before that was considered bad.
Amusing display at the visitors center of people who felt cursed/guilty
by the stolen wood and mailed it back.
- Drove through Winslow, Arizona.
- Went to Meteor Crater which was a bit pricey but otherwise
pretty neat. They had a big chunk of the actual meteor on display. Here's
a picture of the Crater:
- We went to Walnut Canyon National Monument
where there were ancient Native cliff dwellings.
- On to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument
where there were numerous old volcanos and some more lava flows.
- Next went to wupatki National Monument
for some more ruins. There were ruins of an old ball court,
and also a blow-hole where cold air rushed out of a small hole from
an underground cave.
- Next we arrived at the Grand Canyon. It was a bit
crowded compared to the other parks, and a bit hazy. It still was
very impressive. We took the shuttle bus to a few points and walked along
the South Rim. We saw wildlife, including elk.
- After visiting all of these National Parks in a day, we were
going to top it off with a visit to Hyperbole National Monument,
which supposedly has a cliff dwelling on an arch on a natural
bridge in a giant canyon covered with petroglyphs and a giant
waterfall dousing the whole thing in water. But unfortunately
we ran out of time.
- Now in the Navajo time zone (they keep daylight savings unlike
the rest of Arizona).
- Had trouble finding a place to stay, ended up staying in a hotel
built into an Indian boarding school.
- Stayed at Tuba City (3715 Miles)
412 miles traveled on Day 6
On to Day 7