Yoga ~ Travel ~ Joy: Got our kicks on Route 66 (what's left of it, anyway...)

This morning we cooked Gavin's friends breakfast as a thank you for letting us spend the night, then we headed out of Santa Fe toward Arizona! We drove back down to Albequerque to catch Interstate 40, the interstate which has pretty much replaced Route 66 in Arizona and New Mexico. We drove a couple hours to Gallup, at which point we needed a break. I had been curious about some of the "Indian Markets" we had seen advertised. (They are not called the P.C. "Native Americans" here - every sign boasts "Indian" jewelry, "Indian" restaurants, "Indian" gift shops, etc. Gavin wondered if the Indian restaurants would serve curry, but of course they are not referring to that kind of Indian. :) ) After seeing literally a dozen huge billboards for this particular Indian Market, we were quite surprised to see that it was literally the size of a small gas station; quite disproportionate to the amount of advertising. Nonetheless, we bought a Route 66 souvenier coffee mug and a stone vase.

At this point I realized the Route 66 had diverged from Interstate 40, and I decided we should follow it for a bit just for the experience. Route 66 went through downtown Gallup and was lined with a ton of Native American souvenier shops, but after our first stop at the "Indian Market" we decided Native American decor is not really our style, so we didn't stop. At the other end of Gallup we got back on Interstate 40, wanting to make a bit better time than we would have on Route 66.

Downtown Gallup on Route 66.

Our next stop was Petrified Forest National Monument. At the visitor's center off the highway, we picked up a map of the 28 mile scenic drive through the monument, with plenty of scenic stops and viewpoints. First few stops were viewpoints of the Painted Desert - incredibly eroded sandstone mostly in brilliant brick red.

The breathtaking Painted Desert.

Gavin and I at the Painted Desert.

Panorama of the Painted Desert.

Next stops inside the Petrified Forest National Monument we were able to view petroglyphs and the remains of Puerco Pueblo, an ancient village that housed around 1,200 people in the late 13th century. Newspaper Rock had hundreds of petroglyphs that were visible through viewing scopes, but not close enough to photograph.

Petroglyphs at Puerco Pueblo.

Our final stop in the Petrified Forest National Monument was the Crystal Forest, full of petrified logs of all sizes for which the monument is named. The petrified logs are 225 million years old! Some looked so much like the original wood I had to touch them to see if they were truly stone, and others were obviously stone in pinks, reds, oranges and clear quartz.

Me among some large petrified logs.

Beautiful crystals of quartz and more in this petrified log.

Petrified trunk of a tree.

More petrified logs.

They're everywhere!

Next, we headed north again to hit up with Interstate 40 again and continue our journey west. We stopped in Flagstaff for dinner at a delicious Latin fusion restaurant called Criollo and finally got to try green chile salsa, an important staple in New Mexican cuisine (carried over into Arizona) - REALLY tasty!

After our dinner, we continued driving to Prescott to spend the night. We stayed at a really cute motel called Motor Lodge and got a bungalow with a little porch out front, a tiny kitchen and a fireplace. Tomorrow we will drive a special back road through a canyon to get to Sedona!