May 9-11, 2014 Travel Day and Navajo

After I came home on Friday, we just hung out the rest of the day – the wind died down in the afternoon and it was nice to sit outside and enjoy our surroundings.

Saturday, 10th, we decided to just hang out again.  I was in one of my clean out moods so I went thru a lot of our paperwork that just seems to grow.  I did get thru my beading patterns and recipes – I have digitalized so many of them that I don’t really need the papers anymore (and yes, they are all backed up – )

This morning, 11th, we decided to move further north – we went a total of 38 miles and Andy did really well in the wind – .

The San Francisco Peaks were getting snow:

Oh-Oh – Looks like we are heading into the storm:

And, yes, we did – snow and high winds but we came thru the other side.  The topography in this part of our country is just amazing:

We are staying at the Cameron Trading Post RV Park for the next two days.  Once we set up, cleaned out our tanks and refilled with water, we headed north to Tuba City- check out the scenery:

The reason we are here is to see the Navajo Code Talkers Museum and the Navajo Interactive Museum.  Since the Interactive Museum was closed for lunch, we went to the Trading Post and the Code Talkers Museum.  That museum is small with a few displays and pictures but they have a GREAT movie about the code talkers.  Very interesting and informative.

From there we went to the Navajo Museum:

We walked in and saw the 10 minute movie on the Navajo people’s beginnings and then walked into this room – WOW!

The room was divided into the four directions of the Navajo.  Each area had movies and examples of their lives.  Here is some information:

There was one section on Navajo Weaving and what each design and color means.

There was one section on their arts and crafts – Beautiful work!  If you are in this area, I highly recommend a stop to both museums and the Trading Posts.  It would take about 3-4 hours to do it all.

Our next stop was to see the Dinosaur Tracks but just as we pulled in the road, it began to rain.  Since it is an outdoor walk, we passed this time.

Scenery on the way home:

Stats for today:

Miles Traveled: 38 Miles

Routes Traveled:

Arizona: CR-385; US-89

May 6, 2014 Part One Sunset Crater National Monument

Road Trip Day – !  There is a loop road that goes thru Sunset Crater National Monument and loops around to Wupatki National Monument so that was our journey today.

Before we left, Bella spotted this little one on the picnic table – check out the ears on this squirrel – Interesting! (We found out later that this is an Abert squirrel.)

We packed our lunch and made our way to Sunset Crater NM.  Since we did the Visitor Center yesterday, we continued to the Lava Flow Trail.  There are two loops – paved and unpaved.  We did the paved one first since there was a busload of 7 year olds who were doing the unpaved trail. – oh my!  By the time they raced through, we were almost had the trail to ourselves.

This volcano happened over 1000 years ago and it is interesting to see the growth throughout the park.  Areas were there was ash and cinder came back quickly but the area with the lava has taken a lot longer.

From the overlook- the lava flow – (the line of children ):

Another view from the overlook:

The unpaved trail took us down into the lava field – WOW!  It was amazing!

What a gnarly Ponderosa Pine:

More pictures of the Lava Field:

A cinder cone:

Ponderosa Pine:

Andy standing in front of a spatter cone:

Another view from the trail:

Interesting:

We continued on the loop road stopping at a number of overlooks.  Sunset Crater from another side – this area had no lava flow:

When we came down from the volcanic field, there were all these white grasses – surreal scene:

The red hills are cinder covered vents running along a fissure – dormant now:

The loop road continued to Wupatki National Monument – see Part Two – .