PizzAZ

Leg 8 – Arizona, Sights Full of Pizzaz

06/01/2023 – 06/10/2023

The next state to check off our map is Arizona. The state has many sights packed with pizzaz, most notably, The Grand Canyon and Sedona. We, however, are going to visit a few of the smaller pizzaz packed sights; Glen Canyon, Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, The Petrified Forest National Park and a little corner in Winslow. But before we do that, we need to make a quick stop in NM for some pizza. 😉

I have to share a little story about my youngest son and the word pizzaz. He was about 10 and we were touring some homes in Portland. It is a yearly home tour of multi-million-dollar homes, called “The Street of Dreams” and the boys and I would go every year. This particular time, we came out of this very nice house and I asked Jefferey what he thought. Skipping down the driveway with a little sing-song voice, he says, “I think that house could use a little more p-i-z-z-a!” Laughing, I said, “You mean a little more p-i-z-z-a-z?” “Yeah, pizzaz” LOL, anyway, it’s a cute memory for me and anytime I hear the word pizzaz I think of that day.

Harvest Host Overnight

It is on to Arizona with a quick stop in Albuquerque. We overnighted at another Harvest Host in Clovis NM. An alpaca farm this time. Windrush Alpacas was our host for the night. We had a nice visit with Rosemary and her alpacas and enjoyed a peaceful night’s rest. Rise and shine and time to hit the road to avoid a severe storm coming through the area. Rosemary said they had a tornado and softball sized hail just a few days prior. Tornado? I thought we were out of tornado country?!?

Which Route Do I Take??

US-60 would be our route most of the way. This new app that I’ve been using to plan our trip also has an “RV safe” GPS built in and it has worked out pretty well. I still double check against our truckers atlas and our Garmin GPS. In this case the RVapp routed us US-60 all the way but the atlas indicated that a section of 60 was not suitable for truck travel. I checked height and weight restrictions and found none. Well, the RVapp has not steered us wrong yet, we’ll go ahead and stick to US-60.

We made it to the stretch of highway that was not marked “trucker friendly” and quickly found out why. It was a narrow, two-lane highway with no shoulders. Then we had a slow steady climb with about a 2,000’ elevation gain. This old girl likes to overheat (the coach, not me 😉) when she has to pull long or steep hills and sometimes we need to pull over to let her cool back down. This road had nowhere to stop. Fortunately, she did not reach the critical stage, even when all the warning lights were flashing. I really hate seeing those lights come on, especially when there is nowhere to stop. So, now we know, stick to the designated truck routes even though the GPS in your RVapp says it is okay.

Pizzabrirria

We stopped in Albuquerque for one reason and one reason only… Pizzabrirria. When we were here for Balloon Fiesta in 2021, we discovered this marvelous creation that is a cross between a brirria taco and pizza. It is made with crispy flour tortillas, layered with shredded beef slowly cooked in a birria sauce and lots of cheese, then topped with chopped onions, crema and an avocado cream. Served with the pizza is a small bowl of birria sauce and red and green chili sauces for dipping. Doesn’t that sound like something worth coming to town for?

Before getting our pizza, we stopped in Old Town to buy a gift for someone special and enjoy a cerveza while listening to some live music in the square. A nice way to spend a Friday evening. Getting hungry, we called our order in to La Guelaguetza and headed home to devour our pizzabrirria with a nice bottle of red wine. It was a good day!

A Week in Arizona

We have been hop skipping our way across the southern part of the United States these last few weeks with short drive days between destinations. This week, we will be mostly stationary and we will get some “real camping” done. Two nights will be spent in Holbrook AZ so we can check out the Petrified National Forest and that famous corner I mentioned earlier then we head up to Page AZ where we will be parked at Lake Powell for 6 glorious days!

Winslow AZ

Standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona… those famous lyrics penned by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey led us to the corner of Kinsley and East 2^nd Street along historic route 66 in Winslow Arizona.

During the 1960’s, Winslow was the largest town in northern Arizona and route 66 brought many travelers through the area. One of those travelers was Jackson Browne. Browne began writing “Take it Easy” in 1971 but was having difficulty completing the second verse. That’s when Glenn Frey stepped in with “it’s a girl my lord in a flatbed Ford, slowin’ down to take a look at me.” And the rest is history. “Take it Easy” became the Eagles first hit.

Standin’ on the Corner Park

In 1997, The Standin’ on the Corner Foundation was formed to develop a park at the heart of the city along historic route 66. The land for the park was donated by a local family in 1998 and the park was dedicated to the city in 1999. It features a two-story mural and life-size bronze statue named “Easy” which was inspired by the troubadours of the ‘70s. Glenn Frey’s statue was added in 2016 at a Celebration of Life event held in the park.

As a BIG Eagle’s fan, I have wanted to visit this famous corner since I learned of it several years ago. In fact, I guess you could say this is a bucket-list item for me. I feel very fortunate Bill and I were able to see The Eagles in concert in 2014, before Glenn Frey passed, and it easily tops my list of “best concerts” I have attended. And now I can check this off the list. Not all bucket list items need to be big, right? Sometimes the small things are equally significant.

After we finished with all the photo ops, we headed to the Flatbed Café for some tasty breakfast burritos before heading out to the Petrified Forest National Park.

Petrified Forest National Park

This park runs north and south between I-40 and US-180 about 22 miles east of Holbrook. The direction you are heading will dictate which entrance should be used. Headed west? Enter the park from the north and drive south. Headed east? You will want to start at the south entrance. Since we were staying in Holbrook, it didn’t really matter if we saw the park north to south or south to north. We decided to start on the south end, since that is where the most concentrated areas of petrified wood are located.

How was the Petrified Forest Created?

Roughly 216 million years ago, the logs in the park were part of a forest along a river, much like the Amazon. The trees died and fell into the river and were washed downstream where they eventually created logjams. They became buried in silt, mud, volcanic ash and sand which protected them from decay. Then ground water infiltrated the absorbent layers of dead wood, carrying silica and minerals. These minerals eventually created the crystals that replaced the wood material and transformed it into rock. Over time, erosion has exposed these logs and now we are looking, in disbelief, at these pieces of wood that are 216 MILLION years old. Wrap your head around that.

Seeing the Park

Most of the park can be seen from the car or by a short walk on a paved trail. You will see petroglyphs, mesas and a painted desert, in addition to the petrified forest. The first stop was at the Rainbow Forest Museum and the Giant Logs Trail.

Giant Logs Trail

This easy .04 mile self-guided trail tells the story of an ancient river that once ran through this area, the history of this national park, famous visitors, what the different layers in the mesas indicate and trace fossils found in the area. It also explains why the wood looks like it has been cut, when in reality as the logs have been exposed, the weight of the dirt and sand caused the logs to break, like a piece of chalk.

Crystal Forest

Another easy .75 mile walk is at Crystal Forest. The paved loop leads you though thousands of pieces of petrified wood. Some pieces are newly exposed through erosion and I imagine on a sunny day the crystals would shine. Today was overcast so we did not see the “sparkle”.

Agate Bridge and Blue Mesa

We made a quick stop at Agate Bridge to see a 110’ log span a gully. To keep the log from breaking, a concrete platform was built to support it. The next stop was Blue Mesa via a 4-mile loop road. We opted not to take the 1-mile hike down to the floor and see the mesas close up. It looked like a storm was brewing in the distance and we were getting a little pressed for time. The view from the lookout was just fine and we were able to see the oranges and tans turn into pretty shades of purples, blues and greys.

Petroglyphs

Newspaper Rock and Puerco Pueblo contained the vast majority of petroglyphs in the park, some dating back to over 2000 years old. The Puebloan people occupied this area around 1250 to 1380 and at its peak over 200 lived here. No one really knows what the petroglyphs mean but with some help of present-day indigenous interpretations we may have an idea. For example, a Hopi interpretation of this bird with something in its mouth, tells a story of a giant bird that came to the village to eat bad children. That might get the little ones to listen to mom and dad.

The most fascinating area in this section to me, though, is the summer solstice marker. Between June 14^th and June 28^th, a shaft of light forms as the sun shines through the crack in the rock. When that ray of light touches the center of the spiral, summer solstice has begun. Marking the longest day of the year helped the indigenous community with crop planning, harvesting, marking the rainy seasons and annual ceremonial cycles. I find it incredible how they used the sun, moon and stars to create calendars and predict coming seasons. And what if it was cloudy that day and the sun didn’t make that ray of light? Did that throw the year off?

We finished our drive up with a quick stop at the route 66 alignment and the painted desert.

Bark Ranger

Some of the parks in the NPS have started a new program called Bark Ranger. It’s kind of like the Junior Ranger program for kids, but this is for dogs. Dogs are not usually allowed on a lot of the trails in the national parks, however, we have come across three parks now where they are welcome. To get a certificate you just have to show the ranger you are a responsible dog parent and your pup will receive a certificate and bark ranger tag. How fun is that? Kona is now a Bark Ranger. 😊

Our trip through the Petrified Forest was educational. It was cool to see all the trees, I mean rocks and learn about their formation. The day has been action packed and now we need to get back to Holbrook to ready the coach for our trip up to Page AZ

Glen Canyon Recreation Area

The Glen Canyon area was not originally on my radar. We were going to leave the Petrified Forest area and head up to Monument Valley. That was until I was poking around on the website for the RV park we were staying at in Holbrook. During the planning stages of our Journey West, I booked our site at the OK RV Park in Holbrook and as I was scrolling through their page, I saw “attractions”, then I saw a picture of a slot canyon with a link to Navajo Nation. I’ve seen these pics before and have wanted to visit in person.

So just where is this Antelope Canyon? Turns out it is about two hours north of us in Page Arizona. Awesome! I made a small adjustment to our route and booked a reservation to tour Upper Antelope Canyon. Not long after that, I discovered Horseshoe Bend is in the same area. Win! Win! I know what we are going to do, now let’s figure out where we are going to stay. There is a state park on Lake Powell where you can camp right on the beach! Another WIN!

Lone Rock State Park

Lone Rock State Park is in Utah, by just a quarter mile, and will be home for the entire week. Before taking the coach out to the beach we scouted the area with the jeep first. We found a good hard-packed road and site to park and set up camp. It was exciting to be overlooking Lake Powell until… the wind picked up and started blowing very fine sand into our home! Within minutes we had a fine film of dust everywhere inside the coach. The counters were filthy, you could feel it on the tile floors and on yourself. Ick!

The next morning by a unanimous vote, we moved to the top of the hill and overlooked the beach and lake. What a GREAT decision that was! Later that day the wind picked up down on the beach and at one point a dust cloud covered the entire beach. Visibility down below was near zero. We were very happy to be on higher and almost dust free ground. Bonus, the breezes were nicer up here. Every day and night, we enjoyed nice pleasant cool breezes, even thought the temps were in the low 90’s during the day and 60’s at night. By setting up camp here, though, we were mistaken for the “Camp Host” several times. We didn’t mind, it was nice talking to fellow travellers and finding out where they were from and what their plans were.

The week was very relaxing. We ate dinner outside every night, swam and kayaked in Lake Powell and played in the ORV park just behind the beach. It was almost like real camping. 😉

Glen Canyon Dam

Lake Powell was formed when the Glen Canyon Dam was built in 1956. The Colorado River and its tributaries make up Lake Powell and provide much of the water needs for seven states. It waters over 4 million acres of farmland and provides drinking water to about 30 million people. Pretty “dam” impressive!

Upper Antelope Canyon Tour

What is a Slot Canyon, exactly?

A slot canyon is a very small canyon that is formed when wind and water find their way into a crack in the bedrock. They are usually located in areas with low rainfall and turbulent flash floods. During the monsoon season the water cuts the canyon and then during the dry season dust storms and high winds buff the canyon walls leaving them with “whirly, swirly” finishes.

Travelling around the southwest, I’ve seen pictures of these beautiful canyons with smooth wavy textures and rays of light shining down from above and thought how I would love to see that with my own eyes. Today was our day to experience the Upper Antelope Slot Canyon.

Since Antelope Canyon is located on Navajo tribal land the only way to see it is to book a tour with a local company. I used Antelope Canyon Tours and booked about 6 weeks out and the only tour time left was at 4:10. The more popular times at 9:50 and Noon are booking four months out! Plan ahead!!

Tour Time!

After we are all checked in, it is time to load up into the back of a pick-up and make the 6-mile ride out to the canyon. Two of those miles are down a bumpy, sandy, dusty riverbed where the water from the flash floods run. We finally arrive at this crack between two rocks in the sandy red desert.

When you walk through the crack you are instantly transported to another world. It is a beautiful, abstract trail through a narrow canyon filled with waves and textures offering stunning shades of oranges, reds, tans and greys. Every turn brings a silent gasp or an ooh and aah.

Between the two of us, Bill and I took almost 100 pictures! Did I mention the canyon is only 100 yards long? (like a football field) Thank goodness for digital cameras. LOL. Here are a few of our favorites.

Do you think any of these are worth $6.5M? One famous photographer sold his photo titled “Phantom” for just that much, making it the most expensive photograph ever sold. Click HERE to see what a $6.5M picture looks like.

I highly recommend a slot canyon tour. If I ever travel back through this area, I will do it again and plan far enough in advance to secure the 9:50 or Noon time slot.

We finished our day with a jumbo margarita and a tasty Mexican meal. Yum!

Horseshoe Bend

One of northern Arizona’s most photographed sites and one of Glen Canyon’s most recognized and visited areas is Horseshoe Bend. Another photograph I have seen many times and could not wait to see in person. It did not disappoint.

A relatively easy ¾ mile hike leads out to the overlook with stunning views of the emerald green Colorado River making a horseshoe bend around a sandstone cliff. While we were gazing in awe at this beautiful sight, we watched a group of kayakers set up camp on the beach at the bend. That might be kind of fun to do one day with the family. Anyone up for a raft trip down the Colorado?

I found this interesting; this section of the Colorado River is part of the Glen Canyon Recreation Area, the parking lot is on the City of Page property and the trail and overlook are part of the Navajo Nation. Three jurisdictions worked together to provide us with a phenomenal experience. Thank you!

Life is Good!

We really enjoyed our time on Lake Powell and exploring the area. It was a very relaxing week at camp, sitting outside and enjoying the wonderful views. I finished a book, started a new crochet project and drew out a few quilt blocks for some future projects. On our last morning, Bill and I got up just before sunrise and set outside with our coffee to savor this lovely area just a moment longer. Life is good!

What’s Next?

It is just going to get better and better. The next couple of weeks are going to be exciting with a week in Monument Valley followed by a week in Moab, where we will meet up with our youngest son and his family. I haven’t seen them since Christmas and I’m getting super excited!