Grants, New Mexico

We stayed in Joseph City for three days. We left to go to Grants, NM on Friday. We stayed at the Blue Spruce RV Park.

We didn't really do much on Friday but did stop by the New Mexico Mining Museum. It is a museum that does an underground tour of uranium mining which has big history in New Mexico. They built a replica of a mine and then built the building on top of it.

Mining Museum

Saturday we went to the Ice Cave and Bandera Volcano.

Ice Cave and Bandera Volclano

You walk a trail about half a mile up to the volcano for a view into the cone. Here is the trail on the way to the volcano. Notice the trail is on volcanic rock.

Volcanic Trail

This is called a splatter cone and was next to the trail.

Splatter Cone

This is the view we had from the trail as we were walking up to the volcano.

View from the trail

We made it to the cone of the volcano. It was a nice walk with many interesting volcanic features to see on the way up.

Bandera Volcano

This is as far as they would let us go! My camera let's you take a selfie, so we did! Lol..

Volcanic Selfie!

After the hike down we headed to the Ice Cave. It is only about a 1/4 mile to the cave.

Trail to Ice Cave

On the way to the Cave we came across this sink hole.

Sink Hole

These stairs take you down to the Ice Cave. The cave is located in part of a collapsed lava tube and never rises above 31 degrees.

Stairs to the Cave

The green behind me is frozen solid. It was a warm day so walking down to the cave felt nice!

Ice Cave

After we walked up to the volcano and down to the ice cave we drove to El Morro.

El Morro National Monument

As a shaded oasis in the western U.S. desert, this site has seen many centuries of travelers. The remains of a mesa top pueblo are atop the promontory where between about 1275 to 1350 AD, up to 1500 people lived in this 875 room pueblo. The Spaniard explorers called it El Morro (The Headland). The Zuni Indians call it "A'ts'ina" (Place of writings on the rock). Anglo-Americans called it Inscription Rock. Travelers left signatures, names, dates, and stories of their treks. While some of the inscriptions are fading, there are still many that can be seen today, some dating to the 17th century. Some petroglyphs and carvings were made by the Ancestral Puebloan centuries before Europeans started making their mark.

El Morro

Water would fall from the top of the sandstone rocks and collect at the bottom forming a natural pool.

Waterfall

The natural pool still holds water today. This water brought travelers from afar!

Natural pool

We walked the half mile to the Inscription Trail. This is where travelers from as early as the 1600's left messages in the sandstone.

Inscription Sign

This one from RH Orton is not very old. 1866.

RH Orton

This inscription is by Juan de Oñate in 1605. This is the oldest historical inscription at El Morro.

Juan de Oñate

We intended to go into the Junction Lava Cave. We thought we would do a short hike in it and back out.

Junction Cave

The problem was that you are looking at the trail into the cave. We decided that we would pass this challenge, and after all we had already had a big day today!

Trail down into cave!

We ended up 4x4 driving up a cool trail for about 4 or 5 miles instead. Great scenery and some neat lava flows.

Sunday we went to a small Baptist church. Old fashion traditional worship but the message was great! We then went to the El Malpais Sandstone Bluffs and La Ventana Natural Arch.

The Sandstone Bluffs afforded a great view of the lava fields and volcano cones.

Sandstone Bluffs

We then continued on to the La Ventana Arch.

La Ventana Arch

There is about a half mile very pleasant loop to the arch. Patty stood on a rock to take this picture! Lol!

La Ventana Selfie

Well that's it for Grants, New Mexico. We are happy that we took the time to stop here this time. There is so much to see in this beautiful country if you just take the time to stop and look!

God Bless you,

Brian and Patty

Petrified Forest National Park

On the drive out to the Petrified Forest we drove by an iconic Route 66 motel known as the Wigwam Motel #6.

Wigwam Motel

There are fifteen teepee shaped motel rooms. In front of the rooms are old classic cars.

Wigwam rooms with cars

The rooms are bigger then they look from the outside. I took a quick picture inside when a maid was cleaning the bathroom. They charge about $50.00 a night to stay.

Inside the teepee

We continued on Route 66 to the Petrified Forest.

Petrified Forest National Park

It is really amazing that these pieces of wood have turned into rock. The logs were in oxygen free silt. Water with silica ran through it and converted the wood to quartz. They look like logs, but feel like rocks.

Big logs

This area is called the Crystal Forest. Much of the insides of these logs had crystallized. Through the years many people have taken the good samples before the parks service started protecting it.

Crystal Forest

Here is a sample of the Crystallized wood.

Crystallized Wood

In this slice of wood you can still see the age rings of the tree. It looks in many of the trees like someone has cut them, but because the quartz is so brittle they crack and break in these pieces.

Age Rings

We came across these rock outcroppings with these amazing views. As you can see Patty is more comfortable standing here then I am. The next picture will show you why!

Nice view

Here is where we are standing....

Patty on the Rocks!

This area is called the Teepee's because of the cone shapes of the hills. Pretty neat with the different colors.

The Teepee's

When we were in Southern Arizona we viewed many Sinagua Indian Ruins. Here in North East Arizona the Puerco Ruins are from the Anasazi Indians.

Puerco Ruins

This little fellow was running around the ruins. Life continues in the desert!

Lizard on Ruins

There were many Petroglyphs at the site also. Probably from the Anasazi as well as Navajo and other tribes.

Petroglyphs

Today was an all day event. Starting at the Petrified Forest and ending at the Painted Desert. There were multiple viewpoints and hiking trails.

Painted Desert

Unfortunately the pictures cannot do the views justice. They were magnificent!

Painted Desert

As we were leaving the Painted Desert we found this 'Historical Landmark' bench. You can see an old rusty car in the background. It sits on the old original Route 66.

Route 66

Thats it for today. We thank you for reading our blog and hope you are enjoying it.

Blessings to you all!

God Bless,

Brian and Patty

Standing on the Corner!

Well, I'm a standing on a corner
in Winslow, Arizona
and such a fine sight to see
It's a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed
Ford slowin' down to take a look at me...
Take it easy, take it easy...

Those lyrics from the Eagles song from the 70's made Winslow, Arizona famous.

Standing on the Corner Park

We decided to stay in Joseph City so we would be between Winslow and the Petrified Forest.

While we were driving from Cottonwood to Joseph City, Patty got a call from our good friends from New Life Community Church in Oxnard, the Bartolone's. Dom and Cynthia also retired and moved to Peoria, Az about the same time we went full time in the RV. We tried to get with them while we were in Cottonwood, but it just never happened. The last week they had gone to Santa Fe, NM to be with their son. It just so happened that they were driving by us on the I40 just after we arrived in Joseph City. They decided to stop and see us and then go to lunch with us.

Winslow, Az

The decision was made to drive to Winslow for lunch in separate cars. They could continue their drive home and we could spend the day in Winslow. We went to the El Falcon Restaurant and had a good meal and great fellowship! It was awesome to be able to spend some time with them!

Cynthia, Dom, Patty and Brian

After lunch we went to the Corner! It is actually on old Route 66. Notice the red flatbed Ford parked in front of the park.

Route 66

Here we are standing on the corner. The statue is holding a guitar.

Standing on the Corner

There's our Dodge parked behind the flatbed Ford. Wonder why that wasn't mentioned in the song? :)

Flatbed Ford

Patty thought we should find a church and pray about all this secular music. We have found some small churches, but this one may take the cake.

Worlds Smallest Church

We went through the gates to find the church so we could pray about it. Heres what we found....

Smallest Church

We then went to the La Pasada Hotel and Gardens. It was originally built in 1930 by Mary Jane Colter for Fred Harvey and the Santa Fe Railway.

La Posada Hotel

Although this is still a working hotel with guests they do allow self-guided tours.

La Posada

They do sell a tour booklet for $3.00 which gives you a lot of information. We bought the booklet and it was well worth it to guide us around the hotel and give us the history. Here is the entryway.

Hotel Entry

This was a Harvey Hotel. The Harvey Girls were the hostess and servers in this hotel and the restaurant.

Lobby

This was also the train depot for the Santa Fe railway. Now there are freight trains that pass in the back of the hotel, but in it's day this was a happening place!

Train Stop

We spent several hours at this historical hotel and town. After the drive from Cottonwood and visiting with Dom and Cynthia this was a perfect ending for a short sight seeing day. Tomorrow we will go to the petrified forest and the painted desert.

God Bless,

Brian and Patty