Our Last Week. Petrified Forest,Painted Desert,and the Grand Canyon

We are parked at the Navajo casino outside of Holbrook Az.We are exploring the Petrified Forest,the Painted Desert,and the Grand Canyon this week.We stayed all day at the Painted Desert and watched the sunset which was awesome probably the best we have ever seen.
We also visited the Grand Canyon this week before we hitched up and headed for Laughton Nevada and some slots and relaxation.After a great weekend we headed the RV for home.Another great adventure!

The Painted Desert

The Petrified Forest

Miles and miles of petrified wood

we are glad we stayed for sunset.  Beautiful!

some areas of the painted were pinks,reds,and oranges. others were black,gray,and gold.Amazing

we sat beside our RV with a cool drink and enjoyed some of the best sunsets we have ever seen

WOW!

Jeni loved this place

a picture of beauty

Guess where we are now

yes its the grand canyon

Breath taking

We could sit and gaze for hours

and I loved it too!

The sign at the casino meaning hello

Well we are home at Park Sierra for the winter seeing the kids for the holidays,Dr's appointments,and mingling with our friends and neighbors.Catching up on the latest news and gossip.But come spring we will be getting ready for another summer adventure.Right now it looks like we might be headed to the redwoods.More later
This trip we logged about 5000 miles,visited roughly12 National parks,camp hosted in one,Theodore Roosevelt Natl.Hiked about 50 miles of trails,and dined in every state(12) and Canada.As fun as it was it is always nice to come home.The sign in the casino above says hello in Navajo but for now we say so long.

More New Mexico and the Painted Desert

We are staying in Santa Fe and we toured old town and some amazing old churches. When we left we headed east on I-40 and stopped off at an authentic Indian village with no water,electricity,or sewer but it is inhabited.The residents are mostly elders of the tribe and the village is very clean. They call this place "Sky City" because it sits on top of a mesa.It was a great experience.
While we were in the area we toured "El Morro"monument.Then we hopped on I-40 and headed into Arizona.we stopped off at the "Petrified Forest" and the"Painted Desert.

Santa Fe's oldest church

Old Town Plaza

Another old church near the plaza

Jeni loved this church.Such history

Loretto Hacienda in old town. Great lunch

this is Sky City village off I-40 between Albuquerque and Socorro NM.

Baking ovens at Sky City

OK we got medallions from the balloon fest.for our walking sticks.you know as i said in an earlier blog post that our kids got them for us prior to our trip.Well we have been buying medallions along the way on our travels and we have almost covered them up completely.At $5 bucks a piece the sticks have about $200 dollars of medallions on them!

Here is the wise old Chief the tribe depends on for survival  out here in the wild desert southwest.He is the master of negotiations with the other tribes and his wisdom....Wait a minute.....that's not the chief......oh that's ME! sorry. well I digress

This was suggested for us to see by the locals

The monument is a big rock monolith surrounded by a canyon. a great hike with a lot of natural stairs.

you have got to be kidding I climbed those

what a view!

there are ruins on top where an  ancient Indian village lived centuries ago

now these steps are more my style

a shot of the canyon that surrounds the mesa

we loved it!

 

life is good

As we head to Arizona on the last leg of our summer trip we have seen the wonders of this country with our RV.This is the only way in my opinion to experience these United States.
OK.off the soapbox.We have had a great trip and we are gonna finish up in Arizona.We will head west on I-40 and stop off at the Petrified forest and the painted desert.Then to the Grand Canyon and we will sneak over to Laughton Nevada for a final adventure before pointing the ole RV west into California and home.But we have a week left so onward.

Summer Trip Sept,Oct 2014

As Jeni and I continued on our summer travels,We left our camphost job for South Dakota and Custer State Park. Then we headed southwest into Colorado checking out Rocky Mountain National Park,Denver,and heading south stopping in Colorado Springs

this is the state park we stayed in at Colorado.springs.it sits atop a mountain that houses NORAD

this is where my parents took my brothers and I at Christmas time when we lived in Farmington NM.as kids

we visited some pueblo Indian cliff dwellings

we had to make this trip up pikes peak.Jeni remembers her family visiting here when they moved to phoenix

we stopped off at royal gorge bridge for a gander

yes I checked it out too!

quite a sight.you can walk across the bridge as normal traffic is not allowed.Add caption

the view of the gorge from the bridge

they had all 50 state flags hanging so Jeni found ours

what a view!

as we left royal gorge we headed south into new Mexico and something we wanted to see for some time

yes its the Albuquerque balloon festival

we had a ringside seat right on the field

i kinda cheated with the pictures a little as some shots were better on the big screen TV than 1000 ft. away.that's why you see the channel 4 logo on the picture.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves as this week long fest was just fantastic and Jeni and I will never forget this experience.

Well we just loved the Balloon Fest and the weather was fantastic.We are staying in Santa Fe because there is no place in Albuquerque to stay as all RV parks are full.
We are going to visit old Santa Fe next and move south and east on I-40.We have a couple of weeks left on our summer trip so we are going to make the most of it. All for now as we look back on a great week....on channel 4!