Gallup to Flagstaff
It was a cold start to the day this morning as we headed out of Gallup, out of New Mexico and on towards Arizona.
First stop of the day was just past the NM/AZ border at the Painted Desert National Park, a vast area of geographical beauty consisting of the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. The Painted Desert contains many different rock formations with a variety of colours ranging from reds to browns and purples that stretch for miles. In the Petrified Forest, there were hundreds of petrified wood samples dating back many thousands of years. These trees have been turned to stone and contain amethyst and quartz crystals and have so many colours in them.
We spent a good couple of hours walking and driving around the park, having gained an hour when we crossed the state line, but as we had a couple more stops to make and a few miles to drive we had to leave and get back on the road.
Unfortunately, the majority of our driving today was on the I-40 interstate and not single-lane old Route roads although it did mean that we could go faster than normal.
Just in time for lunch we arrived in Winslow and headed to the corner of 2nd and Kinsey to take a photo of the “Standing On The Corner” statue, a dedication to The Eagles’ song Take It Easy. There’s also a mural on the wall there of a girl in a flat-bed Ford (listen to the song for the reference).
After lunch it was back in the Jeep and after a quick detour to see the largest map of Route 66, we headed onto Meteor Crater, the site of the largest meteor impact in the world. The crater is 700 feet deep and 4000 feet across and was formed 50,000 years ago when a meteor 150 foot wide entered our atmosphere and crashed into the flat plains of what would become Arizona.
As we made our way into Flagstaff, our next stop for the night, the terrain changed once more as we climbed to 6000 feet above sea level and towards the mountains. This means that the temperature will drop to close to freezing tonight despite it being around 74 degrees earlier this afternoon.
Miles travelled today: 272
Total miles travelled: 2012
Number of times gone to get in the wrong side of the car: 3
