Great Trip to the West Day 2: Into the desert

We drove west, leaving Amarillo behind us.  We continued through the scrub bush landscape and slowly it began to give way to desert.  Though we were safe from the desert heat in our air conditioned car, we could see the ravages of the desert heat.

The landscape remained unchanged for most of our long drive to our second destination:  Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Santa Fe used to be on the old Route 66, the main highway from the East to the West before the days of the interstate.  However, Santa Fe was cheated and was bypassed by the new interstate system.  Though it is the capital of New Mexico, it retains a small town feel.  Santa Fe was a very interesting stop for us.  We grabbed some lunch and wandered around the downtown area.  We only spent about 30 minutes in downtown due to our schedule.  It's definitely on our list of places we want to return to.

After Santa Fe we returned to the desert on our way to Arizona.  One thing that I did not like was that heading West on the highway there is a sign shortly after leaving Santa Fe advertising a rest area.  We got off for the rest area only to return to the highway and go back the way we came.  The rest area is only really for travelers heading East.  It was a slight inconvenience, but we made it through.

The journey through the rest of New Mexico was much like the previous leg, boring and long.

We actually had a major stroke of luck in Arizona.  We stopped at the visitor center and the lady working there advised us to continue on to the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest.  Had we not gotten her advice, we would've ended up being hurried and rushed on the following day.  We had originally planned to sleep early and back track to the National Parks before going to the Grand Canyon.  It was good that we took her advice.  It really saved us a lot of hassle and heart ache.

The National Parks of the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest closes at 8pm.  It was about 4:30 or so when we arrived at the Arizona visitor center.  We got to the parks at around 5:20 or so.  This was the first time we got to use our parks pass and it worked beautifully.  We got some patches and our National Parks Passport stamped and went on the drive around the park.  It's about a 20 mile trip and takes about 2 hours to complete (thoroughly).  We stopped at most of the lookout points and took pictures and video.  My wife was pretty tired so we didn't do any hikes, but we intend to return and do them in the future.

The trip through the parks dumps you out on a highway to the South of the interstate.  We took that into Holbrook and finding no hotels (we didn't look very much).  We headed to Winslow.  Yes, that Winslow.  We found a hotel after a little searching and relished in laying down and resting after another full day of travel.

I apologize for the infrequency of my posts.  I have been away from internet for a while.  I'll try to be better from now on.