Of Rocks and Roadrunners

Agave

We left the Verde Valley a little after 8 in the morning, seeing more flowering cactus including agave like the Pink Jeep guided had pointed out to us and prickly pear. Shortly after heading east from Flagstaff we also had yet another adventure ... the front passenger window (right next to ME!) almost fell out onto the interstate. I glanced over at it and it was swinging loose. I grabbed hold of it and held it in place until we could stop.

The screws had mostly fallen loose and the ones left at the top were loose! We put the screws back in except for the one we could not find and headed down the road, checking them every half hour or so, tightening them back up as needed. Nothing like running down the road holding on to a screwdriver!

About mid day we stopped at the Painted Desert Cafe for lunch at the Petrified Forest National Park. The long loop road we drove on around the park seems to have both the Painted Desert scenery and Petrified Forest areas. There are a number of explanatory signs and a lot of warnings NOT to take any of the petrified wood away with you. An inspection station on the way out of the park probably checks out any suspicious vehicles. There are carefully sliced and polished bits of wood as well as raw pieces available at the gift shop which of course also has ball caps. I got a nice brown one!

After touring around the Petrified Forest, we got back on I-40 headed east. Along the way to our next overnight stop we saw quite a few Navajo hogans of several styles. Some appeared to still be lived in where others appeared to be used for storage. Definitely a reminder that much of this part of the country is Indian Reservation. We finally reached our stop at the USA RV Park at Gallup, New Mexico and hooked up for the night.

The next morning we continued east on I-40 towards Albuquerque where we found a place to have the RV washed, bye bye bug guts! Our next stop east of Albuquerque is the Petroglyph National Monument. The Visitor Center has a small gift shop and a small theater room that runs a video about the petroglyphs including the definition: Petroglyphs are rock carvings (rock paintings are called pictographs) made by pecking directly on the rock surface using a stone chisel and a hammerstone. When the desert varnish (or patina) on the surface of the rock was chipped off, the lighter rock underneath was exposed, creating the petroglyph.

As we were driving out of the Petroglyph National Park visitor center, we saw a real live roadrunner, actually running across the road! It happened far too fast to grab the camera so I can not take credit for this image but the moment looked very much like this.

A few miles east of the Visitor Center is the road access to the parking area at Boca Negra Canyon which has several good hiking trails (not our cup of tea) and some nice examples of petroglyphs such as this image we got there before heading on east. 

We continued to fuss with the window screws! The nearest place we have any confidence to deal with the window problem is the Camping World in Oklahoma City where we hope to get the issue dealt with tomorrow.

Back to I-40 eastbound we see storms north of us which don't look so dark and dangerous in the image below but certainly looked worse in person and we saw storm chasers headed that way. As we headed east we did keep a close eye on the north and the movement of the storms. Fortunately they did not seem to get any closer!

We arrived at the Santa Rosa Campground in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, with the threatening storms thankfully still staying to the north. The next morning we continued east on I-40 taking old Route 66 through Tucumcari and stopping long enough to get a ball cap reading New Mexico which had a Rte 66 badge pinned on it.