Road Map of Arizona
Route 66 - The Mother Road
We took Route 66 from Kingman to Flagstaff.
Kingman
Hackberry
I sped past at 65MPH, spotted the General Store and spent the next 2 miles trying to turn around.
I'm glad I did.
We spent an hour checking out the buildings and memoribilia.
The General Store, owned by John Pritchard, is a museum of Route 66 memorabilia and a great place to pick up a souvenir.
John in his Corvette that he has owned for 25 years.
P.S. He won't sell!
John and his mule.
Seligman
Seligman is small town with colourful buildings.
Chris met a couple of dummies.
An old 50's diner.
Sedona
Buried in the trees below is the switchback road that takes us down to Sedona.
Sedona is a beautiful town nestled in a picturesque valley surrounded by rich red sculptured mountains.
The topographical structure is so unique that many feature films, TV productions and commercials have been filmed in the area. Many of the 76 movies made in the area were old westerns.
Typical view from the main street.
Statue of a rusty artist admired by a colourful girl.
Chapel of the Holy Cross.
Circa 1956
Constructed in the red rock.
View from the car park.
Colourful flowering cactus.
A colourful House Finch feeding off the cactus.
The Church overlooked this palatial home below.
Note how all the homes in the area are built in the valleys around the rocks.
We stumbled on this interesting giftware shop/gallery that had many unusual Indian artworks on display.
The Indian baskets are thought very highly of. Some of the prices reflect that.
Indian hand woven rugs.
Indian jewelery made of Gaspeite.
The sign says "the best material comes from Australia"
Jewellery made of Spiny Oyster shell.
One of the many galleries around Sedona.
"Attack Monument"
I would love this in my garden.
Panoramic view.
The local swimming hole near Red Rock Crossing.
The locals have produced a landscape of balancing rocks.
The drive in to Sedona from the south.
Williams
Williams is another small and interesting town along Route 66. The streets are lined with old and interesting buildings. We arrived just on lunchtime and on the day the local car show was on. The aroma of BBQ chicken marinated in cattleman sauce was too much to ignore so we stopped for the afternoon.
There were many old cars parked around town.
Line up of the hot rods.
The old drive-in cafe tray. I can't remember seeing these in Australia but there is a chain in the USA that has a modern version of them.
This car caught my eye with the radiant red/crimson colour duco.
I haven't worked out what this trailer is yet. Maybe a portable kitchen.
One of the lovely locals in her 50's poker-dot dress posed for me.
The Grand Canyon
Heading for the Grand Canyon we found this area in the forest to spend the night. We have been having a little trouble living up to our name "The Boondockers" as we have found few free camps thus far. This is a parking area set aside for cross country skiers, snow mobile riders and dog sledders in the winter. Cool heh!
A Western Blue Bird kept an eye on us.
We decided to kick things off with a helicopter flight over the canyon.
Words cannot describe the immensity and awesomeness of the canyon.
The mighty Colorado River below.
I took many pictures on the flight but because we were flying 1 mile above the Colorado River and I was shooting behind the perspex window the pictures are a little disappointing.
The aqua colour Little Colorado River meets the Colorado.
Amazingly enough the walks around the canyon in this major area are not fenced.
We often walked over the edge to face a shear drop.
Look closely. There is a fenced lookout on the left.
The mandatory pic on the edge.
These series of pictures give you an idea of how deep the canyon is.
A girl poses on a rocky outcrop.
At first I thought she was a jumper. She inched close to the edge.
I zoom out a bit and she almost disappears.
Now she is difficult to see.
Zooming out she appears as a speck on the rock and we still cannot clearly see the bottom of the canyon.
This is a photographers paradise. I took hundreds of pictures so I will endeavour to only select the ones I think are worthy of the Blog.
Can you see the two of girls posing for pictures on the rock.
We went to the south rim at Mathers Point of the canyon. It is the deepest point and the most visited.
In the Visitors Centre a map shows the section of the canyon we visited .
We watched a documentary film of the first explorers who travelled down the Colorado River.
The film was show at the Imax theatre in Tusayan, a village just before the park entry.
John Powell led an expedition on 4 wooden boats in 1869 which was successful with the exception of the loss of 3 of his team members. It was an amazing journey that lasted 3 months and they endured many hardships including very rough white water rapids. The Imax visions of the rapids journey and flights over the canyon were awesome.
One of the original boats are displayed in the Visitors Centre.
One of the many squirrels and other critters we spotted around the clifftop.
"Just two steps back Chris!"
Plenty of tourists clambering for a view.
Chris getting into the scenic photography.
On the job with my trusty Nikon.
Panoramic view of the canyon.
I decided, against all my instincts, to get up early and photograph the sunrise over the canyon and of the Watchtower.
Inside the Watchtower.
View from the Watchtower window.
Its us again!
The Horned Devil.
Outside the eastern side of the park is Navajo Indian Nation land.
There are many stalls along the road selling the Navajo artwork
Sample of the jewellery for sale.
Very colourful sand painting.
Montezuma NP
Montezuma Well
The cliffs around Montezuma are the foundations of the cliff dwellings of the Sinagua people who occupied the area some 800 years ago.
Montezuma Castle cliff dwelling.
A truck tows a fifth wheeler which tows a trailer with the off road toys.
Cool Heh! We quite often see this type of "road train" setup.
The laws pertaining to motor vehicles in the USA seem to be quite relaxed. For instance when I purchased the truck and trailer they were awaiting registration from Montana. No problems just drive around unregistered without licence plates. I thought the police would stop me. I did have a piece of paper stating that the registrations were out of state.
No special drivers licence required to drive the biggest motorhome.
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