Sandcreek Travel: Painted Desert/Petrified Forest 6/23/2014

Today Betsy painted all morning and then we took off for an afternoon and evening of exploring. Both of us have wanted to see the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest National Park and since it was only an hour away we hit the road.

I have to apologize to the Painted Desert for the above picture, since it really doesn't show the beauty of this area. If we set our camera on the higher quality setting it takes absolutely f-o-r-e-v-e-r to upload. I'm sure our buddy Larry, the photographer, would have a wonderful time getting the correct settings to depict all of the colors and hue's.

One of the main attractions for me is The Painted Desert Inn. This is another Harvey House (see earlier post regarding La Posada in Winslow), and it was redesigned in about 1940 by Mary Colter. I've read that travelers on Route 66 could see this building for many miles as they traveled along.

It must have been a welcome sight without air conditioning in the car. They could stop and get a cool drink, a decent meal, compare notes with other travelers, let the kids run off some energy, and just relax and take in the view.

We drove further on the park road and found a spot that celebrated old Route 66. We also learned that Painted Desert/Petrified Forest National Park is the only National Park that contains a portion of Route 66. At this point we found an old rusted out automobile. Here's

a picture of me and the old auto. Looks like both of us have been down the road a time or two. If you look to the left of the picture you'll see some telephone poles. Next to them would have been the roadway of Route 66.

Next stop was Gallup, NM to the east. We had to backtrack a few miles but what the heck. Gallup is the epicenter of Native American silversmithing. Many wholesale and retail shops. And it's another Route 66 town. We found a shop that we had visited several years ago, but it was closed for the day.
So we went to the biggest Native American jewelry store that I've ever seen. Whoa, baby! After that we headed east on Route 66 to an eatery called Earl's which has been in business since 1947, same year we were born. The neat thing, besides the fact that food's pretty good, is that Native American's are allowed to show you their creations while you eat. If you don't want to shop while you eat the staff will provide a sign for your table telling the salespeople not to stop. Betsy looked at everything, but didn't buy.

Our final stop, was the McKinley County Courthouse Plaza in Gallup where there are different Native American tribal dancers every weekday night. We were treated to songs and dances by Zuni's and it was entertaining. The Mistress of Ceremonies went through the crowd and ask where we were from. There were visitors from AZ, OK, TX, OR, MI, NM, and Germany and Italy!