Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Long drive then let the sightseeing begin, May 21-22, 2012

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With 430 miles to drive from Mojave, CA to Flagstaff, we were up early and on our way, early for us, 7:30 am.    Before long we were crossing into Arizona.

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Right around 3:30 pm we arrived at the Greer’s Pine Shadows RV Park on the east side of Flagstaff.  Amazingly both satellites connected, there was a small window amongst the tall pines.

This morning we drove about 5 miles to Walnut Canyon National Monument.  The only trail that takes you to see the ruins is down some 240 steps, but who is counting.  You know that 240 down mean 240 back up also. groan…  Also the altitude of 6800’ adds to that groan.

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We saw several areas similar to this, several rooms under the rock with small separate entry doors. 

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This is the area in 2007 that a large boulder tumbled down and smashed the railing and destroyed the steps.  Took the park about 10 months to remove the fallen boulder and stabilize the area.

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This Banana Yucca were blooming along the trail, then we read where each plant doesn’t always bloom every year.  Guess we caught this one on a lucky year.

Even though we did not see any petroglyphs today (they did say there were some further down in the canyon which is not open to the public), this symbol was on all of the park’s interpretative signs. 

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Tomorrow off to see Sunset Crater Volcano and Wupatki.

3 comments:

Paul and Marti Dahl said...

Nice to see you back doing what you do best, exploring amazing places.

Erin said...

We had just enough time to do Sunset Crater and Wupatki on our day trip to Flagstaff; I see we definitely need to go to Walnut Canyon next time.

Peter said...

Nice excursions! jealous, jealous, jealous! Watch out for snakes when you walk along those rocks. That's where they like to hide out.

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