Saturday, April 13, 2013

The Painted Desert and More!

Back in 1973 I was on a flight from LA to Chicago with a coworker.  The plane was an L-1011 on an airline whose name I cannot remember.  In the rear of the plane was a stand up bar with a “Stewardess” serving drinks.  This was also in the days when you could smoke on airplanes.  Shortly after we leveled off, the bar opened and my coworker and I went back for a drink and a smoke.  Looking out the window we saw a colorful desert area.  The Stewardess informed us that was the Painted Desert.  For some reason this memory all came back to me on Thursday as we toured the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest National Park.  The north park entrance is on I-40 about 15 miles east of our current location in Holbrook, AZ.  After checking out the gift shop and the Park Visitor Center, we enter the park.  To the north is the Painted Desert.  I guess it goes on for miles from this point, but here is what it looked like from several of the viewing points along the road.  (You can always see photos in full size by double clicking on the picture)

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Continuing along the road in the park we found a lot of petrified trees.  There are literal forests of petrified trees.  None of them are standing of course, but there were a few “stumps” sticking out of the ground.  Here area some samples:

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                                                                                         School Children on a class field trip.

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This is what we we see every time we leave the pooches in the truck.

After a couple of hours in the park we exited at the south entrance and drove back to Holbrook.  I had noticed an old motel on the main drag the day before and wanted to get some pictures.  After driving up and parking I could see the motel was no longer in operation, but had been left as a kind of period piece with vintage American cars parked in front of the teepees.

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The two tone turquoise 1956 Buick brought back memories.  I bought a car like that for $75 back in 1968.  Occasionally, it would flood out on Figueroa Blvd. in downtown LA when we were on our way to work  and we would end up pushing it off to the side of the street until it was no longer “flooded” and it would start again.

My final shot for the day is this sunset on Thursday evening:

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Thanks for stopping by!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Enjoyed reading about travels and looking at your pictures. We are considering full timing in the future. We're getting info now by reading blogs.

owensontheroad said...

Love the pictures of the old hotel teepees and cars. We will get to that painted desert someday!