17 May


We are now heading west back towards Arizona where we plan to be at Flagstaff by Memorial Weekend. (last weekend in May). We have diverted off the I40 (Route 66) and have camped at El Morro National Monument. As were sitting out having a read the wind blew a smallish snake out of a tree into our site. We were very wary of it and asked the man empting the rubbish tins what it was. He

confirmed it was a rattlesnake and very dangerous. The small ones are the worst as when they bite they release all their venom. (unlike the big ones). It eventually coiled up under our foot stool! We had planned to ride our bikes to the visitors centre to investigate what there was to see. The snake made the trip more important. The rangers were very helpful and phoned the bloke who captures snakes about a 45 minute drive away. He eventually arrived 2 hours later. When we arrived back at “Ernie” our unwanted visitor was on the move so I watched him the whole time waiting for the ranger to arrive. He confirmed that it was very dangerous and thanked us for reporting it (and tracking it) before picking it up with a snake stick (very long handled tongs) and putting it in a special bucket. He released about 50m away as they have to stay in the vicinity. The whole experience was not as frightening as we had thought but taught us to be vigilant.

18 May.

We packed our lunch and rode back to the visitors centre. El Morro is one of the oldest National Monuments (est. 1906). It is a huge sandstone rock outcrop rising 200ft above its surrounds. Its significant is that there is a pool of water at it base which never dries up. Around it’s base there are inscriptions which various visitors have engraved. Ancient graffiti really! The earliest are the native Indians around 1200 AD. Next were the Spanish explorers and missionaries in the 1500’s. Lastly were the American settlers going west around 1849. They all stop here because of the water. After viewing the inscriptions we climbed up the path to the top of the rock giving great views, where had lunch. There also a pueblo (native village) on top of the rock. All very fascinating!

19 May

We left El Morro and headed back up to the I40. Along the I40 we diverted into the Petrified Forest National Park. This involved a 28

mile drive thru the park. The first area was called the Painted Desert where the whole desert was shades of pink. Next we came to some conical land formations called the Tepees. The area was moonlike. The most spectacular area was the petrified forest. At first glance it looked like a huge area of forest which had been felled and cut up into logs for splitting. We followed a path and as you touched the logs we realized they had turned into rocks. Some of the rocks were exactly like the trees they had been, with bark and rings and others had turned into various colours (pinks and reds) and it had a crystalline look. This area was a tropical forest 200 million years ago and the land had risen and moved and is now desert. Somewhere in this period this petrified forest was formed. It was well worth the

diversion. The last part of the drive along the I40 was unpleasant as there was a strong cross wind combined with a huge number of trucks passing. We camped at another convenient state park just out of Winslow.

20 May

A short drive along the I40 to Winslow. After a shop at Wal-mart we headed to the visitors centre and the “corner”. Winslow was a railway town until it was made famous by the Eagles with their first hit “Take it Easy” (u tube www required). There is a “Standing on the Corner” park with a bronze statue and the

“flat bed Ford”. We could not stop grinning as we had our picture taken. It is a very clever use of the town’s new fame. There was also a beautiful hotel built by the Santa Fe Railway in 1929 which we walked thru. We found the McHood Park Reservoir just out of town and headed there for the night. Unfortunately a strong wind has been blowing for the last few days but we enjoyed a 3 mile walk around the reservoir with lots of wild life evident. (Jack Rabbits, Gophers, Squirrels and many colourful birds.

21 May

Our last short drive along the I40 (mostly the old Route 66) to Flagstaff. We headed up into the hills and are now at the beautiful Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. After selecting a nice site under the Ponderosa pines, we hopped on the bikes for a short ride to the Lenox Crater Rim and the Lava Flow

Trail. The walks around the Sunset Volcano area were very interesting. There are several small volcanic cones that were formed after the eruptions about 1000 years ago. The lava flow area was nothing like we have seen before, with pitted rock formations.

22 May

A very short drive back into Flagstaff and a shop up for the long weekend here. (Memorial Weekend). This marks the start of the holidays and everyone goes camping! The camp where we had chosen to pick up our mail unfortunately had their internet disabled. Bugger! And to top it off the mail we needed to register “Ernie” past June had not arrived. We ended up ringing the Florida registration people and a very nice lady organized to do the deal over the phone once she had a copy of our insurance certificate. We had this document in the computer but we had to walk to the nearest McDonalds to email it. More problems as the lady in Florida could not read it well enough. We eventually hopped on the bikes and rode to a UPS store and faxed it to her. Unfortunately we are 4 hours behind Florida but she was able to confirm that she got the fax and would process the registration in the morning. We rode on to the centre of old Flagstaff along Route 66. This is another railway town but now services a ski area with some nice bars etc. Back at the camp we had decided to try the steak restaurant at the RV Park, which advertised a musical review. What a

surprise, as it was all the Waiters & Waitresses who got up and did various songs from the shows.(Les Mis, West Side Story, My Fair Lady, Cats and many others, and even some Gilbert and Sullivan) They all had great voices and some of the choruses were very complicated and well staged. The steaks were great too. It was a fabulous night if not a little surprising in what appeared to be a cowboy bar/restaurant with about half the crowd being truckies.

23 May

We had decided to get on the road early to the Sedona region to ensure we had a camp site. (Memorial Weekend). Before we left the lady from the Florida registration outfit phoned and we completed our registration which we will pick up when we decide on a camp in a few weeks time. (Phew!!) The short drive down the steep canyon road into the Sedona region was great and we stopped at the first Coconino

National Forest camp we came to, Pines Flat. We got a nice site in the shade of some Ponderosa pines with the red cliffs of the Oak Creek Canyon all around. The camp quickly filled up and by the evening the full sign was up. There are now lots of family groups setting up camp. A bit like Show Weekend in ChCh. It gets dark here early and we were in bed by 9:30pm!

24 May

As it is Friday and the weekend will be busy, we decided to drive down thru Sedona (a yuppie town) and on to an area where we can do some hiking. The road has some of the first roundabouts in USA. There are special instructions on how to drive them. (You really have to be careful as no one indicates where they are going!) The red rocks are everywhere. The various formations rise above the valley for 100s of feet. Many of them are named but you need to have a good imagination to work some of them out. We stopped at “Bell

Rock” (very obvious) and set out for a great 6 mile walk around Courthouse Butte and Bell Rock. What a trail!!! We have worked out that there are two types of people when you visit these areas. There are the “car park people”. They get out of their cars, check their cellphone, take a picture and drive on. This is despite the fact that some of the walks are very short and on paths. The others (a very small group) actually go for a walk!

25 May

This was a stay at home day. We caught up on cleaning, vehicle checks and some outstanding jobs. I

fitted a new mains input plug (the old one was a bit stuffed). The camp is full with many families. We went for a couple of short walks around the camp and down the Oak Creek Canyon. The site has a nice mixture of shade and sun and we enjoyed a relaxing day reading and trying to organise our next few

weeks.

26 May

We set off for the only reasonable hike from this camp up the Cook-stove Trail. This was an 800ft vertical climb out of the canyon to the plateau (mesa) above. The camp host told us the best time he had heard of the climb was 26 minutes. We did in 24 minutes with three photo stops. We think the locals may be a bit soft! The views from the top were great and we could really appreciate the narrow canyon we were camped in. We put up the NZ flag to recognize Memorial Day.

27 May

A lazy morning watching the traffic going up and down the canyon. After an early lunch we ventured out for the short drive back up to Flagstaff where we are at an RV park. There is limited internet here but we have managed to accomplish most of the thinks we need to do including trying to book camp sites at the National Parks we are planning to see in the next few weeks.