After a few days with little sleep and the 5am wakeup the day before, we decided that it was time to sleep in. We relaxed for a bit and had a comforting bowl of oatmeal, apples and brown sugar before heading out around 10am. As we were on a Navajo reservation, it made sense to at least take a look around. We made a quick stop at the local museum and browsed the outside exhibits. There were some fun writings and I enjoyed learning about the Navajo code talkers from WWII. As we left town we passed where we assumed the weekly flea market took place, but the whole area there was quite empty and so we simply moved on.
The next place up was supposed to be the Petrified Forest National Park, but right before we got there we came across a little town that just called for a quick stop/picture taking extravaganza. Of course, we dilly dallied in our decision making and had to make a quick uturn to go back. It was worth it. First place, the rock museum. This place had tons and tons of pieces of petrified wood along with the usual Indian arts. It also had some really pretty geodes. Oh yeah, and there were a bunch of blow up dinos out front. Sweet. Walking down the street brought a few more interesting photos, like a wigwam motel, before we decided it was time to move on.
**Edited... can't believe I forgot to mention the rootbear floats at the A&W next door to the rock shop. There normally $3 floats were only $1 that day! Sometimes we have good luck.
First thing we saw as we entered the park were two signs for free petrified wood. Of course Kat and I are always up for free stuff and so we headed in to check them out. They were mostly gift shops with a few old pieces hanging around. We had planned on trying to hit a tour at three which was half way through the park and so were told we needed to move fast if we wanted to make it. This was quite difficult as the views out our windows were amazing and the road was quite bumpy. We took as many non blurry pictures as we could and made it with seven minutes to spare.
It was a quick tour and a small one, just Kat, myself and the guide. The ruins were similar to those we saw at the grand canyon, but more intact and larger. Something new were the pretty awesome petroglyphs on the side of some of the rocks. There was a picture of a round face with large ears on the side that looked very much like Curious George. Weird. There were also some crazily symmetrical and exact geometric drawings for so many years ago. Sweet. Our tour of the park ended with us stopping at every view point of the painted desert before we realized it was time to go if we were going to get to Santa Fe at a reasonable hour. Next time we'll have to spend more time at the petrified wood part of the park which was only in the first part.
After a bajillion pictures of the moon we finally saw the lights of Albuquerque and then of Santa Fe. A pillow covered futon was there to greet us and Day 15 came to a close.
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