I went to bed too early, and neither Route 66 traffic to my right nor the trains to my left kept me from getting a sound night's sleep in my wigwam. I was up, packed, on the road, and at the visitor center for Petrified Forest National Park a half hour before the park opened. About a dozen other people were there, too.
The Painted Desert is part of Petrified Forest National Park. It looks a lot like Badlands National Park in South Dakota, just not quite as pretty.
The petrified wood, however, was more beautiful than I'd expected, the colors deeper and more varied. There is a huge amount of petrified wood in the park, but there used to be much more. Over a century of looting (they estimate that they still lose over a ton a month to theft) has robbed the park of most of the small pieces
It seems that admission to most national parks doubled this year. This one is now $10, so my passport has already saved me $3. I also found out that there is now a visitor center in the western part of Saguaro National Park, and somebody will probably be surprised this weekend when she finds out she'll have to pay $10 to visit it.
I entered from the north and exited to the south. There are two rock shops just south of the gate. There are signs everywhere that the petrified wood in the shops did not come from the national park. I had just joked with a girl who worked at one of them about people thinking that the petrified wood only existed within the boundaries of the park when a customer asked the owner how he got the wood out of the park. A minute later another customer asked the same thing, then sounded shocked when told that petrified wood existed outside the park.
These shops, in addition to carrying a huge assortment of petrified wood in many sizes and prices, also had geodes and other typical rock shop fare, including the brightly colored man-made waste glass so popular with tourists. They also had pressed penny machines, so I bought these and a small bag of tiny petrified wood fragments.
I didn't want to retrace my path, so I went southeast from the park before heading back southwest. I listed to Car Talk and Whad'Ya Know on the radio, just like a typical Saturday back home.
I missed Snowflake by taking this course, but I will live with that decision.
I had thought long and hard about visiting Arcosanti, but, in the end, it was just too far out of the way. This is the perpetually under construction community of tomorrow designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. The term "arcology" was coined by Arcosanti's designer for high-density self-contained environment-friendly dwellings. It is a not-uncommon term now in science fiction. Maybe I'll see it some day.
It was a beautiful day for driving, a bit cloudy but not overcast, with temperatures in the high 60s or low 70s. My scorpion sat on my dashboard, collecting solar energy in preparation for the night.
I saw another sign that said "Watch For Elk", but I didn't see any.
After Show Low (that's a town) I suddenly noticed that I was driving through forest, not desert. I'm not sure where this happened. I was climbing into the White Mountains on a beautiful winding road.
I saw a sign that said "Watch For Rocks", and I did see some, but not on the road.
This highway was marked with dots on my map, meaning it was a scenic route, and the map was right.
This was a fun drive across mountains. Two, actually, since we descended to a river, then went back over more mountains.
After Globe the road descended at a slow, steady rate, with smooth turns. For the most part I left the car in fourth gear with my foot off the gas and coasted at 55 to 60.
In Globe I saw some palm trees by a house. After Globe I descended into desert, real desert, with cacti!
I saw hillsides completely covered with saguaro. They look strange sticking up from the sides of hill. Some had no arms, most had three or four, but some had a dozen or more.
Some of the saguaro were blooming, but most were not. These had little fingers sticking out of the top and the tops of the arms with little white flowers on the end.
I also saw clumps of prickly pear (the flat cactus one sometimes finds at the grocery store in other parts of the country) and what I believe where cholla.
It was also hot now. Maybe not hot for this part of the country, but hot enough for me. I heard an ad on the radio for a Phoenix car dealership saying that any car purchased now would be free if the temperature on the fourth of July exceeded 116. I guess this is like the ads back in Illinois that offer the same deal if it snows on Christmas day.
I stopped at Biosphere 2, but I couldn't bring myself to part with over $10 just to visit the surrounding buildings. They don't let you in the actual biosphere. Maybe for $6-$8 I would have done it. I just bought a few (overpriced) postcards and took a picture of the sign.
I arrived in Tucson to find the town overrun with old people. I found out that the Senior Olympics are in town this weekend, bringing with them over ten thousand folks. "All the motels in town are booked solid", I was told. Luckily I'd been tipped off about the Lazy 8 Motel, "Tucson's Cleanest Budget Motel". It is cheap, clean, and has huge rooms. I paid a little extra to get a queen-sized bed and got a room facing the pool. The motel also has a washer and dryer, so I am restocking my clothing supply as I type this.
Tomorrow I will visit Saguaro National Park and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum after my free continental breakfast, and probably drive to Nogales for the night. But that could change.