Travels with Kris

So today wasn't good.  Started the day in the bathroom at the Speedway and stayed close to a bathroom all day.  I did a quick loop around Flagstaff to do my list items before the library opened and did a few historical looking buildings as well.  I got to the library at 10am and stayed until 12:30pm when decided to leave and just spend the rest of the day in my car laying down.  I didn't feel well.  Followed Route 66 until it turned into the expressway, then turned around and found a Walmart.  I crawled into the back of the car and spent most of the day there. Unfortunately, I had left the lights on and when I finally decided to make one last walk to the bathroom and find a place to crash for the night, my battery was dead.  I pulled out the instructions for my car jumper and it very clearly said it wouldn't work if it wasn't a full charge.  I'd already charged 2 lithium camera batteries and recharged a power supply and knew it wouldn't work....

Woke up with a minor headache (hangover cause I'm back to being a super lightweight again) and some motivation to contact temp agencies and apply for some seasonal jobs.  My first concern was my hair.  It was no longer short but it wasn't quite long and it didn't really behave in any manner.  I didn't want my potential employers to think I was related to Doc from Back to the Future, so I went and bought a couple of scarves to see if I could do anything to make it look less crazy.  Nope, didn't work.  So off to a hair salon and got a hair cut.  I looked very put together.  Spent the rest of the day visiting temp agencies and at the library putting in application but I don't really have high hopes.  This is a college town and I was told by my hairdresser that jobs were scarce.  I have plenty I want to do here, so I'll give it a week and I'll move on.  There are 4 National Monuments and the Grand Canyon near by along with an entire historic...

Woke up in Winslow after a night of listening the the chugachugachuga of the trains all night.  Jumped into the Flying J for use of the bathroom and discovered 'breakfast pizza'.  My mom made breakfast pizza but it was more like breakfast quiche.  They was traditional round and they had two flavor, sausage gravy and loaded omelet.  Instead of cheese they used gravy.  I was curious so I bought a piece of each.  Moms is better and I'm pretty sure this is the reason I woke up the following day with food poisoning. I headed towards the Crater Center about 20 minutes west of Winslow.  I'm already doing the Sunset Crater and that was free.  Crater Center was $18.00 and I wasn't sure it was worth it.  In the end I'm glad I did it, turns out Sunset Crater is a volcanic crater and not a meteor crater.  Crater Center had a lovely museum, guided tours out on the rim and an educational film.  It is also the best preserved meteor crater i...

Woke up on this lovely Wednesday morning and headed back over to the "Standing on the Corner" park to enjoy the Old Trails Museum across the street.  It closes at 3pm and I'd missed it the day before, but it was free and I decided to take look.  Winslow has a very interesting history, not only from the Native American, Harvey Girls and Route 66 connections, but because of the airport.  The airport was built by Charles Lindbergh and is the last of the airports he built that is still running.  Currently its a regional airport but the runway is long enough to handle jets and during World War II, the US Army Air Forces Air Transport Command used it as a refueling and repair shop. The museum had lots of old stuff, military, Native American, a few antiques from the original La  Route 66 Day 36 Nov 13, 2019, old high school year books and uniforms from the Harvey Girls and all kinds of things that come from the history of this little town.  After about an hour...

I woke up chilly in Holbrook, AZ.  This was obviously a big Route 66 town and the evidence was everywhere.  Some businesses survived and some were barely surviving and some were doing well.  I had to do a little backtracking on the expressway to jump off on a weird little exit with some tacky tourist shops, they were list items, so I felt obligated to go get photos.  The first one was The Painted Desert Indian Center, which sounds like a cultural experience with an outdated name, but in reality is a souvenir shop with a bunch of fake teepee's and dinosaurs out front.  The 12 year old in my head loved it.  Across the highway from this tacky tourist shop was another tacky tourist shop called Stewart's Rock Shop.  There was lots of advertising and an old school bus on the top of the hill next to him.  Signs offering opportunities to feed a ostrich (I highly recommend you don't pursue this) and an open sign in the window.  But the whole place fel...

Second day at the Petrified Forest National Park.  I decided to head to the southern entrance and start with the museum and some of the best petrified wood sites.  Got an early start but still took me the best part of an hour to get there.  Rainbow Forest Museum is the first step.  The museum contains more than just information about wood, it also contains a lot of information about the critters that roamed the area back in the Triassic Period.  There were a lot of crocodile looking things only much bigger.  And something that kind of resembled a baby rhino.  I wandered and read then headed out back for the start of the Giant Logs Trail.  This is a short walk with lots of hills and steps that my knees handled but didn't like.  Lots of examples of petrified wood.  Different colors, different shapes and sometimes full logs (although broken into pieces due to the weight of the previous dirt and water that was above them).  It was a...

Sunday morning, I hang out at the hotel until noon, because that's when check out is.  I try and get completely caught up on my computer work, but it doesn't happen.  Uploading photos takes forever.  But I get more done than if I'd left at 10am. I drive east on Route 66 until I see nothing of interest, then turn around and head west.  I didn't want to miss anything interesting and because I'd done that detour to get the El Morro NM and Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, it'd skipped the part of Route 66 from the Continental Divide to Gallop,  But I drive to the edge of Gallop, took more photos of old motels and headed towards Arizona. Route 66 gets really weird in Arizona.  It will merge with I-40 for a few miles, then be a stand alone next to it.  Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm on it or not.  Luckily my GPS has been sometimes helpful with this as it will state Route 66 next to I-40 when they are merged. I cross over into Arizona and I have a co...

I couldn't check into the hotel until 2pm, and I had come up with lots of ways to spend my morning.  Wander the Route 66 area, go to the library and work on my photo work, re-organize the car, etc.  I ended up sitting in the Walmart parking lot for hours watching NCIS and playing on my phone.  I kept thinking I would get productive in just a minute and just a minute lasted hours.  I did finally do my eyebrows, which were way overdo and do a basic job of reorganizing the front seat.  I still haven't found my buff, which I think is under or behind the front seat.  I was able to clear out a lot of trash and put things in a reasonable order....or at least a lot better than it had become. Got to the hotel around 2:30pm and got checked in.  I'm in the Kirk Douglas room.  It contains a king size bed, a murphy bed, a full kitchen in a built on extension and a patio that overlooks the pool (which is closed because its November).  Kirk Douglas...

Woke up to zero visibility again.  No rain the day before but the fog was back anyway.  Dawdled a little bit, but still hit the road fairly early.  I wanted to go to the Rex Museum in Gallop and its only open Monday-Friday.  As this was Friday, if I didn't make it before they closed, I'd miss it or I'd have to spend an extra 2 days in Gallop.  The Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary only does three tours a day, so I'd need to be strategic about it.  El Morro National Monument was the first thing on the list.  The major draw of this park is a giant sandstone mountain that contain both petroglyphs and names inscribed into the sandstone from people that passed this area over 100 years ago.  Some Spanish, some military some pioneers working their way to California.  If it was done today it would be considered graffiti, but because its over 100 years old, its a National Monument.  Honestly, some of the inscriptions were really beautifully carved into...

I set my alarm for 6am with the intention of getting an early start.  But at 6am, I see that I'm sitting in a bed of fog.  There is like 6 feet of visibility.  Nope, I roll over and go back to sleep.  Around 7:30am I start contemplating getting up and about anyway.  I'm not on a time schedule, and if my goal takes me a couple of days that fine.  I found out that there is public land and a free first-come-first-serve campsite where I'm going, so I don't need to be making great time.  But at the same time, laying around in bed waiting for the fog to pass is getting old.  So I figure, I'll head to the park and at least put myself in a position to take great photos the minute the fog clears.  Luckily, about half way to my first photo op, the fog started clearing.  It happened gradually but by the time I got to the Sandstone Bluffs, the fog was gone.  I took a nice little hike, which my knees didn't like, and got some fantastic photos....