okay as we've been in Arizona since sept. 7th, i guess i could actually put up some new pictures.... oh yeah, i also am including some of the rv for those of you who wanted to see it....

let's see.... i ended last time with the Manzano Mountains State Park in New Mexico. from there we went to NM's Red Rock State Park. that place was very interesting... it turns out they are not technically a state park at all... but they've referred to themselves as a state park for so long that New Mexico has finally given up trying to stop them.

on the drive to Red Rock, we stopped and spent the afternoon at the Petroglyph National Monument outside of Albuquerque which was really cool. i apparently was quite impressed and took lots of pictures so here's just a little sample....

from there we continued our drive to Red Rock which (quite appropriately) was surrounding by these beautiful red rocks that had some very nice trails going through them.... oh yeah, it was also right off Route 66... from the front, the one on the far right looks like a church, so they call it Church Rock.... personally, i think it more closely resembles a hound dog laying down with its paws up by its face.

marc and i took a nice hike up Pyramid Rock. here's a view of... well, nothing in particular as well as us on the peak. it was extremely windy and there were a whole lot of winged male ants on the rocks.. which i thought was weird since it was so high up but what do i know about ants?

Red Rock was right on the Arizona border and after staying there for 3 days, we finally made it to Arizona!

we decided to spend the first 2 weeks at the Homolovi Ruins State Park which is in the northeast area, a little west of the Petrified Forest. well, apparently we managed to not take any pictures of the ruins... but let me tell you, they were extremely interesting. there are 4 different sites built by the Anasazi before they joined the Hopi on their mesas to the north. for the most part, the ruins have not been excavated and still have many ancient pottery shards scattered throughout. to this day the Hopi still come down to the area for certain ceremonies. while there, we also took a trail to a cemetery of some of the first missionary settlers of the area. i found it interesting they settled the exact same area that the Native Americans abandoned several hundred years before.

but oh so much more importantly, marc and i passed our Homolovi Ruins junior ranger exam and both got a badge!

we spent 2 days exploring the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert. it is simply amazing to approach these "trees" only to see and feel that over many centuries and through a combination of all the elements, they have become rocks. there are so many of them - some are so huge and others so colorful... so totally awesome!

while at the Petrified Forest, we hiked through some Badlands.... so named for the extreme heat combined with extreme dryness and a lack of much vegetation. we hiked down from the road into this much lower area surrounded by these very high (and quite colorful) walls of sand and volcanic rock.

along it's northern border, the Petrified Forest passes through some of the Painted Desert. it's interesting that this one particular area is was is commonly known as "The Painted Desert" when the whole thing actually spans across a large part of northern Arizona.

west of Homolovi Ruins is Meteor Crater - a huge meteor crash site. NASA used it for a time to simulate the surface of the moon. it was pretty interesting but privately owned so also fairly commercialized. the only hike you could take was a short guided rim hike and, generally, we're much more fond of just wandering off by ourselves...

in their museum, they had this rather silly display where you could take a picture that looked like you were at the bottom of the crater... hmmm.... of course, marc and i had to pose for that.

well i'm going to continue this on another page as i still have a few weeks of pictures to go.....