From Reservations to Red Rock

It isn’t everyday that you aren’t woken up to the sound of someone pushing a cart full of groceries and miscellaneous household items past your “bedroom” window, so we savored every moment of hotel life checking out a little late. The route we travled from Albuquerque to Arizona took us through the Acoma and Zuni Reservations. The Acoma land was beautiful, but we could not tour “Sky City” as there was a religious ceremony that shut down the reservation to tourists. Never-the-less, we were thankful for the opportunity to drive through their land, as the rock formations were captivating.

At the Zuni Reservation, we shopped from within the car, purchasing some fetishes (small animal figures carved from stone) from a Zuni tribesman. We now have several mascots, including S. Dot Masterson,  the skunk on whom all the odd sounds and smells are blamed (and if you know Jared, you know that skunk takes A LOT of heat!).

The Zunis are famous, at least locally, for the bread they bake in their outdoor stone ovens which are reminiscent of igloos. The owner of the bakery (which was really just a house with breads stacked on the kitchen counter) took us out back to show us the inside of the oven and explain the baking process to us. The oven can be used for more than just breads; the Thanksgiving Turkey is cooked inside of this clay structure as are soups, corn and pies. When cleaning the oven, a broom made of juniper branches is used explaining the sweet perfume I smelled when we crossed into the reservation. The bread itself is a little dry, but we enjoyed it with peanut butter and jelly one day and as garlic bread the next.

It was nearing sundown as we crossed the Arizona border via a small, empty highway.  The holes in the sign made me a little nervous about exactly the type of folk poised to welcome us:

Our destination was the Petrified National Forest, but we stopped in nearby Holbrook, AZ for the night as the park closed at 6pm.  The back of the Motel 6 seemed a perfect hiding spot for our quasicamper so we settled into sleep.  At about 5:00am a floodlight beamed through our window, but after thirty minutes of playing dead, the Holbrook officer left us in peace.

The northern section of the Petrified National Forest covers the Painted Desert.  Short hikes from various overlooks allows you to appreciate the colors up close.

More Petroglyphs, including Newspaper Rock:

The Petrified Forest is full of rock-sand hills and mesas littered with pieces of wood turned to stone. The wood is striking, but there are STRICT rules about taking bits of the wood. I believe it was the rules themselves and not the majestic beauty of the pieces that tempted Jared so. Still, when we were stopped on our way out, we honestly answered that we had taken none. Some pictures from a hike we took within the park:

Jared found a dragon:

After leaving the park, we managed to get into Flagstaff with some daylight left so we went searching for Sunset Crater National Monument. Both the GPS and our own eyes told us it was not far:

We figured out how to get onto this thing, but it turned out to be just another brightly colored pile of volcanic ash turned rock and not the monument for which we were looking. It did have value as a potential camping spot, so we saved the location and went to walk the streets of downtown Flagstaff.

The shops in Flagstaff cater to sportsmen and those looking for trendy, touristy items. It had the feeling of an Urban Outfitters meets REI. After walking a bit, we settled down for dinner at Alpine Pizza. While the wings and Pizza were delicious, the atmosphere at this established eatery was even better. Locals lock their personal steins into a cabinet near the bar and carving into the wood tables and walls in not only allowed, but expected.

The camping spot we had found earlier in the evening was occupied upon our return. With some persistence and patience, however, we managed to find the real Sunset Crater National Monument. All of the campgrounds were closed (still snowy in these parts), so we tucked in next to a “no overnight parking” sign and called it a night.  The heated and unlocked restrooms at the visitor's center provided sufficient amenities for us to clean up the following morning, and after doing so we drove through the park.  It looked as if the volcano had erputed the month before instead of hundreds of thousands of years ago.

From the craters we drove to Sedona which takes you through Cococino National Forest. A winding road descends through the forest, and we enjoyed a nice hike through the trees and cacti and along the Verde River.

Sedona itself has more tourists than you can shake a pointed stick at...and perhaps rightly so as it is beautiful!  The downtown area made for a nice walk, and we meandered in and out of shops housing mostly Native American pottery and jewely.  Finally, we drove to a Catholic Church set high upon the red rock.

One of the most anticipated stops on our trip was the national parks in northen Arizona and southern Utah, so after our time in Sedona we drove back through Flagstaff and to the Grand Canyon (finally!!)  We pulled into the park just in time to see the sun set against the implausibly steep walls of this natural wonder.

Luckily, we found an open site within Mather Campground which is situated in the middle of the park and managed to fall asleep; the excitement of the magnificient vistas and hikes ahead tempered the discomfort of our ever-sagging air mattress.