Tom and Kristen's Great RV Adventure: Oct 5 – Oct 12

Bye bye Los Angeles, we’re back on the road again!

We need to be in Albuquerque in 1 week and have no firm schedule between now and then. This is so wonderful, and totally liberating. This part of the trip has been the perfect combination of serendipity, local color, random scenery, Americana, and cultural history.

The rig looks great and we are very happy to be back in our little house.

One of the goals of this trip is to travel some sections of old Route 66. We well create a separate post on some of the funky sites and our thoughts on that route.

The scenery through the deserts just knocks our socks off. From an artist's perspective, the shapes and colors are just breathtaking. The number of pictures from the passenger seat out the front windshield while driving down the road, is embarrassing.

This patch of catcus was fun. We only saw them for about 25 miles, then never again.

Staying on Old Rout 66 and off the highways allows us the freedom to stop any time, take pictures, climb a hill, turn down a random road, or stroll through a little town.

Oatman, AZ.

Our first ‘must see’ takes is Oatman, Arizona. Oatman is an old (you guessed it) gold mining town. The town was named in the posthumous honor of Olive Oatman, a young pioneer girl kidnapped by Indians in 1851 and eventually released in 1856 at Fort Yuma.

The Oatman Hotel is the oldest two story adobe structure in Mohave County. It was a honeymoon stop for Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. Gable returned to the area frequently to gamble with the miners.

Gold mining ended, and the town developed a brisk tourist business with Route 66 passing right through the center of town. When new highways were constructed, bypassing the town, Oatman was all but abandoned by the 1960’s.

The winding Route 66 entering and exiting Oatman now makes the town a favorite stop for bikers. There were many in town when we were there.

Oatman has recently undergone a tourism renaissance. It’s most famous attractions are the wild burros, descendants from pack animals turned loose by early prospectors.

There is a bar in town with ceilings, walls and doors totally slathered in dollar bills

There is an annual sidewalk Fried Egg contest. Oatman is quirky and fun. It doesn’t take itself too seriously!

The most prominent house in town.

Sedona

Working our way across Arizona, we were close to Sedona, so we decided to drop in for a day. We love Sedona and thoroughly enjoyed our day in one of the most beautiful places on earth. Driving down into the canyon, we were thrilled with the glorious blue sky day.

The red/orange sandstone rocks shoot up from the forested valley floor.

The earliest human presence in Sedona dates to 11,500 BC, probably drawn to the area for the abundant resources and ecological diversity. The Yavapai and Apache tribes were forcible removed from the area in 1876.

We take a Pink Jeep tour deeper into the canyons where we can't drive ourselves.

This cactus is 25 years old. It blooms once in it's life, and dies thereafter.

A bonus for Kris – the annual Sedona Art festival was under way the very day we were there. That was a special treat. The mountains and canyons are also a work of art.

As we left town, there was a MASSIVE traffic jam coming in. We were getting out of dodge just in time. We overnighted in a National Forest Service 'dispersed camping' site ... a couple miles in on a dirt fire road. It was sooooo quiet.

What's not to love in Sedona?

Wupatki National Monument

This is one of those wonderful “we didn’t know about it in advance, and we have enough time to tuck it into the journey” stops.

Rich in Native American ruins, with 29 structures, Wupatki was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.

The area was first inhabited around 500 AD by the ancient pueblo people. The ruins (homes) are scattered along the edges of a box canyon - a natural fissure that collects water and contains fertile soil for crops, primarily corn, squash and beans.

These ruins look just as they did in the 1800's when they were first discovered

The “Tall House” is a multistory pueblo comprising over 100 rooms. The walls were constructed from thin, flat rocks and held together with mortar.

A major population influx began soon after the eruption of Sunset Crater around 1085 which blanketed the area with volcanic ash, improving the agricultural productivity. A depiction of what the tall house looked like 'back in the day'.

The citadel (modern name), built in the late 1100's is a remarkable achievement for it's construction on a high hard to get to hill. Theories as to the location selection include defense, breeze, or the view.

Broom snakeweed - many medicinal uses. This stuff is all over the place, in full bloom.

The area was abandoned in the mid 1200's for unknown reason(s).

Sunset Crater National Monument

This monument, established in 1930, preserves a dramatic cinder cone volcano and lava flows from an eruption around 1085.

Lava flows, fissures and spatter ramparts extend for about 10 miles from the center of the eruption.

This volcano is one of many (all now extinct) in the area.

The fragile beds of cinder are closed to hiking due to the damage caused by foot traffic. These piles of cinders are fissures and vents associated with the volcano complex.

Walnut Canyon

We didn’t get here until later in the day, so we worked hard to get down and back up the 1 mile, 240 stair steps (each way) required to tour through the site.

The cliff dwellings, built into natural shelves, alcoves and overhangs near the top of a 600 foot deep canyon, were inhabited by a pre-Columbian group around 700 years ago.

Residents farmed the top of the plateau, collected water from the canyon floor, and built homes into the cliffs.

The interior and exterior walls were plastered to keep moisture out. The floors were leveled up using clay. Small rooms were used for storage including up to 100 days supply of water, kept in clay pots.

Hopis built their houses close to each other to remind them that they are supposed to love each other. When a man decided to build a house, he gathered the materials provided by nature and drew from his reserve of good will among his family clan and friends, acquired from his own participation in such cooperative projects.
It is not known why the residents left the area.

During tha late 1800's, souvenir hunting visitors came with shovels, removing items including pottery, crop residues, cloth, sandles, measuring sticks, bone needles and fish line. Local residents were outraged by the looting and lobbied for federal protection. The site achieved National Monument status in 1915.

Each ‘room’ is the dwelling of a family, with spaces for cooking and sleeping. The rooms are about 10’ x 20’ (more space than the interior of our motor home!).

Pictured below, the canyon walls have numerous patches of ‘crossbedding’ in the sandstone. Crossbedding is stratum layering at angles to the main bedding plane, creating sets and groups of inclined layers.

Painted Desert Petrified Forest

We had the time, so we ducked into Painted Desert. This and Petrified Forest combine to make one single national park. We've seen Petrified forest several times, so this time we concentrated on Painted Desert ,,, another dream location of shapes and color.

Painted desert was named in 1540 by an expedition under the Spanish conquistador Francisco Coranado.

The desert is composed of stratified layers of easily erodible siltstone, mudstone and shale. The colors come from imbedded pigments, primarily manganese and iron. During deposition, drier climates allow the minerals to be exposed to oxygen, rusting the iron thereby creating red, brown and orange colors. Wetter climates 'drown' the sediments, allowing little or no contact with oxygen, causing the layers to be blue, gray and purple.

The desert has very hot summers (record high 110 degrees) and cold (record low -15) dry winters. Average annual precipitation is a meager 4 inches.

The Painted Desert Inn is a structure built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the late 1930's in the Pueblo Revival Style. The building is a National Hiostoric Landmark, now serving as a museum and bookstore.

Interior murals were painted by native artist Fred Kabotie in the 1940's, depicting Hopi life.

The Painted Desert Inn was part of the Fred Harvey hotels. Fred Harvey established hotels across the Southwest that offered consistently high quality accommodations, service, tours, and authentic native American souvenirs. Because he had problems with the accountability of male employees, he only hired women. He provided train transportation, room and board, and fair wage.

Petroglyphs ('Whispers from the Past') seen in Painted Desert include this mountain lion, discovered in 1934

and Newspaper Rock. The complex of rocks known as Newspaper Rock, has more than 650 images carved into it. The images were carved by Puebloan people who lived here between 650 and 2000 years ago. Modern groups interpret petroglyph themes to include family or clan symbols, territorial boundaries, important events, ceremonial and agricultural calendars, and spiritual meanings.

We are loving Arizona scenery and sites.

Moving into New Mexico, we have time to see Acoma Pueblo before settling into Albequerque for a few days.

Acoma Pueblo

We were excited to visit this pueblo because we have numerous Acoma pottery pieces and it was great to see where they were born. The pueblo is strategically placed on top of the world.

The Acoma have occupied this general area for more than 2000 years, and in this exact Pueblo location for 800 years, making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the United States.

A number of the Pueblo homes are hundreds of years old.

In 1540, the village was visited by Coronado’s expedition. In the late 1590’s Spanish soldiers breached the Pueblo, killing 800 people (13% of the Acoma population at that time) and destroying many of the Adobe structures. The Spanish then amputated the right foot of every man over 25 years old and forced them into slavery for 20 years.

There was high mortality from smallpox and other infectious diseases. The Acoma were forced to adopt Catholicism, but secretly practiced their traditional religion. Today they openly practice both religions.

Between 1629 and 1641 the Acoma were forced to build the 6000 square foot church, moving 20,000 tons of adobe, straw, sandstone and mud. Ponderosa pine was brought in from other 40 mile away. The Acoma know their ancestors’ hands built the structure, so today, they consider it a cultural treasure. No photography is allowed near or in the church. This is the only picture we could get ... and it was legal! There are also no postcards of the church available.

Today, there are about 300 adobe buildings in the pueblo. There are about 30 permanent residents living on the mesa. There is no electricity, water, or sewage disposal.

A traditional wooden ladder leads to the second story entrance of a Kiva, a religious contemplation chamber.

The accompanied tour takes us past the homes of people who make and sell handcrafted items

Kris bought a small pottery owl (1.5" tall) from an older woman who reported that she had made the owl years ago. Upon arriving home, Kris put the owl on a shelf with others she had previously purchased. Lo and behold, the new owl sits beside another made by the same person! How fun.