Arizona... part one

Reaching Arizona immediately put us in tourist mode, we were not 30 miles in before we made our first stop at the Petrified Forest National Park, turned out we were more into the "painted desert" part of the park than the whole petrified forest section. The petrified forest was pretty amazing but the painted desert and blue mesas were beautiful! Enjoy these pics...

The Painted Desert

Tina at the Painted Desert

The Blue Mesas

The Tepees

After leaving the forest our next stop was Winslow, Arizona so I could get my picture taken "Standing on the corner". Just in case someone still lives in a cave that is a line in the song "take it easy" by the Eagles, actually it was their first hit in 1970, and it has been Winslows claim to fame ever since. They have dedicated a corner to the Eagles and they call "Standing on a Corner Park", imagine that. Its consist of a statue of a "70's guy", two gift shops and outdoor speaker that perpetually play songs by the Eagles, sounds cheesy but we couldn't pass it up. Even Tina who made fun of me about the idea at first ended up wanting her picture taken on the "corner" after she saw how cool I looked.

"Standing on a Corner"

Tina "Standing on a Corner"

We made a little stop in Flagstaff to stock up on some food before heading up to the Grand Canyon, Flagstaff and northern Arizona wasn't what either of us were expecting, for some reason I always pictured Arizona as a desert, but thats not the case for the northern part of the state. Flagstaff was an awesome town engulfed by a forest of ponderosa pines, very mountainous and plenty of trees always makes for a beautiful place. Flagstaff was the 2100 mile mark of the trip and left us about 70 miles from the Grand Canyon. Its a beautiful drive up to the Canyon and it consist of some really high summits, the highest we have seen so far is 8046 feet, but we hit a 8000 footer and a lot of summits in the 7000s, old Charlie just poked along up every single one of them. Good for us some states out here took the notion to put a sign at the summit of most of the highest points letting you know the elevation and that you have reached the summit, its actually become a very pleasant sight to round the corner on some steep climb and see that beautiful green sign sitting there letting you know that its going to be downhill for awhile. I'm sure Charlie and the traffic behind us are just as glad that we've finally reached the top. I've decided to make two post out of Arizona, so that way the Grand Canyon will have its own post, because its going to take a whole post, Tina went a little crazy with the camera.

Just north of Flagstaff

Tina

Charlie