Petrified Forest National Park

We loved going through the Petrifed Forest.  Its right off of I-40 before you get to Holbrooke.  The Painted desert is on the north side of the freeway and the Petrified Forest is on the south side of the freeway.   Everywhere you look you see beautiful giant pieces of colorful "wood".  It was a whole forest of trees that were buried by a flood and over the eons the wood was replaced by minerals.  All kinds of colorful minerals are in these specimens.  The wood looks like someone came with a chainsaw and cut it up into smaller pieces but it actually broke up naturally and just looks like its been sawed.
We stopped at DoBell Ranch which is next door to the park.  The ranch is privately owned and is full of petrified wood that you can buy for 30 cents a pound.  The national park doesn't allow any collecting so your only choices are to buy it from sellars in town or out at this ranch.  You are welcome at the ranch to go out and pick your own or pick from their piles.  They have a great museum and the granddaughter of the original ranch owner showed us around and was very nice.  There were small pieces of petrified wood everywhere you walked and she kept saying to fill our pockets.  We found a very nice piece (not too big) that we kept as well as a small dinosaur bone and some other free samples of beautiful rocks. 

We left Prescott Valley and stayed in Quartzsite a few days and are now at the refuge for the winter. 

Painted Desert

We left Las Vegas, NM and went through Albuquerque just after the balloon festival so we missed seeing all of the beautiful balloons in the air.  Our next stop was Gallup, NM.  Gallup is one of those cute little Route 66 towns.  Lots and lots of Native American jewelry, art, rugs, etc.  Every shop was full of beautiful stuff.  New Mexico has a law that they have to say in the store if its authentic native american made so if it doesn't say then its not.  What they don't protect you from is whether the stones in the jewelry are genuine turquoise or not so you want to go to reputable stores and if the price is too good to be true then its suspect. 

Our next stop was the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park.  Its two parks in one.  The northern part of the park is the Painted Desert.  It has fabulous vistas of multicolored rock.  It reminded us of the Badlands in South Dakota.  You can actually drive your RV through the park and most of the pullouts for picture taking are big enough for RV's.  Most people drove their rig through but we chose to park the RV in Holbrooke, AZ and drive through with the truck.

We are now sitting in Prescott, AZ enjoying some nice mountain views and enjoying mid 70 degree temps.  

Colorado Springs

We spent a few days in Colorado Springs after quickly going through Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.  We found an old but nice campground east of the city.  We had somewhat of a view of Pikes Peak but there where too many power lines in the way to get any nice pictures of the peak.  We took a ride on the Cog Railway up to the top of the peak.  It was a beautiful day and we go some nice pictures.  We sat across from an elderly couple that were celebrating their honeymoon.  They were a very cute couple.

We also drove through the Garden of the Gods.  The rock formations there are incredible.  I think this one is called "kissing camels".   We spent one of our days in Colorado Springs getting new tires on the truck and found out that the batteries needed replacing as well.   We hit the road again and now are a little north of Santa Fe in a little town called Las Vegas, New Mexico.  We've got two more weeks of traveling before we get to the refuge where we will be parked for the winter. 

Wild River State Park

We hightailed out of Northern Lights Resort -- afraid it was going to snow on us before we got out.  We got out just in time because it did snow up there a few days after we left.  We stayed a couple of nights at Pleasureland RV --- the dealer where we bought our RV.  We had them put another clear coat finish on the exterior of the RV to keep it easy to clean -- and nice and shiny.  Our next major purchase will be new tires for the truck.  The truck has close to 70,000 miles on it -- its just getting broke in -- but with all the driving we've done on gravel roads, etc.  its time for new tires.

We then moved over to Wild River State Park and got one of the last spots available.  I forgot how much Minnesotans like to camp in October to see the changing leaves.  They were beautiful at the park.  We enjoyed seeing beautiful fall colors the whole drive down from the resort.  We were hoping to get to the Black Hills but with the cold weather we are trying to get south faster.  We are stopping in Des Moines and then on to Nebraska and from there maybe Kansas and/or Colorado.