Trying to get to Arches...

We are still sitting on the top of the cliff at Goosenecks State Park. This is night 6 and it has been snowing all evening. Our plan was to leave here yesterday and head the last 125 miles to Arches National Park for 2 months of camp-hosting. Because of all the snow there is no way that we can get into the park so we sit and wait to get the all clear.

After leaving Lake Havasu City our tour directors, Robbie and Alice, had us going to Flagstaff Arizona for 2 days of cleaning up the rigs and doing final shopping before going to Utah.

We arrived there only to find the park full of snow and mud so decided to continue east another 50 miles and stop at Winslow Arizona. We did all our laundry, the four of us went out to dinner and just had to take some time out to "Stand on the corner of Winslow Arizona" (remember the song?). Let us tell you this is the best that Winslow has to offer and it aint much.

We left Winslow and headed to Petrified Forest National Park where we found a place to camp right next to the fence of the park at a free campsite (we like free). The four of us set up camp and headed into the park to check out the history of the area and see all that petrified wood just lying every where you looked.

We walked part of the park and Dick wished he could fill a bucket, but you can't pick up and take any of the pieces. Dick did find an area outside of the park and ended up with 38 pounds of petrified wood that filled a 5 gallon bucket. Just more rocks to pack around.

The colors varied from red to blue to yellow; wow what a sight. The shops outside of the park sold large polished pieces for up to $10,000. We did purchase a small piece at the gift shop to put in the rig. (And Dick will tumble some of the ones he picked up and hopefully make jewelry out of them.)

On another hike several miles away we found pieces lying everywhere.

The next morning we hitched up and drove through the park and then the Painted Desert.

This guy was looking for a handout but got nothing from us except this "shot".

We continued to Chinle Arizona on the Navajo Reservation where we again camped at a free site on the Canyon de Chelly National Monument. After setting up we took a tour of the south rim, and let us tell you it was quite a sight.

We will just share a few pictures with you here and hope you can appreciate what we saw.

All up and down the canyon floor you can see small farms with the only means of access by jeep up the river flats.

The walls of the canyon are full of ancient dwellings built into the cracks on the walls. If you look close at the horizontal crack in this wall you can see old dwellings from hundreds of years ago.

Here is a shot of one of the small farms on the canyon floor.

Before we pulled out the next day we took a short ride up the north rim and got a few more pictures. No sun today so it was really cold standing on the edge in the wind.

To be continued...