Setting up the tent in the dark might not be my favorite thing to do, but I do love waking up to brand new scenery in the morning! What a view we had!
Day Three
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
I had read that we needed to arrive early at our next stop in order to get a parking spot, because once all of the lots filled, they did not let anyone in until someone else came out. We arrived at the gate at 7:15 and we were the second in line. When the park finally opened at 8:00, we had a long string of cars lined up behind us. We were going to hike in Kasha-Katue Tent Rocks National Monument!
Kasha-Katue Tent Rocks National Monument
This park is beautiful! We hiked the Slot Canyon Trail, which is a 3-mile round trip hike among the tent rock hoodoos and a short slot canyon. I don’t have any notable stories to tell about the hike itself, but even though the slot canyon portion of the hike was short-lived, we were hooked and wanted to hike in more slot canyons!
There is something magical about winding around through a tiny path that is sometimes only wide enough for one foot, with walls of swirling sandstone towering high above you. It reminded me of walking through a dry cave, only it’s above ground instead of below…like a cave with skylights! Ha!
After the slot canyon section, you have to scoot under a giant boulder leaning against the canyon wall and then the landscape opens up. The pointed rock formations are so other-worldly that you can’t help but want to look up at them instead of watching where you walk! I took so many photos on this hike.
The hike to the top was challenging. There’s about 750ft of elevation gain over the course of 1.4 miles, but it felt like most of that happened in the last half mile or so from the top. As far as payoffs go, though, the view was well worth the effort it took to get there! When I took a look at the map for this trail, I realized that the hoodoos featured behind us were the ones we saw on the trail. You can’t see the trail from above, so I don’t think we knew that at the time.
Side note: I was curious as to why some of my photos had such deep blue sky and found out that it can happen in places that are dry with very clean, clear air. There is no dust or moisture in the air to deflect the light so you get this deep, dark blue. It made sense since this was in the desert and we were far from civilization. There was nothing out there to kick up dust and pollute the air.
The trail is an out and back trail so we were able to have another look at the slot canyon on our way out. I’m so glad we were able to visit Kasha-Katue Tent Rocks and hike the Slot Canyon Trail when we did because the park has now been closed since 2020. From my understanding of the situation, they closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but have not reopened due to the need for infrastructure improvements to accommodate the increase in traffic they had been seeing before the pandemic. Hopefully, they can figure out a solution that will allow the park to be open again.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
We ate our lunch on the way to Albuquerque, where we stopped at another Bricks and Minifigs store like the one we had visited in Salt Lake City the year before. While Joey and I were digging for parts, Megan found a map of Albuquerque and located a Route 66 stop she had read about when we were researching our trip. Supposedly, they had the best milkshakes in town.
We’d have to agree! The 66 Diner is an adorable little diner located on Route 66 in Albuquerque. The menu included several varieties of milkshakes…too many choices! We all chose Tutti Frutti, which included strawberry ice cream, pineapple, banana, and a bit of orange juice. I’m inclined to say that was the best milkshake I’ve ever had, but then again it was hot outside. Apparently, we happened to be there for “happy hour” so the milkshakes were half price. Score!
Musical Highway
On the way out, we asked one of the waitresses how to find the musical highway in Tijeras, NM. It’s a section of road that “plays music” as you drive and this particular one plays “America the Beautiful.” I had to do it twice to get it right. It’s a lot harder than it looks! You have to hug the white line without going over it, while driving exactly 45 mph. We had a lot of fun with it for the 30 seconds it lasted. Joey got a great sound recording for us! Apparently, it was made as an experiment to see if folks would obey traffic signs if there was a reward in it for them. I tried to find the coordinates to share where exactly to find it, but apparently, it’s been mostly paved over and the signs have been removed. That’s a bummer because it was a neat attraction on Route 66!
After our shenanigans with music-making, it was time to hit the road! We had a three hour drive ahead of us. I40 across New Mexico was nothing like I thought it would be. I had pictured a situation where you needed to top off the tank before leaving Albuquerque and then miles of vast areas of sand and sagebrush. There was some of that, but every exit had a gas station and convenience store and there were small towns and rolling hills of sagebrush all the way across the state. It really wasn’t a bad drive at all. We decided we’d like to see more of New Mexico someday. We left the Land of Enchantment and entered Arizona, state number 28 for the kids.
What Time Is It In Arizona?
Time is very tricky in Arizona. The state is in Mountain Time, but they do not observe Daylight Savings Time so it is Mountain Standard Time there. The Navajo Nation does observe Daylight Savings Time and you drive in and out of areas that are Navajo land, so it’s very difficult to know what time is what. Joey made us this meme along the way.
Petrified Forest National Park
I assumed the Painted Desert Visitor Center at Petrified Forest National Park would be closed when we arrived and that maybe we could still drive through the park. Luckily for us, the visitor center was open until 6pm and the ranger told us we could still enter the park. We could drive the loop road as far as we could until 6pm and then turn around and come back. He said two rangers drive to the middle of the park and sweep people toward the exits so we’d have about an hour until they got to us. He thought we could probably do the entire painted desert section, so we took his advice and stopped at all the overlooks.
We visited at the perfect time of day! We had the place mostly to ourselves. The light was beautiful and the colors really popped. My photos don’t do it justice. It’s really hard to capture the essence of such a vast place.
We went as far as the Route 66 marker, just before you pass I40 into the Petrified Forest section. We hadn’t met the ranger sweeping our end of the park yet, but I wanted to take a quick walk on a trail, rather than have to drive straight out as soon as we found the ranger. We turned around and made our way back out the way we came. I’d love to go back again to visit the Petrified Forest side of the park.
Meet Karl
I should also mention that the Painted Desert is where Karl, the kangaroo rat, joined our journey. Megan spotted him in the visitor center gift shop and had to have him. She had seen him the year before in the gift shop at Rocky Mountain National Park and thought he’d be at all the national parks. She decided to wait to get him in case she liked something else more…and then we never saw another one until we arrived at the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest. Needless to say, it was again, love at first sight and this time he came home with us. Karl now goes along on all of our road trips.
Holbrook, Arizona
Our next stop was a short drive away in Holbrook, AZ. I wanted to see the Wigwam Motel on Route 66! We spotted a rock shop that was open along the way, so we stopped there to look around and found a cute older lady running the shop. She told us how the petrified wood in her shop was all over on her family’s farmland and that was how the shop had started. Now when farmers want to get rid of rocks, they call and her family goes out to pick them up and haul them away. Apparently, the farmers need them removed to keep the cattle from stepping on them and getting injured. We had a nice chat with her, but didn’t find any rocks we couldn’t live without.
We found the Wigwam Motel down the road a bit and around a corner. It was really cool to see the Wigwams and the vintage cars around the parking lot. When I was researching the trip, I had thought about staying there, but after seeing it in person, I think it’s ok that we didn’t stay overnight. The neon was cool to see all lit up against the pastel sky.
Dark But Not Late
With daylight quickly slipping away, we hopped back on I40 for another short drive to Homolovi State Park near Winslow, AZ. We had gained an hour driving into Arizona, but their sunset happens at 7:30 instead of after 9pm like at home. I still don’t know how it was possible to gain an hour at the border while losing an hour and a half of daylight.
As it appears to be our theme for this trip, we arrived after sunset and set up by the light of the headlights. It really wasn’t all that dark with Winslow over the hill from the campground, plus the moon was shining brightly above us. Since it was still early evening in our minds, and we needed a bite to eat, we decided to make a Walmart run for sandwich fixings.
As we headed back to the campground with our supplies, I debated if I should just stop for fast food so we could eat it on the way. I decided smoked pork and provolone sandwiches really did sound good and would be cheaper anyway. We went back to our campsite and proceeded to make and eat sandwiches in the truck. We weren’t far from the bath house so when we were done, we walked up the road to use the facilities, admiring how dark it was and how we could see so many stars on the way back.
No Keys!
That was where our pleasant day took a wrong turn. We reached the truck and I patted my pockets for my keys. Nothing…no keys in any pockets! I had a moment of dread when I realized I left the keys in the ignition. Being the quiet and polite campers that we are, I had locked the door with the door switch, rather than using the key fob, which honks the truck as you lock it. When we were eating earlier, I had pulled the key out of the ignition just far enough so it would quit dinging and never gave it another thought when I got out. We were locked out of the truck at 10pm…in a campground in the boonies.
We had seen a few campers with lights on when we came back from Winslow so we decided to walk to the campground host to see if they were still awake. No lights. I didn’t want to knock on the doors of any other rvs with lights on so we went back to the truck to figure out what to do. Thankfully, I always keep my phone in my pocket. We had strong LTE service, so I googled State Farm Roadside Assistance, found the number, and called. The nice lady who answered assured me she would have someone out shortly and that I would receive a text when they were on the way.
Waiting
Unfortunately, the closest roadside assistance person was in Flagstaff, which was an hour away. I don’t think he was real happy to come out that night, but luckily he was on his way. We waited in our tent and watched a couple videos on the phone, hoping to make the time go faster. So much for thinking we would be in bed by 10pm.
It had been an hour since he called, so we decided to go out and put up the rainfly while we waited. I don’t remember why we thought we needed the rainfly in the desert, but it gave us something to do for five minutes. We also downloaded an app that could tell us what stars we were looking at when the phone was pointed at them. It’s amazing what you can see in the night sky!
Finally, at about 12:15am, we were all sitting on top of the picnic table and saw headlights coming up the campground road. Help had arrived! It took the guy about five minutes to unlock the truck and another ten to take down all the information he needed. I offered him a can of pop and some cookies for the road, but he turned them down and went on his way. Finally, we were able to get to our stuff! What a day…and night!
But Wait, There’s More!
When we crawled into the tent with all our stuff, there was a little spider hanging down from the middle on a string of web! Aaack!!
It was pushing 1:00am by the time we went to sleep.
Looking Back
I debated if we should just go to bed and get up early to call, but I am glad I did not wait until morning. Not having access to the truck overnight meant that if anything happened, we could not leave. It also meant waiting around in the hot morning sun with no water or food. I pay for 24/7 roadside assistance, so I felt that the best option was to use it right away that night. I went to bed knowing that all was well again and our next day could start fresh.
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