Painted Desert to Canyon de Chelly AZ

Here is one of the stops explaining the geology of the Painted Desert on the road in the Petrified Forest National Park.

The colors of the desert changed all along the route as we travelled north.

Here is the adobe looking overview where once the Fred Harvey crew served 35 cent beers overlooking the Painted Desert. The flag was flying half mast today as we learned Senator Byrd had just passed. This perhaps was one of the sites the Santa Fe and Fred Harvey concessions visited during the era of the Indian Detours.

Inside the building is some if the Hopi art that still adorns the walls. Sadly the National Park Service does not serve any food these days.

Here is a photo of how the building was built first from the petrified trees and later, according to the story in the Park literature, the WPA or CCC groups of the 1930's covered the original work to look like standard local adobe. This is some of the exposed work on the side that faces west down below.

After a quick stop at the Hubbell Trading Post we stopped at the Thunderbird Lodge inside Canyon de Chelly National Park where we spent the night. Here, below the cottonwood trees in a refreshing morning breezed we shared coffee and stories with folks who were lining up to take the tours into the canyon. I chatted with the Dine' guides about the best ways to make the trip back to Phoenix for our Tuesday night commitment at Landmark Education and here we decided to drive the south rim and take a scenic drive through the reservation to Holbrook and then to Flagstaff on our way back to the Valley.