Albuquerque to Flagstaff

This was a day where the pictures tell a lot of the story.  I mean, how much can words add to a day when you see a Chevy on Stilts:

Paul Bunyan outside of a Vietnamese restaurant:

Cool roadside signage:

The continental divide:

(Honestly, not that impressive.  If not for the sign, we might not have known.  But it is a milepost in the journey.  I leave the river the basin I've spent most of my life for the west coast.)

Some new to me geology:

A giant Indian, and arrows:

Since Route 66 was decommissioned, there have been various efforts to preserve it in sections.  And since the route itself was altered a number of times in it's history, efforts to drive much of 66 can be met with much frustration.  Sometimes I-40 is where 66 used to be.  Sometimes 66 is a frontage road for I-40, even being marked with Historical 66 signs.  Follow that frontage road to long though, and you might get into a road closed/dead end, but see a decaying pavent reeling out in front of you.  Other times, a look at a map shows a road branching off from the interstate, and winding away from it, only to intersect it again later, leaving one to wonder, was that 66?  The myth of 66, what it means to some in this country, is longer and wider then the road ever was itself.  Part of the mystery of the road is compounded in the Historic 66 designation.  Historic by who?  The last years of 66?  66 itself was re-routed in small and big ways throughout it's history.  Trying to drive it today would be impossible, even with the aid of a library of maps and reference points.  There is some "americana" sights to see on it, including the "Tee-pee" on the border of NM and AZ.

Keep going westard, and you come to another national landmark.  A pair of them really.  The Painted Desert:

And the Petrified Forest:

There used to be a lot more petrified wood in the petrified forest.  People use to take it away by the cart load full.  Train car load full.  Can you imagine how much was lost?

These are two places, that like other grand national monuments, do not translate well into photos.  I would say though, like Carlsbad this is something worth seeing in a life time.  I know it may be hard, the era of family car vacations may be over.  Honestly, if we had not moved to California, I would not have taken the time so see these things either.  But honestly, they are worth seeing.

One more comment about 66 here:

This photo depicts where 66 used to run through the Petrified Forest national monument.  Notice what's missing?  All the road.  It might seem weird to some that I'll decry the lack of a man made structure in a natural monument, but I think it's weird that the decommissioning of 66 in this area meant completely obliterating any trace of the trail rather than saving what some consider a historical landmark.