May 29 – 31, 2016: After Petrified Forest National Park we headed north in Arizona to Canyon de Chelly National Monument. The canyons within the monument have been home to people for nearly 5,000 years and, even today, some Navajo people call this home; many families still live, farm, and raise livestock within the canyons.
May 27 – 29, 2016: Petrified Forest National Park, like the rest of our planet, has been shaped by erosion.
May 25 – 27, 2016: We departed Sedona for Flagstaff, Arizona and drove over some very beautiful and mountainous terrain.
May 22 – 25, 2016: Our first day in the Verde Valley area of Arizona kicked off with a drive up a mountain to the quaint town of Jerome.
May 20 – 22, 2016: We departed Tucson in the evening for the short drive to Phoenix. After stopping mid-way for fuel, Camper Dan wouldn’t start back up. He just wanted to sit right where he was, at the fuel pump of a gas station off Interstate I-10.
May 17 – 20, 2016: Saguaro National Park was formed to protect the giant saguaro cacti. Saguaro cacti are thought to be symbol of the southwest although saguaro cacti are actually only found in the Sonoran desert of Arizona, the Mexican state of Sonora, and Whipple Mountains and Imperial County areas of California.
May 15 – 17, 2016: Our next destination after White Sands National Monument was Chiricahua National Monument in Arizona.
May 14 – 15, 2016: We arrived in Alamogordo, New Mexico in the late afternoon and decided to see if we could catch the sunset in White Sands National Monument.
May 13 – 14, 2016: Roswell, New Mexico has got to be one of the most kitschy places we have ever visited. Every establishment has a random alien figurine outside. They irk me. I could never live here.