Blogs from Gallup, New Mexico, United States, North America

Friday, 13 June, 2014 It was a long slog through Oklahoma, with welcome small bits of smooth highway and miles and miles of bone-jarring interstate. The road through Oklahoma City was the worst, with construction zones and terribly cracked pavements. We stopped at the Texas Welcome Center near Alanreed, TX, where Sean enjoyed the observation deck overlooking the vast southern prairie. We continued on to Amarillo, where we stopped for the night. After suppers and showers a rain storm came through with high winds and steady rain. Saturday, 14 June The high winds continued all day, sustained at 30-35 mphs with gusts of over 40 mph. Once into New Mexico, the terrrain becomes hillier, so between the headwinds and the hills, our gas mileage was lousy. It was hard to maintain speed bucking those winds, too. ... read more

On April 7th, Kris and Ed joined us at Willow Beach Campground which is located in Arizona , just over the border from Boulder City, Nevada. The campground is a striking one with spires raising up from a high desert floor. The beach part of the name refers to the shoreline of the Colorado River which flows out of Black Canyon. The campsites are a steep 7/10 of a mile up from the river. We had three days packed with adventure. Day one was a visit and tour of the Hoover Dam. This is an amazing structure. The base of the dam is 600+ feet thick and narrows to 45' at the top. If you visited the dam before 2010 there has been a major change. The road across the dam is not used for through ... read more

We decided yesterday afternoon to make an early start today so that we could visit Petroglyph National Monument, just west of Albuquerque on Interstate 40, before it got too hot. It was a good plan and we were at Rinconada Canyon by just after 9.00am but ... it was already stinking hot!! Not to be deterred, we made sure our water bottles were full and set off on the 21/2-mile round trip on an unpaved trail. The outward bound trail along the base of the escarpment was pretty heavy going in loose sand. There were petroglyphs (Native American and Spanish) all the way along the escarpment with an impressive concentration of petroglyphs at the furthest point of the walk. On our outward bound walk we talked to a couple who advised us that we could have ... read more

Geo: 35.5278, -108.744After a breakfast of huevos rancheros we hit the road heading for the Arizona state line. We saw great scenery on our drive through western New Mexico and into Arizona. We made a stop at Meteor Crater between Winslow and Flagstaff. Meteor Crater is nearly one mile across, 2.4 miles in circumference and more than 550 feet deep. Meteor Crater is the breath-taking result of a collision between a piece of an asteroid travelling at 26,000 miles per hour and planet Earth approximately 50,000 years ago. Our friend Jim was here six months ago and raved about it. It was amazing. Far better than I thought it would be. On the way out Kim bought me a souvenir piece of the actual meteor that caused the crater. As we left the crater we stopped ... read more

Geo: 35.5278, -108.7447:00 p.m.Days Inn on Highway 66 (old Route 66) exit 20 off of Highway 40 $55.022nd floor nonsmokingI was supposed to be on 1st but when I pulled up to my door, a man was standing in the doorway in the room next to mine. He was wearing only his pants and smoking in a nonsmoking building! So I backed out of my parking spot and went back to the front desk to change my room. Ordered pizza from Papa John for $16.54 and watched TV for about an hour. Then tried to go online. I could access my email but nothing else, so I went to bed to read a book for about an hour.... read more