Standing on a Corner in Winslow Arizona

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Taking it easy, taking it easy.......

Yes, we are in Winslow Arizona, which nobody really knows about except for the song. This is mostly a ghost town and we are staying in the Winslow Inn, a one star hotel, in the smallest room. Bill and I walked to the store and I asked a lady what is the population in Winslow and she replied " well, if you count the prison population, it could reach up to 10,000! Most of the residents must live in the prison because we did not see too many people.

We hightailed it out of Winslow early the next morning heading toward the National Petrified Forest. What a gorgeous and unusual place to see. It is one of the world's largest and most colorful concentrations of petrified wood, multi-hued badlands of the Painted Desert, historic structures, archeological sites, native grassland environment, and displays of over 200-million-year-old fossils. The structures are very deceiving, very large and appear to be different colours. Standing high in one of the viewing areas is intimidating if you do not like heights and even driving on the roads is scary with no barriers etc. We thoroughly enjoyed the tour. When you first go into the park, you are told not to take any fossils or rocks or petrified wood, and as you may guess, the first thing Bill did was to pick up two rocks! On the way out of the park, they had a check point to make sure people did not break the law!!!!!!!

Americans are very friendly people and we did stop at many of the Navaho places along the way, bought some stuff for the kids and we actually bought HIS and HER Cowboy hats. I wish I could download my pictures to show you us dressed up in our Western gear but still cannot.

Our next stop was at a place where we saw a meteor Crater which is nearly one mile across, 2.4 miles in circumference and more than 550 feet deep. Apparently when the meteor hit earth, there was a thunderous sound and explosive fury as it came through through the Earth's atmosphere. The collision rocked the American Southwest with the energy of more than 20 million tons of TNT.

As were leaving the meteor crater sight, and we collaborated with our trusty friend "Agnes", who was assisting us to get back onto Route 66, she directed us, in her very authoritative voice, to turn left. We did and the road consisted of red dirt and we foolishly travelled down it for about 1/2 mile and then thought no, this cannot be right; however, it turned out that Agnes was correct for the first time!

Next, came Hoover Dam, which proved difficult for my husband to drive through because the hills are very high, lots of construction and when we got there, they actually stop your car, question you just as if you are crossing the border. Apparently this check point has been in place since 9 eleven.

Currently we are in Vegas. It is HOT - 110 and you cannot be outside longer than a few minutes. However, we have a beautiful room at Bally's and plan to stay here until June 10th. So far, we have visited several casinos, one of which is fashioned after Paris, France - unbelievable. It even has its own Eiffel Tower, which is half the height of the original one. We went to the top, Bill sweated through it, cost us 10 bucks and after two minutes, he was ready to leave!

No downloaded photos yet, but I did put two picture of sites we saw on the blog. On Thursday we head towards Utah and the Four Corners.

Hope everyone is well. Miss you all. How blessed we are to be able to do this.

p.s Bill says no more loser stories about him but "what can I say" other than the blunder in New Orleans with the beads, I have managed to be pretty "normal".

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Photos

Petrified Forest
You must see this place!

Meteor Crater
You can see this by miles away as it is so large