Holbrook, AZ; Rock Shops; Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Parks; and the Cadillac Ranch

Along Route 66 between Flagstaff and Albuquerque, sits the Petrified Forest National Park which is in the Painted Desert badlands just outside of Holbrook, AZ.

You will probably notice a theme of rocks and minerals throughout this blog.  The kids have always liked poking around with rocks and minerals and taken an interest in geodes and polished rocks.  Reagan has a rock polisher and has enjoyed making jewelry with her smooth creations.  I have always liked fossils and permanent renditions of long-ago extinct creatures.  When we remodeled our San Francisco house, one of my favorite choices of materials was the limestone tiles with imbedded fossils throughout.

Grant at Jim Gray's 

When we traveled Route 66 last time, on the recommendation of the book,  Road Trips USA, Cross Country Adventures on America's Two-lane Highways, we stopped at a local rock shop.  There are many in this area, driven by the abundance of petrified wood and minerals in the area.  We stumbled onto another large shop, Jim Gray's Petrified Wood Company, which was really, really cool.  Outside there are petrified trees laid out as if they just fell along with acres of geodes.  Inside there is everything from large pieces of amber with ancient mosquitos entombed in them, rocks, minerals and gems from throughout the world, fossils of various sorts, mammoth bones, a fossilized alligator and, of course, fossilized dinosaur poop.  As it turns out, this larger shop, and its proprietor, are very well-known -- he was the guy who donated the petrified trees in front of the Smithsonian (National Museum of Natural History).

We spent about an hour in the shop, bought a few geodes, a few rocks and embarked for the Petrified Forest National Park which is just a few miles down the road.  We toured the Visitor's Center, and then hiked around the area adjacent.  Then we started driving through the park and got about 10 miles down the road before Reagan realized she had just lost one of the Indian earrings she bought the day before at one of the Trading Posts.  She checked the last picture just recently taken on the iPhone and the earring was still on her ear then, so we decided to turn around, go back to the Visitor's Center and retrace our steps to see if we could find it.  Needless to say, that was a futile effort.  So we pressed onward.

At the Petrified Forest National Park

We drove through the Petrified Forest, and then through the Painted Desert National Monument, which is contiguous to the Petrified Forest National Park.  Actually, the two are part of the same National Park with the former occupying the northern section of the park and the later occupying the southern section.  From there we drove onto Gallup, NM.  In Gallup, NM, even though it was late in the day, we poked around the large of number of "trading posts" selling Indian goods (kachina dolls, Indian jewelry, clothes, turquoise, blankets, etc.).  Half of them seem to be simple trading posts and the other half seem to be a combination of pawn shop and trading post.  We fell into one in particular, the Indian Touch Trading Company....which sells locally made Indian goods.  The proprietor grew up in the Bronx and Brooklyn.  We spoke with him for a while and bought some trinkets.

It was around 6 pm and we were going to get some Mexican food (what else do you eat in New Mexico?).  The proprietor recommended a place called Genaro's.  On the way to the restaurant from the Trading Company, Twiggy pointed out that Genaro's Yelp review was less than stellar, and that there was another Mexican restaurant with much higher ratings on Yelp, but given we had a local recommend this place and we have had mixed experiences with Yelp reviews, we decided to try Genaro's.   Should have listened to Yelp.  (Note to self: don't take advice on Mexican food from a Brooklynite craving pizza, regardless of how long they have lived there).

After dinner we pushed onto Albuquerque, NM.  It was great when we got there and all my efforts to explain why the local baseball minor league baseball team is named the Isotopes were met with glazed and uninterested eyes.  (Not the first time on the trip, nor the last).

The next day, we traveled between Albuquerque and Oklahoma City.  On the way, we planned to stop at the Cadillac Ranch just outside the west side of Amarillo, TX.  (See also here).

Cadillac Ranch

The kids learned some urban skills while at the Cadillac Ranch -- how to "tag" cars.