Gettin' our Kicks...

We just got back from a road trip to Colorado and New Mexico.  Much of our drive was along the I-40, which runs near the historic Route 66, which kept crossing our path along our way.  It was a sometimes beautiful, and sometime humdrum drive - but the kids' fighting over the DS kept us plenty entertained.

It was a long, long drive, but we made one stop - a visit to the Petrified Forest National Park.  It was well worth the time we took out of our drive to visit.

The first thing we saw there was the painted desert vista.  The colors were beautiful!  Oranges, purples, reds, whites, yellows, and touches of greenery.  Absolutely lovely.

A little further down the road we got to see some real Indian petroglyphs!  The kids thought this was pretty exciting.  Unfortunately, we could not get up close because somebody had tried defacing the rocks at one point, so now you have to view them from above.  Still, they were very cool.  Someone had a lot to say back then.

Then on to the Petrified Forest.  Our family geologist and rock collector, Alex, was very excited by what we saw there.  

There were giant logs everywhere.  It looked like Paul Bunyan and his great Blue Bull had already cut a path through this place, and had not only cut down the trees, but had chopped the long trunks into short logs for us.  Only, the logs were not logs anymore, but solid rock.  It was hard to believe.  We had to touch them to make sure they were not wood.  The colors were incredible!

The ground was covered by what looked exactly like wood chips, as you can see on the top of the hill in this picture.  It wasn't until you touched them that you realized that those wood chips were so old that they had all turned to stone.


More painted hills.  What a pretty place!

Remnants of the old Route 66 are also there.  I loved these phone poles that used to run along the route.  The road is completely gone, but the poles remain to mark the way.  There was also a car from the glory days of Route 66 that had seen better days as well.

The boys had fun climbing on that old clunker.

I like this picture, because it shows the poles of the old route , and then the busy I-40 freeway running alongside it.  American progress!

After a long day on the road, we were starved.  After seeing so much of this great country in one day, we couldn't help but stop at this place for a good ol' all-American hamburger.  They were really big, and really, really good.  That's why the bag says, "If you are what you eat, you are AWESOME!"  Well said.

That's how we got our kicks... on Route 66!