Grand Canyon, AZ

We got into the Grand Canyon late at night, which I recommend highly, since that means you don't have to pay your entrance fee. I mean, we have a National Parks pass, so it doesn't really matter, but just to let yall know... early morns and late nights = free park entrance.


We spent the night in a parking lot right by the visitors center and woke up the next morning to take a hike to the rim. The elevation is about 7000 feet, enough so it got nice and chilly in the van at night. We took a walk with Fred for about a mile to see some nice views.


The size of the Grand Canyon is almost unfathomable, and definitely worth a trip out to AZ.



On our way out of the park, we saw a giant elk on the side of the road!


We also visited The Watchtower, designed by Mary Colter, the same woman who did La Posada.

The Watchtower at night



It was undergoing a bit of renovation, but still really nice.

But, it was time to move on, as always, and we jetted outta there and onwards to Utah!

Hopi Villages or How We Didn't Go to Phoenix

Michelle and I visited the Hopi villages on First, Second, and Third Mesa. These are all towns within a Hopi reservation in Arizona and they don't allow any pictures. At all. We have enough Kachina dolls and fox pelts, however, to prove we were there.


Joseph and Janice Day, owners of Tsakurshovi are the sweetest people looking to sell stuff to naive tourists ever - but we didn't learn this until the second time we visited them.

Ahem.

On our first occasion in the shop, we were taken off-guard when Joseph berated us a bit for wanting to go to Phoenix. He's quite passionate about the places he feels are really worth seeing on the Colorado Plateau, but we hadn't planned for the 12 week excursion around this relatively small area that he would expect of us. So we felt a little attacked and left the store feeling pretty bummed. But because I can get a bit obsessive, I wasn't ok leaving this negative interaction with an otherwise charming couple hanging out there in the universe. We went back to the shop a couple hours later to explain there may have been a misunderstanding, that we'd like to support their store, and that we'd love for them to tell us where to go in Northern Arizona/ Southern Utah. We left with a detailed map of the area, heavily hand-highlighted by Joseph, and a few hundred dollars worth of desert swag.

This is how we ended up not going south to Phoenix but rather to the road leading us through Las Vegas. (foreshadowing)

Winslow, AZ (La Posada Hotel)

Even with a drive through the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, the ride from Holbrook to Winslow was short. Like, really short. We got to the hotel so early, in fact, that we had no choice but to stop for lunch, once again, at Sonic. I don't know why we go to Sonic so much. We don't like it very much at all, and there is plenty of fast food we prefer over it. Maybe it's the carhop service, but probably not. I think this was actually our last time at this trash basket. The limeades are ok.

Our friends Chiyo, Ashley, and Zeke put together an amazing NM/AZ guide for us. Thanks, guys! It was so helpful during our time in the desert, and if they hadn't told us about it we probably never would have stopped to spend a night at La Posada Hotel.


The hotel was the vision of Southwest entrepreneur Fred Harvey and designed by architect Mary Jane Colter. Built in 1929 for the Santa Fe Railway, closed in 1957, and after 40 years it was privately bought and restored to its original beauty. It's an amazing place and we felt lucky to have a chance to spend some time there.






The interior is gorgeous: classic southwestern without being tacky.


There's some pretty ok good art hanging, as well. The contrast between the contemporary and classic was really nice. I like this painting of old ladies. Awkward angle.





There are some great outdoor spaces, too, very peaceful. The Santa Fe Railway still runs through the backyard.

After Sonic, check-in, and some wandering around the hotel, Michelle and I did we do best. Nap until it's time to eat again.



We had an amazing dinner at The Turqoise Room, the hotel restaurant. Sweet corn and spicy black bean soup, fried stuffed squash blossoms, a locally raised lamb sampler platter, and elk medallions. Our biggest food splurge of the trip. The restaurant can also pack a lunch for the next day upon request. So for our Hopi village excursion the next morning, we ordered some normal lunch stuff: prime rib and pasta salad. It was tough to check out, we considered another night many times, but decided to move on.

AZ Sights

Petrified Forest / Painted Desert

We had to make it work and drive back east to the Petrified Forest from Holbrook so we could waste some time before our check in at La Posada.

If you are looking for a real forest in the Petrified Forest, you will be sorely disappointed.

But if you're looking for beautiful scenery and colorful tree rocks, well have I got a place for you.


Close up of the petrified wood.


Like many of the places we have been, pictures can do this place no justice.


Navajo Nation

We were driving from the Hopi Reservation (more on this location later) to the Grand Canyon, we passed through Navajo Nation. We stopped for McDonalds, because you know, sometimes a bit of McDonalds is comforting. Next door happened to be a park with an awesome skate park. All the kids there were great and fearless and some were too young to be riding around (in my opinion). I tried getting Timmy to go, but he wasn't as eager to get run over by a bunch of BMXs as I was to see it.


We were still in Navajo Nation when I awoke to the van pulling into somewhere and slowing down. Tim had spotted this from the highway and decided to get a closer look.




Wish we knew more of the story behind all of this. How badass are the two elderly people?

However, one of my fave parts of Arizona is the part where no one asked me to show me their papers, even if I was often confused for Native American.

Holbrook, AZ (The Wigwam Motel)

Some of our readers don't realize that this blog is written in retrospect. We are about 6,000 miles further into our journey than the journal is: a bit further away than we want to be. Although our excuses for this are plentiful and valid, I will spare you and just get on with things. Michelle and I are currently in her hometown of Schaumburg, Illinois, but this blog post is about our brief time spent in Holbrook, Arizona.


Since the very early planning stages of this journey, we were fixated on staying at this kitschy stucco wigwam motel. Holbrook was really too close to our next destination in Winslow, and there was absolutely no other reason to stop, try as we might to find one. We spent the night anyway. Plaster wigwams!



To add to the nostalgia, permanently parked and rotting classic cars sat outside each "room." We got Doc Hudson.



We were surprised to learn that Yelp isn't fully utilized by the locals of this probably once thriving Route 66 town, so we went with the reviews the restaurants themselves lit up in front of their establishments. Best food in town? Ok, can't argue with that. We had a pretty very lousy meal here, but, we really can't say it wasn't the best. We didn't eat anywhere else.



There were many unexplained fiberglass dinosaurs lurking about town...


...and tourist trap gift shops all selling the same trash. This town made us kind of sad so we didn't stick around too long. It will be a short drive to our next stop.

Tinkertown (outside Albuquerque)

Up to this point, waking up in a Walmart parking lot was a failure of the night before. But after a month on the road, we were (and still are) just happy to find a place to park where we were 99% guaranteed not to get hassled. My good friend Chiyo suggested we have the green chile at Frontier Restaurant.


Michelle's huevos rancheros and my burrito barely showing in the background. So good! And the green chile was, indeed, amazing.


Before getting on I-40 (and Route 66) to Arizona, Michelle's nerdy but helpful "Road Trip, USA" book steered us towards the Tinkertown Museum. Kind of like the Orange Show in Houston, it's difficult to explain what Tinkertown really is. From their website:

"It took Ross Ward over 40 years to carve, collect, and lovingly construct what is now Tinkertown Museum. His miniature wood-carved figures were first part of a traveling exhibit, driven to county fairs and carnivals in the 1960s and '70s. Today over 50,000 glass bottles form rambling walls that surround a 22-room museum. Wagon wheels, old fashioned store fronts, and wacky western memorabilia make Tinkertown's exterior as much as a museum as the wonders within. Inside, the magic of animation takes over. The inhabitants of a raucous little western town animate to hilarious life. Under the big top, diminutive circus performers challenge tigers and defy gravity while the Fat Lady fans herself and a polar bear teeters and totters."

It'll be easier to show you...


There are tons of beautiful hand painted signs. This one greets everyone in the parking lot.


Recycled bottle wall.


Miniatures in their glass case.


Sometimes it took a quarter to get the figures moving, sometimes you just had to hold a button...


So hard to show what this looked like in person, but those guys are about 5 inches high. When you press the button one might move his arm abck and forth like he's moving a checker and the other might just nod.




Crazy circus!


A lot of the hand painted signs were pretty awesome inspirational messages. They're all mostly silly cliches, but I always appreciate stuff like this, especially when people believe it wholeheartedly.




Where we stole our header from... thanks Will Rogers ('s estate).


This shake with Uncle Sam was a test of the strength of our... personalities? I scored an "uncontrollable," Michelle got "cold fish." I dunno what either one of those mean. We wandered Tinkertown for as long as we could take it then got on the road to some plaster wigwams.