I always thought that northern Nevada specialized in wind. Well, we found a place today that could certainly give Nevada a run for its money in that category. As I told a fellow camper this afternoon after we had set up our rig in Grants, New Mexico, the wind blew so hard today as we traveled along route 40 out of Arizona that I probably only put any wear on the downwind tires. The upwind tires felt like they only occasionally touched the pavement.
Our route this morning out of Holbrook, Arizona, was a bit circuitous. After gassing up at a station adjacent to our KOA camp (don't stay at the Holbrook camp -- the WiFi is terrible) we headed back the way we had come the previous day so we could visit the old courthouse and tour the museum now housed there (photo right). It was early, about 9:00 a.m., and we turned out to be the only patrons of the museum. We got to wander the halls, move the "don't touch this" signs so I could get better photos, and generally make ourselves comfortable. The building is not in very good shape, owing I expect to the fact that the whole town looks pretty run down and tired. I think back in the Route 66 days the town fathers probably had more money to spend, but now that Interstate 40 blasts by the town without looking back the old municipal building is beginning to sag and leak a bit. Still, we had a great time wandering the halls and reading the faded captions.
Of course, I'm in heaven whenever and wherever I can spend an hour or two with a whole building full of antiquated equipment and rusty junk. My favorite part of the museum was the typewriter display (photo left). There was just acres of law books which I gazed at in some wonder. How in the world does a lawyer know what's in all those books? You weren't supposed to touch the books and I honored that request, but I sure would have liked to see if anyone had ever opened them.
The museum had literally everything from a cowboy chuck wagon to an empty court room where you could sit and pretend you were a judge. It also had a basement jail which, having seen it, left me with the distinct impression that crime doesn't pay, at least it wouldn't for me. Most of the displays would have been more interesting to a local resident, but we still found enough to see and appreciate to make the stop worthwhile.
After the museum we backtracked further south along yesterday's Route 77 until we encountered Jim Gray's Petrified Wood store. Included with our check-in materials from the Holbrook KOA was a coupon for a free piece of the ancient rock and so we thought we'd just go and collect. Of course the petrified wood store coupon was just meant to get tourists in the door and it served well in that capacity. But even though we had no intention of buying some ruinously expensive piece of 200-million-year-old pre-history, we DID want to see what other tourists were buying. Let me just say that the store is well worth a visit even if you don't intend to buy anything. Somewhere nearby, the clerk informed me, was a starving artist doing the cutting and polishing of those magnificent rocks and I just loved his work. My favorite were the bookends, which cost in the neighborhood of $100.00 and up. I was sorely tempted to buy a set, but space in the motorhome being a premium I decided to pass up the deal. We had so much fun looking at all the lovely polished stones and ancient sea creatures that we forgot to collect our free piece of petrified wood. No matter, the experience was worth the stop.
Since Gray's shop lay right at the intersection that led, so the sign said, to the Petrified Forest, you know where we went next. Seventeen miles and mere minutes later we were pulling abreast of the park service check-in shack presenting our credentials. I might mention at this point that if you buy a National Parks pass at the park headquarters in Carson, your out-of-pocket costs for visiting most of our National treasures are zip. The park ranger asked us if we were carrying any petrified wood and of course we were carrying a sample that the Holbrook museum had traded us for a small donation to their cause. Handing it over, I sheepishly recounted where we had obtained the item and the ranger asked for the sample so he could confine it to a plastic bag, zipped-tied shut, to prevent us from being arrested when we later left the park for petrified wood snatching.
For some reason, just about the time we entered the park, a near hurricane-force southwesterly wind kicked up and turned our much anticipated visit to see the stone trees and nearby painted desert into a sort of endurance contest. We did stop at the visitor center and watch the video, which thankfully did much to bolster our understanding of just how the petrified logs we saw on our brief stroll outside the center had come to be where they now lay instead of near present day Panama where they had originally formed.
The wind was blowing so hard, and raising dust clouds that might easily rival those from the dust bowl days of the American depression, that we had to view the painted desert from the comfort of our vigorously rocking RV. No matter. Even with the dust the vistas into the canyon of the painted desert were well worth coming to see.
Leaving the park we headed east toward Albuquerque. We didn't plan on staying at that infamously difficult to spell New Mexico city, but planned on stopping short in the town of Grants. Here we had read in the Good Sam travel guide that the Bar-S RV park was well worth a visit. The Bar-S proved easy enough to find since they put giant red and yellow signs nearly everywhere as you approached Grants. So by 4:00 p.m. we had found the park, got the coach set up with water, sewer, and electricity, and had even set out on a wind-blown walk over to the nearby Native American craft store. On the way I noticed that the Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks ran quite near us. Going back to the grade crossing some time later I managed to capture a photo of the next passing train. I thought I had been extremely lucky since the train came by almost as soon as I showed up to photograph it. Silly me, we now realize that a train goes by either east to west or west to east about every ten to fifteen minutes without fail. If you're a dyed in the wool "train spotter" you're going to just love this RV park and the adjacent rail line.
My train spotting adventure didn't end at the approach of the bright orange locomotive. Though I have shot countless locomotives and trains in my lifetime, I had never attempted to shoot some of the wildly creative art that "decorates" many, many pieces of rolling stock these days. The particular train that I had come to shoot this day was hauling a near endless collection of new cars in covered, two-story flatcars. You may remember, if you're old enough, that new cars were once hauled out in the open air on double-decker flats for all the world to appreciate. But at some point kids started throwing things at the new cars as they passed by, which resulted in a lot of damage. So, the railroads built roofs over the flat cars which deflected most of the missiles. Nowadays those same kids have taken a new tack and begun to channel their energy into graffitizing freight cars, including the covered, car-carrying flats. The engineer was coming fast, but I did manage to grab a few shots by panning with the speed of the train. High times!
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