Heading West

We left Santa Fe and headed to Arizona where we plan to spend most of the winter months. Our first stop was Homolovi State Park outside of Winslow.

The park is home to the ruins of two 14th century pueblos of the Hisat’sinom people, ancestors of the modern Hopi people.

The ruins are littered with pottery shards. The Hopi say that the broken pottery is now part of the land and the trail that Bahana will follow when he returns.

About 12 miles from the park entrance is The Little Painted Desert. At one time this land was privately owned, became a county park and is now owned by the Hopi Nation. We found out about this unadvertised spot from a park ranger. We saw no one during our visit.

Also near camp is Meteor Crater – a well known Route 66 tourist destination. Over 50,000 years ago a meteorite weighing several hundred thousand tons impacted the earth leaving a crater almost a mile wide and 550 feet deep. It’s an impressive sight.

In the 1960’s the crater was the site where the Apollo astronauts trained for their mission to the moon.

The historic town of Winslow (also a well known Route 66 destination) is a short drive from camp. It’s claim to fame originates from a couple of musical references.

While traveling the desert southwest we’ve seen a meteorological phenomenon known as a virga or dry storm. What happens is that moisture builds up and precipitates from the clouds but evaporates before it hits the ground; creating a dry storm. While we’ve seen this phenomenon before, we’ve never seen it at sunset. That changed on our last night at Homolovi State Park.

From Winslow we continued on to Cottonwood, Arizona and Dead Horse Ranch State Park. The park puts us in a perfect location to explore Cottonwood, Clarkdale, Jerome and Sedona.

The park features a couple of lagoons, the Verde River as well as hiking and biking trails.

The red rock county that is Sedona always calls us back to hike and contemplate. One of the easiest places to do that is the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park.

The Stupa allows easy access to the Thunder Mountain trail system and Chimney Rock.

Our friends Andy and Lori are putting the finishing touches on their new house in Jerome. We last saw the project two years ago. We drove up the mountain to check on the progress and take in the annular, ring of fire, solar eclipse.

In our location we could observe 80% coverage of the sun. Not a complete ring of fire but a noticeable drop from in temperature as the sun was covered.

The temperatures have been 10 to 15 degrees above normal for this time of year. With temperatures rising into the 90’s we decided to take a day trip tho Flagstaff for cooler temperatures. We headed to Campbell Mesa for some hiking among the Ponderosa Pines.

Just behind our campsite is a small mesa that offers great views as the sun sets. Whenever we’re in camp at sunset we wander up for a look.