Day 6. Dec 30th, Sedona

We got up and headed to Sedona on Highway 89. This is the most boring day of the trip. There is really nothing interesting in Sedona. The only highlights of the day is a small town called Jerome, built on a sheer cliff. The road winds up the cliff and the town is laid along the road. The vertical expansion of the town is almost as big as its horizontal extent. The roads remind me of some scenes in Need For Speed. The sunset is extremely beautiful when we were headed to Prescott valley after we left Jerome.

* NOT FOUND *

Day 7. Dec 31st, Petrified Forest and Painted Desert.

Although this is not in our original plan, it proves to be totally worth a visit. We drove to Holbrook the night before. It’s a very small town along I-40. We found a super cheap motel (<$25) with a microwave and a fridge :).

The Petrified Forest NP and Painted Desert NM are together a 30-mile loop. We drove along the loop and stopped at view points. This desert area used to be a tropical forest 220 millions of years ago (again, see how powerful time is!). The dead trees were crystalized with water and sand and become rocks while still in the shape of logs.

Crystal log:

* NOT FOUND *

Blue Mesa:

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Painted desert:

* NOT FOUND *

On our way back to Williams, we stopped by at Walnut Canyon NM, a native American ruin of cliff dwelling. It’s not as big as Mesa Verde NP, but worth a visit if you happen to be near Flagstaff.

It wasn’t too late when we arrived Flagstaff so we decided to pay another visit to Wupatki & Sunset Crater NM. The Wupatki ruins is a very big and well preserved site:

* NOT FOUND *

An interesting incident today is we ran out of gas when leaving Wupatki. The gas gauge of my car somehow messed up and its reading is too high. But I didn’t realized it till the engine stalked! Luckily we were near the visitor center when it happened. We called AAA on a payphone and waited about 45 minutes for the help. Meanwhile, a native American guy stopped by and asked if we needed help. Amazingly, there was even a sherif car patrolling. We told the police we already called AAA and he said he would check on us again when he came back. Looks like Arizona has plenty of law force. Even such remote areas are patrolled on new year’s eve.

Although delayed a little, the last dinner of 2005 at Olive Garden was totally delicious!