Day 6 adventure around every corner

 We got up at a regular time today, packed up drove down to get some coffee and some delicious apple donuts, and headed out east towards our destiny.  Since we had already done Walnut Canyon, we skipped ahead to Meteor Crator.  Off the hiway and down a little road and there it stood, Meteor Crator.  A terrible SyFi soundtracked blared in the parking lot, and we went inside and found out I got free admission for being military, poor JW had to pay the way over priced 26 dollars, and up the stairs we went, bypassing all the crazy astronaut science bullshit and out to the observation deck and there it was, a goddamn meteor Crator.  It was spectacular..  there was no reason to dawdle, it was the view and nothing else, snap a shot with the iPhone and back down the stairs and the hell out of there.

Out to the hiway and back on the busiest roads I have ever seen.  There are more semi trucks than regular cars on this road, and it is a maddening thing.  The next stop was the Homolovi Native site.  Stretched over a wide expanse and sharing the area with a few herd of donkeys or mules or something like that.

Homolovi II was the furthest site from the road, and it was stretched out over the top of a hill, many walls and piles of rocks, the plaques explained what we were seeing but it was like ancient sites in Greece, you had to use a lot of imagination to actually see what was going on.  All in all, it was quiet satisfactory,

We drove back the way we came and stopped to see some petroglyphs but they were very hard to see.

We then drove over to Homolovi I which was actually nothing but piles of rocks laying about.  It was obvious that something was here, but it was like looking at a pile of wood and being expected to see the desk and drawers it used to be 1000 years ago.  Well it was an adventure and that was that.

Back out to the highway we went and to the next stop, Petrafied Forest National Park.  When we got off the highway, the road was 18 miles straight out into the middle of nowhere, and apparently entered into the south end of the park, which was fantastic for us, because we wanted to exit out of the north and back on the highway.

The first half of the park was dedicated entirely to the petrified Forrest that covered the ground as far as you could see.  Having been to the petrified forest on Lesvos, we had seen plenty of tree rocks, but these were a bit different and we enjoyed the experience.

The rest of the park was basically pretty scenery, some petroglyphs and more pretty scenery.  It was not a waste of time, but it was a lot of the same for most of 13 miles.  We existed the park and hopped back on the highway and headed to Gallup and the lovely state of NM living 1 hour in the past.

We arrived in Gallup and headed straight to the hotel.  Not having eaten anything since breakfast, we decided on a few places, but apparently everything in Gallup is closed on Sunday.  We were not amused.  Low and behold though, the world famous El Rancho hotel, ,built in the 30s by a movie mogul to house the stars of his pictures as they worked on many famous cowboy movies back in the good old days.  The place was absolutely fantastic, and when we walked inside, we immediately felt at home.  There pictures all over the walls of all the stars that had stayed there, most of them signed by the stars themselves.  It was so cool.

We went into the amazing restaurant and had some drinks and tacos, and then into the 49ers club for more drinks.  Then we came back to the hotel and that was that.

We have a tour booked for Canyon de Chelly tomorrow during the eclipse,   Fun times.