today was our busy day. we left chinle fairly early in the morning and headed south towards I40. our first national park stop was at the hubbell trading post.
this is nathaniel's tough guy pose...
inside the store, they had signs that CLEARLY said no "flash photography"... which i interpreted to mean no photos. SO, i took a video instead! haha. this place really was cool! (and yes, the floor really was that loud!)
out back from the trading post was a chicken coop. this was kendal's first experience with a chicken... and i have to say that he did like watching them. one of the rangers had just fed them.
some of the old wagons on display at the trading post...
this one was inside the barn.
after we left hubbell, we drove all the way to I40 and stopped at the painted desert/painted desert inn/historic route 66/petrified forest visitor center. these 4 parks are all national parks... and we got all 4 stamps!
one of the first stops we made in the painted desert was at the puerco pueblo... because there were petroglyphs. nathaniel loves petroglyphs.
another stop we made in the park was called newspaper rock. it was really hot and windy that day as you can see in the video. click on the rock photo and maybe when it opens on your computer, it'll blow it up enough for you to see all the petroglyphs. this rock was COVERED with them!!! the more we looked, the more we saw!
trying to show kendal how to look through the binocs... he just wanted to play with them.
we broke the law a few times (but not by stealing rocks!)... because we were making SO many stops in such a short amount of time, sometimes we let kendal ride up front with us (rather than in the carseat). he loves all the buttons on the door and on the console. fortunately we didn't have an accident nor did we get caught.
pretty sky... doesn't look as hot and windy as it was!
inside the petrified forest visitor center, there were these dinosaur skeleton things. they were neat, but what was even cooler was outside!
here is a close up of the wood:
here are a couple of photos of the HUGE petrified logs.
after we left petrified forest, we drove back up to I40 and then continued west until we reached flagstaff. there we turned north to try and hit sunset crater (an old volcano... well, not that old)
and wupatki national parks. (yea, i still don't know how to say that one). the most interesting thing happened there. after we finished the trail, nathaniel was taking kendal to the car and i was gonna stop one more time in the restroom (yea, holly uses my bladder as a spring board - i'm not sure how it works, but i seem to pee more than i drink). anyway on the walk up, i saw a man and woman walk out of the visitor center (which was closing, it was 5pm). it was one of my college professors (who is also one of katelyn's professors right now) and his wife, who was the camp manager the first time i went to field camp! it was great to see him, but it was really weird!
a lizard at wupatki:
we were trying SO hard to make it to the grand canyon by dark. that was where we were camping for the night. here is why: we bought a lantern when we got to santa fe that first day. the second night we were at mesa verde (camping), i broke it. so, all we has was my 10 year old head lamp which still contained batteries probably from 1998 when i used it last. (ok, i'm exaggerating quite a bit there, but the batteries were almost dead.) so, we had no light (and the moon didn't rise until near-sunrise! so i drove. i drove hard. i had to pee so bad but i didn't stop. it got dark. and then it got darker. by the time we found a bathroom and checked into the campground, we could hardly see our hands in front of our face. BUT... we did find a store in the park and got some batteries (but... where was the head lamp packed?) nathaniel found it, reloaded the energy, and started unpacking our camping stuff. i am not sure what i was doing all this time, but he pretty much put up the tent by himself (i just helped a little towards the end)... with minimal light. yay for husbands!!!
so very quickly we got the inside in order (pumped up kendal and my matress), fed kendal, and put him to bed. he went RIGHT to sleep!
you are asking... where did nathaniel sleep if YOU had the matress? well, he borrowed kate's thermorest and used my mummy bag. not the self-inflatable kind of thermorest, the kind that looks like an egg crate that is best for backpacking. i'm not sure how he slept as good as he did, but it worked for him. kendal and i were snuggled in tight on the matress! we bought 2 cheapo sleeping bags at walmart in santa fe and used one as a "sheet" and one as the blanket. here is one great thing about being pregnant: it was 40 degrees at night and i NEVER got cold. as a matter of a fact, my toes had to hang out of the bottom to keep me from getting hot! kendal didn't seem to mind my furnace, either, as he was usually wedged underneath me!
this is nathaniel's tough guy pose...
inside the store, they had signs that CLEARLY said no "flash photography"... which i interpreted to mean no photos. SO, i took a video instead! haha. this place really was cool! (and yes, the floor really was that loud!)
out back from the trading post was a chicken coop. this was kendal's first experience with a chicken... and i have to say that he did like watching them. one of the rangers had just fed them.
some of the old wagons on display at the trading post...
this one was inside the barn.
after we left hubbell, we drove all the way to I40 and stopped at the painted desert/painted desert inn/historic route 66/petrified forest visitor center. these 4 parks are all national parks... and we got all 4 stamps!
one of the first stops we made in the painted desert was at the puerco pueblo... because there were petroglyphs. nathaniel loves petroglyphs.
another stop we made in the park was called newspaper rock. it was really hot and windy that day as you can see in the video. click on the rock photo and maybe when it opens on your computer, it'll blow it up enough for you to see all the petroglyphs. this rock was COVERED with them!!! the more we looked, the more we saw!
trying to show kendal how to look through the binocs... he just wanted to play with them.
we broke the law a few times (but not by stealing rocks!)... because we were making SO many stops in such a short amount of time, sometimes we let kendal ride up front with us (rather than in the carseat). he loves all the buttons on the door and on the console. fortunately we didn't have an accident nor did we get caught.
pretty sky... doesn't look as hot and windy as it was!
inside the petrified forest visitor center, there were these dinosaur skeleton things. they were neat, but what was even cooler was outside!
here is a close up of the wood:
here are a couple of photos of the HUGE petrified logs.
after we left petrified forest, we drove back up to I40 and then continued west until we reached flagstaff. there we turned north to try and hit sunset crater (an old volcano... well, not that old)
and wupatki national parks. (yea, i still don't know how to say that one). the most interesting thing happened there. after we finished the trail, nathaniel was taking kendal to the car and i was gonna stop one more time in the restroom (yea, holly uses my bladder as a spring board - i'm not sure how it works, but i seem to pee more than i drink). anyway on the walk up, i saw a man and woman walk out of the visitor center (which was closing, it was 5pm). it was one of my college professors (who is also one of katelyn's professors right now) and his wife, who was the camp manager the first time i went to field camp! it was great to see him, but it was really weird!
a lizard at wupatki:
we were trying SO hard to make it to the grand canyon by dark. that was where we were camping for the night. here is why: we bought a lantern when we got to santa fe that first day. the second night we were at mesa verde (camping), i broke it. so, all we has was my 10 year old head lamp which still contained batteries probably from 1998 when i used it last. (ok, i'm exaggerating quite a bit there, but the batteries were almost dead.) so, we had no light (and the moon didn't rise until near-sunrise! so i drove. i drove hard. i had to pee so bad but i didn't stop. it got dark. and then it got darker. by the time we found a bathroom and checked into the campground, we could hardly see our hands in front of our face. BUT... we did find a store in the park and got some batteries (but... where was the head lamp packed?) nathaniel found it, reloaded the energy, and started unpacking our camping stuff. i am not sure what i was doing all this time, but he pretty much put up the tent by himself (i just helped a little towards the end)... with minimal light. yay for husbands!!!
so very quickly we got the inside in order (pumped up kendal and my matress), fed kendal, and put him to bed. he went RIGHT to sleep!
you are asking... where did nathaniel sleep if YOU had the matress? well, he borrowed kate's thermorest and used my mummy bag. not the self-inflatable kind of thermorest, the kind that looks like an egg crate that is best for backpacking. i'm not sure how he slept as good as he did, but it worked for him. kendal and i were snuggled in tight on the matress! we bought 2 cheapo sleeping bags at walmart in santa fe and used one as a "sheet" and one as the blanket. here is one great thing about being pregnant: it was 40 degrees at night and i NEVER got cold. as a matter of a fact, my toes had to hang out of the bottom to keep me from getting hot! kendal didn't seem to mind my furnace, either, as he was usually wedged underneath me!
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