Arizona is friggin' hot. We left at around 7:30am and the sun coming through my visor was already hot on my face. Thinking about the heat after seeing the many Navajo folks and their sun worn faces gives me a new appreciation for how tough they are. When I'm home and the subject of native Americans comes up, I think of our local Chumash tribe and how wealthy they have become with their casino. The poverty evident as we rode through several of the Navajo towns was a bitter reminder that many Indian reservations still struggle economically. I spoke with one gentleman when we made a pit stop and he was asking about our trip. He mentioned that he usually walked to the other towns when he would visit friends or family... Some of those towns were more than 40 miles away. What a tough old bugger.
When we finally arrived at the petrified forest, we entered via the north entrance. We were worried that we made a mistake since we didn't see any petrified wood. It turns out that it's mainly in the southern region of the park. The temperature was around 90 degrees now, and in full riding gear you have to keep moving or else you overheat quickly. Finally, we found some examples of ancient trees that had become mineralized and got our photos. Exiting the south entrance, we blitzed toward Flagstaff. There were some nasty cross winds along the way and a spectacular dust devil near the town of Winslow which we thankfully avoided. We cried uncle about 35 miles from Flagstaff and pulled into a rest stop to cool off. We thought we were hallucinating when we first arrived because it sounded like someone was killing a cat. It ended up being a guy practicing[?] on a saxophone among some rocks nearby.
We finally made it to town and made a repeat visit to MartAnne's for lunch. It was just as delicious as we remembered from our trip to the grand canyon 5 years ago. Now to rest up for our very long ride to Palm Springs tomorrow.
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