06-09APR11 - Flagstaff, AZ (various national monuments)

Upon arrival at Black Barts RV Park we headed to the Flagstaff Visitor Center. This is an excellent visitor center located in the restored Santa Fee RR station. Then it was off for a walk about Old Town. That evening we decided to have dinner at Brandy’s Bakery & Restaurant, which has been featured on Food TV. This is a small place located in an out of the way strip mall, nowhere near downtown. The Chef prepares only seven or eight entrees, all unique & very good! http://www.brandysrestaurant.com/ The next day, Thursday, 07APR, we headed to the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument; which is connected to the Wupatki National Monument by a scenic “loop” road through the Coconino National Forest & private property. As always our first stop was at the Visitor Center to get information on the park & view any displays or videos they have. The Sunset Crater center was unique in that they had a working seismograph & we could see the shockwaves from the quakes that had just happened that day in Japan & Baja Mexico. The Sunset Monument preserves one of the largest volcanic cinder cones in the USA, & the surrounding lava flows. Back in 1928 a film company wanted to dynamite the cinder cone so they could film the resulting avalanche! The resulting outcry by locals resulted in the creation of the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. One interesting fact was that from 1963-73 the surrounding lava fields were used to train Apollo astronauts for lunar operations.

The Wupatki National Monument contains the remnants of five Pueblos – Wukoki, Wupatki, Citadel, Lomaki, & Nalakihu. You can walk thru Wukoki & Wupatki; & Wupatki has a very detailed brochure explaining what archeologists & scientists believe the function(s) of the Pueblo was. Much of what occurred at these sites & what the day-to-day life of the inhabitants was will never be known because the early Native Americans had no written language. One interesting feature at Wupati was an oval walled pit, with entrances at each end, that apparently was used for “ball games”? At the Wukoki Pueblo Corrie had an up close & personal experience with a four foot gopher snake!

http://www.nps.gov/sucr/index.htm http://www.nps.gov/wupa/index.htm Later that afternoon Dan took off by himself to the Walnut Canyon National Monument. The canyon is over four hundred feet deep & is very beautiful in its own right. But the reason for the national monument is the remains of numerous Native American “cliff dwellings” built into the natural recesses of the canyon about one hundred feet below the canyon rim (sort of like single family housing?). Dan hiked the Island Trail which is a one mile loop around a pinnacle of rock that rises over three hundred feet from the canyon floor, also containing cliff dwellings. Even though the impending shut down of the federal gov’t was not certain & still two days away; the budget mess was already effecting National Park Service operations! Usually your entrance fee gets you seven days re-entry privileges; but since the Parks might be closed starting Saturday, they couldn’t guarantee you would get the “full value” of your entrance fee. So the Park Service decided to charge no entrance fees for Thursday & Friday. We wonder how much revenue was lost to the gov’t? Trivia – Pres Roosevelt disliked the Army designed uniforms for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), who did he pick to re-design the uniform?

http://www.nps.gov/waca/index.htm

Friday morning we woke up to a light, but constant, snowfall. We had planned on visiting the town of Sedona, AZ, & a few more National Monuments, but decided because of the weather to stick around Flagstaff. During the day Corrie managed a trip to the mall, & Dan went out to photograph eccentric sites.

We awoke Saturday morning, 09APR, to another snowfall & over a foot of snow on the ground & on the RV! Other than using the Toad for short errands we “hunkered down” inside the RV & watched the late winter storm outside our windows. At one point Dan climbed on top of the RV with a broom to remove over a foot of snow.