Spending the night on the border was worth the wait. Humphrey's Peak is a lone mountain that must have gotten lost in the middle of the desert and Flagstaff sprung up at its base. Definitely a sight to see after spending so much time driving across plains and desert. I also took the time to swing through the Petrified Forest on the way here and get in some *real* desert driving off the Interstate.

I'm sitting in Flagstaff now doing some preventative maintenance on the car. It's time for an oil change and the car can use some new brakes, filters, and various assorted light bulbs while I'm here. Pushing the Grand Canyon back by a day means I'll be down on the bottom for New Years Eve rather than halfway back up the rim on my way out. Either that or I might look into routes up Humphrey's Peak either for now or the way back through.

I took some time to take a few pictures of one of the abandoned sections of Route 66 complete with an abandoned Studebaker. All of the towns around here use the Route 66 moniker to try to lure in tourists and it strikes me as odd that they make such a big deal about being on a road that disappears into the tumbleweeds only a few hundred yards beyond the town. The native situation out here is interesting too, they are definitely not as well off as the Pequots and Mohegans back in Connecticut. Indian casinos out here don't look like much more than a double-wide trailer with some neon lights and I passed one that I'm pretty sure was in a large tent. The roadside is littered with little Indian souvenir stands and the requisite 2 dozen billboards advertising whatever hand-made moccasins, beads, or petrified dinosaur turds that most assuredly can only be found in that particular shack. Seems like a sad existence.

I was looking at the map yesterday and in total the BMW has been to 41 states. There might have to be a road trip to the gulf coast or the Dakotas in the cards for next year.

Tags: Colorado Plateau, Petrified Forest National Park, Road Trips