Along for the ride: Scenic Routes & Homol'ovi AZ

After leaving Silver City NM, we take Hwy 180 northwestward towards the Arizona border. It's a very scenic two lane blacktop without much traffic - our kind of road. We first drive through rolling hills dotted with sagebrush and junipers.

Soon we find ourselves skirting the Mogollon Rim, which is an escarpment along the southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau, home of many National Parks including some of our favorites: Gila Cliff Dwellings, Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, and Canyon de Chelly.

Mogollon Rim

We pass through a few small towns, including Cliff AZ where their high school boldly proclaims themselves to the "Home of the Cowgirls and Cowboys." We are definitely traveling through classic Western country. A little beyond the town of Cliff, we enter the Gila National Forest and are treated to some great scenery.

Cliff AZ high school

Entering Gila National Forest

As the road starts to level out, we leave Gila National Forest and start seeing ranches and small towns again. Just across the Arizona border in the small town of Alpine we turn north on the scenic US Route 191.

Love the artwork on Dry Creek Ranch's gate

This motel welcomes river runners

... but there's not much river to run this year.

After winding our way through the pines at the higher elevations, the road drops down into the high desert as we near I-40.

Hwy 191 descending

into high desert

A few miles south of Holbrook AZ not far from the Petrified Forest National Park, we pass various roadside attractions beckoning tourists to stop in. One has such wonderful statues of large dinosaurs, we can't resist pulling in to see what it's all about.

Dinosaur stop nearby?

Love them!

Hey - didn't we see this on TV?

We soon discover we've chosen to stop at Jim Gray's Petrified Wood Co, which was once featured on a Discovery Channel program we watched a few years ago. All the petrified wood they sell has been sourced from private ranch lands in this general area. Some of their pieces are truly amazing - huge chunks and even whole tree trunks can be found in their outside displays.

Large petrified log from an enormous tree

We would love to have some of these pieces

Great colors on this one

We then enter the main store. It does have an impressive array of petrified wood, fossils, and minerals. The only problem is their prices are on the high side compared to the gift shop at the Caverns of Sonora. Still they do have much larger and more impressive pieces than we've ever seen.

Wow - what a selection

Petrified wood chair

Petrified wood coffee table for $14K - ouch!

Even though we find several pieces we like, none of them match our pocketbooks. So it's time to mosey on.

Nice meeting ya partner

We join Route 66 at Holbrook and I-40

Old car buffs love Route 66

From Holbrook it's a short drive westward to the turn off for Homol'ovi State Park, which is famous for it's extensive ruins of ancestral Hopi archaeological sites. We have stopped briefly here before and had earmarked as a place to return and explore further. After securing a campsite, we drive to the parking lot for Homol'ovi II where a plaque reads:

"Around A.D. 1330, a group of people arrive from the Hopi Mesas, 60 miles north, drawn by the lush flood plain of the Little Colorado River. These people built a 1200 room village; 750 to 1000 people lived in this pueblo..."