Petrified Forest

We spent the entirety of yesterday visiting the Painted
Desert and the Petrified Forest.

We had alocated a couple of hours there, but we soon
realised we'd need the whole day; the national park is
huge and there's lots to see!

We had a beautiful sunny day and took way too many photos!
The Painted Desert was full of colourful mountains; my
favourites were the Teepee's, which were all pink and blue layers.

I lack the skills to descibe a desert, so I will just add some
pictures instead.







































The Petrified Forest isn't really a forest. It's more desert,
only with Petrified trees scattered around. Petrified trees
are basically stone trees. I'd like to think that nobody knows
why they turned to stone, but apparently there's a reasonable
explanation for it, which I forget.

So let's pretend it's a mystery. Trees turned to stone!! Spooky.

I thought it might be an actual stone forest, but it's just the
trunks laid on the floor. They are all sparkly and shiney.













Millions and millions of the petrified trees have been stolen
over the centuries, which sucks, but the park is now preserving
what is left.

Although you can buy your own bit of tree-stone in the
gift shop for $20...

New Mexico

We've had a pretty busy week on Route 66!

After sitting out the tornado warnings and visiting the
shoe tree, we drove out of Tulsa, through Oklahoma City
and into Shamrock, Texas, where we spent the night.
It was an odd little town. Proper hicksville. We ended up
sleeping in a parking lot behind a gas station, before heading
for Amarillo.

On the way we made a couple of stops; first to take a few
snaps of a leaning water tower, which is a famous Route 66
icon, and again for the largest cross in the western world.
It was a pretty big cross, I admit. It made me feel a little
uncomfortable.



















We made it to Amarillo by lunchtime, deciding to eat at the
Big Texas Steak Ranch; home of the 72oz steak.

Eat it all and it's free. No thanks!

We got ribs to share and slagged off the waitress for not
bringing us our bread roll. Desperate times!

We got back on the road, driving through the ghost town of
Glenrio. I did not like that place one bit. I'm sure someone was
living in one of the shacks, and a dog came out to bark at us.
Will got out for a cigarette while I sat with my foot poised next
to the accelerator.

We made a few more Route 66esque stops. At a Bug Ranch, and
then a Cadillac Ranch. This is basically where some strange souls
have buried some cars into the ground in a row. People have then
come along and graffitied all over them.

The Cadillac Ranch was my favourite!













We decided to spend the night in Santa Rosa state park.
It was super pretty. I feel so much safer camping out in Texas,
New Mexico and Arizona. I think it's because there are no
forests for people to hide in.













Will and I sat on the RV roof watching a lighting storm rage
in the distance.

I got up at 6am the next morning. I was the only awake person
in the whole park. I don't very often see 6am, but I'm sure glad
I saw it that day.

After Santa Rosa, we headed for Santa Fe.

We picked up some of the oldest stretch of Route 66, which
incorporated parts of the Santa Fe trail. The town was all pinks
and oranges, smooth terracotta buildings, housing art galleries,
jewellry stores and gift shops.



















Street vendors layed out their treasures along the streets,
and we wandered around the town square, watching the
tourists haggle in broken Spanish. It was all very pretty.
Totally different from most of what we'd seen of America.
Like a totally different country. Almost like a new Mexico. Oh..

So anyways, after Santa Fe came Albuquerque, which I can
spell without looking up!

The style was similar to Santa Fe. Only it seemed a little less
authentic. Outside of the Old Town Plaza, Albuquerque was as
lacking in character as any other town. Samerica.

We spent last night at some truck stop or other, and this morning
we are making a quick stop in Gallup before leaving New Mexico
for Arizona.

Is that a tornado or a camel moaning in slow motion?

Driving through Kansas yesterday, Will and I pointed out
houses where Aunt Em might live, or the barn where the
people in Twister might've hid when the tornados hit.

I've always wanted to see a tornado, or maybe chase one,
or perhaps get sucked into one, with the cows and the trucks
and the babies.

Today, it's becoming a reality! We arrived at a Flying J truck
stop in Tulsa, Oklahoma, last night, hoping to grab a shower
and get back on our way. And we're still here, along with all the
truckers also planning on heading south.

The national weather service have put out tornado warnings
for the whole of Oklahoma, with golf ball sized hail stones being
reported across the state. There've been a bunch of deaths from
tornados this last week so we figured we'd play it safe.

If the truck drivers are staying put, then so are we! It kind of
sucks though, if we weren't in our stupid RV we'd drive closer,
but a nice lady truck driver warned us we'd be sure to tip over
in the 80mph winds. God.

The only thing that could make this situation better is if the
tornado sucked up a hundred armadillos and rained them down
on our RV.

It's given us chance to get showered, do our laundry and plan
out our route. Which is a bonus, I guess, but I sure was looking
forward to visiting a shoe tree today!

Did you know, in Twister, they make the sound of a tornado by
slowing down a recording of a camel moaning.

FACT!

Save Ferris

Today has been one of my favourite days so far, probably
because we spent almost the entirety of it on Route 66
rather than the interstate.

We made our first stop Carthage, Missouri. We wandered
around the town square, made up of antique and bric-a-brac
shops, packed full of dusty remnants of America-gone-by.
Then we headed for Carthage's historic Route 66 drive-in
theatre, which was wicked!

We stopped in a couple more towns, including Webb City,
where we found ourselves right in the midst of their annual
Spring Carnival!

We ate crappy food from burger stands and watched a local
barber shop quartet perform. The minature fairground was
probably the biggest event since 1861, when the town became
the location of the first battle of the Civil War.

We left Missouri for Kansas, following Route 66 through endless,
seemingly deserted towns. We passed the Rainbow Bridge, which
predates Route 66 and became part of the famous journey west.

There's armadillo roadkill all over the place. My emotions get
all mixed up when I see one. Excited or sad? I just don't know!

Route 66 took us through the South-Eastern corner of Kansas
before we found ourselves in Oklahoma. We pulled up in Afton
to take pictures of a now-derelict Rest Haven Motel, and went
into a weird mostly-empty grocery store where we were presented
with an autograph book to sign. Foreigners are apparently a novelty
in this town. And, likewise, this town was a novelty to us.

A man walked in behind us, holding some kind of metal torture
contraption in his hands.

"You wanna buy a meat grinder?"

Will kindly declined, and asked him why he had a meat
grinder anyway?

"I was gonna sell it to a guy" he informed us.

Well, I'm glad he cleared that one up.

We got out of freaksville before we were grinded to a pulp,
or worse, and headed for Foyil, where a man had single handedly
created a Totem Pole Park, within which lies the world's largest
totem pole. Much less freaky.

The race was then on to make it to Catoosa before the sun went
down; we had a whale to ride!

I'm not entirely sure why there's a gigantic blue whale in an
otherwise normal lake by the side of the highway in this town,
but there is.

In days gone by, the whale was a well-known rest stop for
travellers, who can walk into the whales mouth and dive off it's
tail into the lake. The whale was one of my absolute favourite
things so far.

I loved it!

Gettin' our Kicks...

Yesterday we had our first taste of Route 66! We stopped
at a themed diner in Dwight, Illinois, and I got all excited at
the Route 66 chairs, and the signs, and the tack... the beautiful
tack.

After freezing our asses off for about a month, the weather
suddenly turned HOT. Like, boiling hot. It hit 30 degrees
and our RV transformed from icy tomb to sauna overnight.
Gone were the layers, the wolf jumpers and the gloves.

It was crazy how quickly it happened. I've no idea if the
temperature did a u-turn, or if driving 100 miles south put
us in a different weather system? That probaby sounds stupid,
but it was damn hot, okay.

We headed for Springfield, Illinois. Abraham Lincoln's
hometown. We stumbled upon his tomb, and found ourselves
surrounded by a bunch of kids on a school trip. They asked a
tonne of interesting questions, and I learnt a bunch of stuff I
never knew! I forgot it all now though.

We spent the night at Beaver Dam state park, watching the sun
go down over a lake. It sounds romantic, but really we were just
waiting for it to go dark so we could steal some firewood.

That's a $5000 fine right there.

So today we carried on driving, hitting St. Louis, Missouri sometime
this afternoon. We pulled up by the Gateway Arch on the banks of
the Mississippi.

The arch dominates St. Louis' skyline, making it my favourite one
so far! It's known as the Gateway to the West, which I like a lot.
It's the tallest monument in the US, which is kind of difficult to
photograph when you're stood right under it. Still, it was well
impressive and I'm super glad it was sunny!

So tonight we're staying at a Walmart, with a record number
of other RVers, and in the morning we're headed out of
Missouri on Route 66.

Chicago

We have spent the last 3 days in Chicago.

The windy city. Or more precisely the rainy city.

We arrived on Monday afternoon, pulling into a Walmart
in a dodgy area a little way out of the city center.

We got straight on with our mission to sell the
RV (mission impossible).

We headed to Panera Bread, who offer free WiFi and have
been our saviour in recent weeks.

Craigslist and Ebay both hate us, apparently, and our adverts
on each got removed within hours.

Ebay thought someone had hacked my account, so I had a
lovely chat with Jasper, an online help person. Jasper got
pissy when I asked if he had ever been in love. But he
unlocked my account for me, which is more than I can
say for the bright sparks who work for Craigslist.

Anyway, after another day trying and failing to advertise
our RV properly, we needed a break. So yesterday evening
we battled the rain and Chicago's erratic public transport
system, and settled ourselves down in a pub where every
fourth drink was FREE!

We sat at the bar and watched that quiz-show-in-a-taxi
programme with the staff, who let us order takeaway in
and never once let us down in the 4th free drink department.

We listened in to some old professor-types having the best
discussion ever on topics they knew nothing about, but who
threw incredible words into the conversation to sound
exceedingly clever. Like, not even relevent words. Nor in
a sentence. It was amazing.

We found a bus and headed home. When I say home, I
mean Walmart.

This morning, it turns out we had been ticketed by the
cops!

A $50 fine for selling a vehicle on commercial property,
or something. Which I guess is techinically true, but how
were they to know we weren't just shopping in Walmart!?

So we went down to the police station and I gave them hell.
Well, I asked nicely, and they found us 'not guilty' and
scrapped our fine. Hurrah.

Then we went to Lincoln Park Zoo, which is a little north of
downtown. The best thing about the zoo is that it was free.
The second best thing was the sand cats. Then the naked
mole rats, then the aardvark, who was curled up in a barrel.

We headed back on the subway via Old Town, where we
stopped at a restaurant and had 16 chicken wings for 35
cents each.

I quite liked Chicago, even though we didn't see as much
of it as we should have.

This afternoon, giving up on Craigslist, we decided to leave
Chicago and head back to LA, which was always plan B anyway.

So this evening we headed out of the city, figuring we needed
to make good time if we wanted to have long enough in LA to
sell the van.

We're spending tonight at a truck stop about 50 miles south west
of Chicago, and tomorrow we'll join up with Route 66 and begin
the journey West!

Cursed RV for Sale

Alleged 1990 Fleetwood Flair motorhome, although we
firmly believe it may be a bronze age prototype.

120,000 miles on the clock. FACT. The black fellow we
bought it from was adamant about this.

Length: Undetermined. Although a nice man, with what
he thought was a dingo, but was actually just a dog,
instructed us it was 26 feet. Personally, we believe it's
roughly the length of two medium sized cars.

Feel free to bring a tape measure or a pedometer.

Slight damage to rear. It's probably not worth getting
this fixed. You'd only be throwing money down the drain.

It does go!

Miles to the gallon: Unsure, although it has almost
bankrupted us.

Can reach 0 to 60 in three minutes (when going downhill).

We have never needed to do an oil change or check the tyre
pressure. We don't know how.

Really long, curly dipstick.

Two non-locking windows make ideal escape hatches, one
large and one small. Great family selling point!

Non-retractable step. Watch out for those curbs!!

Front door used to have a dead bolt.

Double battery, sometimes.

Pleasant breeze from unfixable gap in front door,
which provides respite from constant Woodstock-esque odour.

Sleeps six small people. Ideal for mobile nursery.

Carbon Monoxide alarm: Definitely working.

Paper plate holder.

Engine inaccessable from interior and exterior.
Perhaps there's a secret door?

Venetian blinds!

TV stand. TV not included.

Shower / Foot jaccuzi when holding tank overfills.

Generator needs attention.

Please buy this RV! We are an English couple who went on
holiday by mistake.

$8000 for quick sale.