7/16/2012
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Riding into the sunset
We grabbed some breakfast at the hotel that morning and headed East into Arizona. Our first stop was the Petrified Forest in the Painted Desert National Park. After the caverns of the previous day, it was going to have to be pretty amazing to impress us, and we’re happy to say that it truly did. The scenic views of surrounding plateaus and desert were breath taking. We stopped at several places, exploring the remains of lost Indian communities, climbing through the colorful layers of badlands and wandering amongst the ancient crystal trees that were standing when the desert was a jungle. Such beauty and age really helps get some perspective on our small lives.
Now on to the Petrified Forest.
We spent over 3 hours in our meandering through the Painted Desert, but eventually we continued on our way across Arizona, marveled by the red soil and wind smoothed stone. As we made our way West, the desert began to change into Pine covered mountains where we saw herds of elk off the side of the highway and warning signs for bear crossing. And it was among such nature that we made our way to the town of Williams, just 60 miles South of the Grand Canyon.
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But Williams wouldn’t happen until we visited the ghost town of Two Guns, Arizona. It’s located off of old Route 66. When exiting the highway newly laid pavement marks the way until it ends right before the entrance of Two Guns. There is little left in this ghost town except for an abandoned gas station (full of bizarre little relics), a couple of dilapidated buildings, and a zoo. Yes, as zoon. The new highway put this little town out of business, so it just sits, falling to its ruin.
Williams is a little tourist village located right on historic Highway 66. The streets lined with restaurants and Wild West memorabilia…of which we got a close look because the owner/operator of our hotel was not there when we arrived and we had to wait 45 minutes before we could get our room. Besides that little hiccup, we had a pretty nice stay in Williams. We walked the crowed streets and shared a malted cookie dough shake. At 7:30 pm there was a comedy show and staged gun fight in the street. After we put a dollar in the performer’s hat, we headed over to a 50’s style restaurant for some dinner and live music. After a nice dinner of classic barbeque fare, we headed back to our hotel room and tucked in for the night as we had an early morning and a long day ahead of us.