Flagstaff, 7000 feet high!

Well, we’re back in long pants and sweatshirts or jackets. We even dug out the puffy coats one night, that’s what elevation will give you! Our little camper is heated and toasty. We visited Flagstaff for an afternoon two years ago, driving up from Cottonwood. We visited a college friend of Jim’s and did a wee bit of Route 66, but didn’t have time then to do much. This time we have a few days to explore. It was a short hour and a half from Cottonwood to Flagstaff. The San Francisco Peaks are majestic and snow covered! Mt Humphrey, the tallest peak in Arizona, is over 12,000 feet tall. The nearby National Forest campgrounds don’t open until May, so we’re at the KOA in Flagstaff at the base of Mt. Elden. It was a busy, fairly crowded campground, but close to stuff and good enough. Getting there early and having an afternoon free, I noticed Walnut Canyon National Monument was only 10 minutes away! We took the Island Trail down hundreds of steps. The river had formed an oxbow type of canyon with the island in the middle. Hundreds of years ago, indigenous people lived in cliff dwellings built into the caves along the island. It was a fun walk and interesting structures, and we made it back up! To celebrate, we took Route 66 into Flagstaff and had a brew at Mother Road Brewing.

We took a drive north on Wednesday, stopping again at Sunset Crater National Monument, a volcano which erupted 1000 years ago, it looked like it could have been last week. We stopped here last year, but didn’t continue on at that time. This day we continued on to Wupatki National Monument, lovely remains from ancient pueblos. The two we visited were very different, one resembled a ship on a rock. It was barren, desolate lands, but beautiful. We stopped in Flagstaff, did a bit of geocaching and then found a bar with a TV and watched most of the first Celtics playoff game. The good news is that the game is on at 4 PM out here! We had Jim’s college friend Kathy and her husband John out for a campfire, with hot cocoa and s’mores.

Thursday, I did some wandering in the morning, exploring Route 66. Someday we’ll head further west–only 600 miles to LA! I found an original piece of 66, which made me happy. We met Kathy and John for an amazing Mexican lunch in Flagstaff. After that Jim and I headed up to Lowell Observatory. Jim studied astronomy for a term in college in Arizona, so he had been here while out west 50 years ago. Most of his work was at Kitt Peak, near Tucson, but we didn’t make it there this year. The observatory is on a hill overlooking Flagstaff, a city of 77,000 people. It is the first dark sky city in the world which is very neat. We spent a couple hours mostly outside, looking at some of the exhibits and seeing a couple of the older historical telescopes. Pluto was discovered here. We came back after dinner and sunset and watched a planetarium show from the roof of the visitors center. It was delightful, and there were even heated seats! (This is where we dug out of puffy coats)

I want to share the books we’ve listened to along the way:

• We started out with The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann Glad we were driving, not taking a boat!
• Then What I Ate in One Year (And Related Thoughts) by Stanley Tucci We had listened to his first book, Taste, last year and enjoyed it. This was equally enjoyable.
• Finally, just finished Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties by Elijah Wald We had seen the Dylan movie this winter, which was based a lot on this book. It was very interesting, but no music. So after finishing it, we listened to a few Dylan episodes on the podcast A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs.