Route 66 - Day 9 (Santa Fe to Flagstaff)

I got up early this morning because I'd heard yesterday from some locals about a place called Cafe Pasqual's that's the best in town and that you should go for breakfast. One nice thing about traveling solo is that sometimes it's easier to get a seat - especially if the place has counter seating or a community table. I ended up sitting with a bunch of ladies from Austin TX who were in town for the art and to play Mahjongg and a motorcycle vagabond on his way up to Glacier. I had a great chorizo breakfast burrito with 'Christmas sauce' (when you mix the red and green chiles). I headed out of town to the south, back through Albuquerque and westward. First stop was the Pueblo of Acoma / Sky City which had been recommended as the best most 'user-friendly' pueblo to visit. It's incredible to imagine when those buildings were built and to see adobe structures that have been hanging out there for hundreds of years. Then I drove through the "El Malpais' National Conservation Area and onto the Zuni reservation, a circuitous back roads route over to AZ rather than taking I-40 and it was worth it. I did drive through some insane pelting rainstorms on the way but the views and the geological formations and watching the landscape shift was amazing. I came out the other side of the Zuni reservation and headed over to the Petrified Forest National Park in AZ which includes the Painted Desert. A beautiful, strange landscape that I'd like to come back to with more time. From there I headed through the Navajo reservation lands towards Flagstaff and made a final tourist stop at the Meteor Crater National Landmark before driving into Flagstaff for the night. What an odd little town Flagstaff is -- it was immediately apparent to me that it had originally been a lumber town, it still has that 'camp' feel to it in the way its laid out and in all of the architecture. The ponderosa pine forests are great.

Painted Desert, Petrified Forest National Park

Meteor Crater National Landmark near Winslow, AZ