Day 10 (yesterday): Flagstaff to Gallup

We're making forward progress again!

Our day's summary:
- Yet another Hampton Inn breakfast bar
- Spent 30 min. repacking the minivan again
- Visited Meteor Crater
- Stopped for a few photo ops on 66
- Sped to Petrified Forest National Park/Painted Desert
- Sped to Gallup, NM
- Dinner at 9PM (Mtn time)!

METEOR CRATER - I thought visiting the site of a meteor crater would be a 15 min. photo op stop. Little did we know there was a whole museum (for $15 per adult!) to be seen. The museum was well done -- hands on and interesting for the kids. We even got to experiment with different meteors and have them crash into Earth and see what happens (we made "total destruction" more than a few times). It was windy, it was interesting, it was worth the short detour off the highway.

PHOTO OPS ON 66 - The main photo op today was getting to the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, AZ. The Wigwam looks just like the Cozy Cone in "Cars" and was a must-see for me to show Tobey, to try to have him see the connection from the movie to real life. Of course Tobey falls asleep literally 2 minutes before we find the Wigwam. It was important enough to me that I actually wake him up, he sees the "cones", I say, "Does it look like the Cozy Cone?", he smiles and nods, within 5 seconds he's back to sleep. That made me happy that I at least showed it to him. Will he remember that 2 seconds of looking at the Cozy Cone in real life? Who knows but I will be sure to reinforce it to him with pictures. :-)

NATIONAL PARKS - I felt like a true Chang today. It was our 3rd National Park in 3 days (if you include Montezuma's Castle which is in the NPS). And because we spent so much time at Meteor Crater, we were speeding to get to the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert so we could see as much of it as possible before they close at 6PM. We made it and the place was really cool. For one thing, being off-peak season and near the end of the day, the place was eerily empty (we'd see a few cars here and there). Secondly, the bizarre landscape just made you feel like you were on Mars and because there was no one there, it really did FEEL like Mars!

After the first stop where we did a 0.3 mile walk to the big petrified log, most of the landscape didn't impress the kids -- or maybe it did for the first mile and the last 27 were just unnecessary. They were good in the car, self-entertaining, self-snacking, but most of that drive was me and Tom going "Wow!" and stopping at various viewpoints, literally jumping out of the car, taking a snapshot, and jumping back in. If our kids were older, for sure they would have complained or rolled their eyes about how picture crazy we were. In our harried state, we weren't really paying attention to the speed limit (empty two lane roads + 6PM closing time + Chang with National Park Fever at the wheel = recipe for disaster). We were spared a speeding ticket because the park rangers caught the guy we saw at one of our last photo stops instead of us. Phew!

MORE ROUTE 66 - Strangely, I had once mentioned (while reading our EZ66 book aloud) about a giant dinosaur statue eating a woman. I mentioned it to Tom in code so as to not scare Tobey. But eventually Tobey not only figured it out but wanted to see it! It was at a typical crazy Route 66 souvenier shop but this time more crazy because you can get free petrified wood, buy American Indian kachina dolls and feed ostriches all at the same place. It was so Route 66.

WE MADE IT TO NEW MEXICO! - By the time we were done snapping pictures of our trip to pseudo Mars and people eating dinosaurs, it was time to book it to Gallup NM. We ate dinner at a Lih favorite -- Cracker Barrel -- and I did my fastest browse through their country store ever because they were closing at 10PM. At this late hour, you would think we would just call it a night and turn in, but no, I saw this great looking neon that EZ66 author dude mentioned in Gallup. And it sounded like it was working neon so what better time to see it than at night! So after Tom realized I was hell bent on seeing it, we went looking for it at 10PM at night. I was looking for this great big neon with a car riding into the sunset and a big "Route 66" sign all in neon. Apparently, it turned out to be no larger than a large bathroom mirror. Eh, I took a picture anyway (in a scary part of Gallup) and we finally retired to a hotel.