Day 8 - Winslow, Holbrok, Petrified Forest

We could hear trains all night; I don't think they were too loud, and Carla didn't even seem to mind. She said she has enjoyed all this more than she thought she would. I have a friend, Bud, who is a Notary Public. I think when we get back home, I'll have her sign an avadavit to that effect and have it notarized.

I woke up early and while Carla was still dozing, I went out back for some pictures. Here is a picture showing the back of the hotel; our room on the outer corner in the picture.
Here is a picture of our private patio. Marked off from the rest of the patio by the old baggage cart. That door goes into our room (Room 101 the FDR room).

I caught a picture of a crew building a train that would depart later in the morning.

We liked dinner the night before so much, we had breakfast in the Turquoise Room, then bid Jake and Sally adieu. We had come to realize that the travelling takes much longer than we had planned. Since the trip from Winslow to Moab, Utah was a long one, we decided to tour Route 66 east of Winslow today. This includes Holbrook, the Petrified Forest, and the Painted Desert. First stop was the Jack Rabbit between Winslow and Holbrook.

Then in Holbrook we saw the Wigwam Hotel. If we weren't so enamored with La Posada we would have stayed here a night.

We took a couple of hours driving through the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Park east of Holbrook. Here is a picture of a tree with part of its root structure intact.

We have LOTS of pictures of this area; but the light wasn't right; I may doctor a couple and post them later.

On the way back to Winslow we stopped at the industrial spur overpass on the west side. This is a spot I had really wanted to get a picture from. The wind was kicking up and it was getting close to dinner, but I lucked out and got a coupled of shots of a train headed east to Flagstaff with the sun at my back.

There were lots of Route 66 travellers at the hotel; after dinner we sat on rocking chairs with about a dozen other folks as a cooling breeze blew to keep us comfortable.
We saw 7 to 10 trains go by and I grabbed some shots as the sun set in the east.


A perfect end to a perfect day.

That night we had to move across the hall to the James Cagney room (100) and were lulled to sleep by the rail traffic through the night.