DAY 04: Flagstaff to, eventually, Truth or Consequences

Thursday, April 3rd

Woke up with a runny nose and sneezing, but Dave was still trying to sleep, so I busied myself taking a shower and reading in the bathroom ("Busman's Honeymoon" by Dorothy Sayers). Very hard to be quiet and out of the way in a small, echo-y motel room. When Dave got up we threw everything into the car and drove to a small local breakfast place, La Bellavia, that we'd spied the night before. It was very good! I had "eggs sardo": basically eggs benedict with artichoke hearts and sauteed spinach. Thumbs up if you are ever in Flagstaff. I noticed that one of the ladies eating there had been playing ping-pong at the pub we ate dinner at.

Dave agreed to detour so we could see some of the Petrified Forest. It's a place I've always wanted to go, though I'm not sure how much of that is because of the movie (which, admittedly, I've never seen). Turns out we could drive a few miles out of our way and then up through most of the PF park. There's a lot more there than we'd thought--parts of the Painted Desert, Blue Mesas, and on and on. Also turns out the park is designed for the most lazy of tourists--it's pretty much one long drive, with various viewpoints along the way and a few very short hikes. That actually suited us, though if we'd had the time doing it on a bicycle would have been really nice. Well, except for the gale force winds.

It wasn't quite what we expected. I for some reason thought the Petrified Forest would be more, er, verticle. Like a redwood forest but stone. I have no reason for thinking this, I guess the image just appealed to me. I don't think Dave had any expectations. The first part of the drive (coming from the south) was a lot of fallen petrified trees. It was easy to imagine the landscape as rivers and lush tree-covered hillsides--in fact, a lot like parts of the North West (it was pointed out in the museum that trees on the slopes of Mount St. Helens might end up petrified, because of the ash).

From there we drove on into the painted desert, with specific areas of petrified forest sort of layered on top. There would be more, but tourists of the past had taken huge amounts of the wood home. Bitches. The Blue Mesas are a valley of incredibly wrinkled hills in shades from dark red to deep blue. You can walk down through them. It reminded me a bit of walking across the lava beds on the big island without the intense fear factor. The bits of the Painted Desert we saw were pretty fantastic. Scott White asked if we've been taking pictures and yes, we have taken many. Oh so many! We hope to even get them posted some day.

After a much longer time than we'd originally estimated, we were at the other end of the trail, promising the park ranger we hadn't picked up any souvenirs, and then buying some legitimate ones once at the gift shop. At this point it was about 3 p.m., and we hadn't eaten since breakfast, but due to having a lot farther to drive, we each had a banana and pushed on.

We drove through Navajo country (beautiful), then finally into Albuquerque as the sun was going down. A pleasant city, with adobe homes on the one residential street we saw. I'd googled "food albuquerque" as we came into town, and we found a wonderful big restaurant specializing in "New Mexican" food--hurrah for the internet, as it was off the beaten path and we'd never have found it otherwise. The salsa was actually spicy, the beans were perfect, and each meal came with sopapillas and honey for desert. We ate and ate and ate and it was good. We squeezed back into the car and headed south to Truth or Consequences, Dave noting a sign for the "Albuquerque Isotopes" on the way out of town.

I think it's supposed to be gorgeous country, but it was too dark to see much on the two-hour drive to T or C. It was hilly, and at some point I noticed that most of the lights I was seeing were stars, which was lovely. We made it in to the Fire Water Lodge around 10:30.

I have to thank Erika Kosina heartily for recommending the Fire Water Lodge. T or C used to be a big spa town, apparently, and had lots of places to enjoy the local hot springs. Now there are only a few, and the FWL is one. It has several private rooms, and we were staying in the Waterfall room. We parked, then walked through a courtyard that was colorful even at night--turquoise walls, pillars held up by red stone lions, green palm trees. We found our room, and it was everything I'd hoped: as colorful as the courtyard, with beautiful tile work everywhere, and a huge tub, right in the room. Once we our things were stored, we turned on the tap and watched the hot spring water slide down the waterfall. The tub was large enough for both of us to stretch out completely, and with a few cold beers it was pretty fabulous. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to anyone staying in the area, I hope we will go back!