Canyon de Chelly National Park,  our last stop on our road trup.

 View of the canyon from the south rim drive looking down at white house ruin.

We took a 3 hour jeep tour and this was our vehicle.  There was another couple and they happen to be from Switzerland near St. Moritz.

 We saw ruins from various time periods, mostly Anasazi.   This is white house ruin.

 We saw petroglyphs.  These are Navajo, the last people to settle in this canyon.  There are still families living here, descendants of the original people.

 We traveled in  a 4 wheel drive jeep with a Navajo guide and most of the time either in the stream which had been higher the day before due to spring runoff,   I took this photo from the jeep as we were traveling.

 Our guide was very experienced because we saw this twice during our tour.He tried to wench this truck out but it had settled on a sand bar and was not moving. We didn't get back until 7:30.

That worked out well because this is what the sunset looked like on the red rock.

 The train ride in Verde Canyon. 

 See the rock that looks like a turtle.

 The train has a firstclass car, coach cars and a caboose you can rent for 6 people.  Each car has a dedicated open car to observe also.  The round trip was 4 hours.

 The canyon of the Verde river has the beautiful red rock seen in many parts of the southwest.

 Larry in the open car.  It did have a shade over the top.

I asked Larry to take my picture after we got off the train at 5 pm so it would look like I was on the trip. 

 We got home late last night and drove today to Flagstaff.   We drove out to rincon Mountain on the east side of of Tucson in the morning to visit Saguaro Park on this side.  It is busier because it is closer, and the saguaro cactus are bigger and older.  We drove on the cactus forest road which is paved and took this picture to show how tall some of these are.

In the afternoon we drove up to Mount Lemmon to Sky Center for a nightly observation tour.  We were in a dome with a 36 inch scope.  It had an eyepiece for us to look at various objects.  There was a smaller reflecting scope also to look through.  Astonomers do not use these as as rule because they download what they are looking at in a digital format and then analyze it later on a computer.  There was a dome across from where we were that is operated by Koreans only they are never there.  They can get up in the morning, have a cup of coffee and do it remotely from Korea.  Tucson is the astronomical capital of the world and we learned of many more public programs like this one.  We went outside to focus our binoculars and used Kitt Peak which is 56 miles outside of tucson and we had driven 27 miles up Mount Lemmon to the top.  There is a ski area up there that still had snowon the runs.  We were at   9157 feet and with the wind it got rather cold.  Still worth it to see planets, nebulas, a super nova, and so many other things.   We could have spent the whole week visiting all the observatories, etc around Tucson.  Maybe we will come back some time and just stay for a week.

 If there had been no clouds, we would have seen a green top on the sun as it was setting.  Still so pretty.  I drove us home down the mountain and we got to bed around midnight. 

 We took a scenic route outside of Phoenix to Payson and stopped at Montezuma Castle Indian Ruins on the way to Sedona.

 These are some of the ruins that early settlers and soldiers called Montezuma because they thought the Aztec had built them.  The Indians who settled and farmed here were the Sinagua who came here around 1125.

We continued our drive to Flagstaff by way of Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon.  It was so pretty driving up from the south to Sedona.  I was disappointed in Oak Creek.  Sedona itself was "so touristy", and the canyon was full of RV parks, souvenier shops and "cabins" on the creek.  We are driving to Verde Canyon tomorrow for our 4 hour train ride.  It should be very relaxing and scenic.

 Lots of cactus today and also a little of some heavenly bodies. We drove up to Kitt Peak and took one of the guided tours.

 After our tour and a peek at the 2.1 meter scope, we stopped by the solar observatory to take a look at some spots on the sun.  This is funded by the NSF and astronomers can submit proposals for use.  There are dorms for people using the observatories to stay while there.  Only 3 public scopes are there for viewing.  The rest, and there are several on the top of this mountain, are from other Universities.  CU has one here. 

 We have a nice picnic lunch before drove the 12 mile road back down the mountain.

 This part of Saguaro is on the west side of Tucson called the Mountain district.  Tomorrow we are visiting the Rincon Mountain side east of Tucson before driving up to Mount Lemmon for our nightly observation tour.

 Here some the cactus

 Look at this big boy.

Prickly pear ready to sprout.

 Chiracauhua National Monument, Arizona

This was our main destination today before we drove on to Tucson.  We crossed the continental divide outside on Deming as we were drivin on the the part of I-10 called the Pearl Harbor Memorial Highway.  The formations above are the result of 4000 feet of ash from a vocanic eruption that compacted and is now still eroding from wind and rain.  The name is from the occupation by the Chiracauhua Apache who lived here in the 1800's until Geronimo agreed to stop fighting.   A family who settled here and ran a guest ranch taking their guests up the canyon by horseback was instrumental in getting the National Monument designaton.  We are now in Tucson and planning tomorrow's outing to Kitt Peak and  the western side of Sagurao National Park.  I think I will be calling this trip "Rocks and Cactus".   I did see yellow wildflowers along the interstate today.  Hopefully there will be more blooming as we drive around.  We are in the Sonoran desert and left the Chihuahuan desert when we left New Mexico.   A desert is a desert.

 Larry and the Skylab toilet at the Space museum in Alamogordo

 Walking around the space park

 Afternoon at white Sands National Monument

 On the boardwalk looking at the sand duens

We started our morning at the Space Mueum in Alamogordo.  They have 4 floors of exhibits.  Larry was excited to see the Nike Ajax out in the space park.  He worked in Niagara Falls one summer on the facility to change over to the Hercules.  He enjoyed the display on the Skylab also.  We bought tickets for the Imax show, Everest, in their dome Imax Theater.  Very different but it worked well for this Imax movie.  After lunch in a park that had a small train and was next to the Alamogordo Zoo, we drove on to White Sands National Monument.  There were lots of people at the end of the road in the heart of the dunes picniking and sledding down the dunes.  It looked like lots of fun.   It was a very busy place for a Sunday.  We drove the Bataan March Memorial Highway to Las Cruses.  We met  a young soldier in the Hampton Inn who had come from Parker Colorado to march with some others to remember the Bataan March.  It is a 26 mile marathon walk and starts at the White Sands Missile Range.  They raise money for the memorial to the soldiers who died on this march during WW2.

Larry  the Albuquerque museum

 Larry standing in front of a B-29

 The sign at the entrance to Trinity site

Carlos and Sin Cha Candelaria at dinner with Judy in Alamogordo, NM.

Spring trip to New Mexico and Arizona

I finally am on my trip to Tucson and have a reservation to a nightly observation program at one of the telescopes in the area around there. We weren't able to get a reservation at Kitt peak but I was lucky to get one at Mount Lemmon. They have a larger telescope. We drove to Albuquerque, NM on Friday. This morning we made a visit to the Nuclear Science Museum. There were some very interesting exhibits on the Manhattan Project, using the bomb to end the war with Japan and the cold war. Tonight we are in Alamogordo and plan to visit the Space Museum tomorrow morning before driving to White Sands National Monument and then the White Sands Missile Range visitors center outside of Las Cruses. We drove by the Trinity site pn her drive here, but it is only open twice a year to the public. We had a lovely dinner with Sonia Candalaria's parents at a mexican restaurant. Her mother gave us a huge bag of pecans. YUM.