What do the boys see on this?

We had originally planned to drive all the way to White Sands during winter holidays, but sitting over maps and consulting with the internet convinced us that it would not be very reasonable. We could not find a route going to New Mexico, which would contain a sufficient number of interesting stops for outing our juniors. In the end we opted for a trajectory similar to one chosen by Kubackis -- they wanted to visit Grand Canyon and Monument Valley; we had been to those places before and so we came up with a mild detour into a north-western end of Arizona, which we did not know.

Colorful engines on a main line in Barstow

As usual, our packing got a bit out of joint and we were leaving our home by eleven a.m., taking it quickly through our local Vietnamese soup place so as to not miss lunch, and we definitely slid out the Valley by noon. Our first intermediate destination was Tehachapi - we were reaching it at sunset, hoping that Tommy would still spot at least some train there before it gets completely dark. We heart the train honk, so we hurried up. A moment after us, some unknown white car parked behind our bus and to our great surprise, it's crew began to holler at us from a distance, in Czech, "ahój!" A closer inspection revealed them to be Brehs, who, being tough, held on to the original idea of White Sands, and drove out in a rental (and thus unfamiliar) car. I think that all the kids were quite happy for the moment, as they could romp around in each other's company, not being limited to their boring parents. Then it really got dark and we had to go. Brehs still had a long way to drive, planning to reach Twentynine Palms, while we needed to make "only" a hundred miles to Barstow, so we sacrificed an hour for a dinner in a Chinese buffer in Tehachapi. Tom asked to stay in a local hotel and we soon discovered why. Our usual Best Western has a dinner nearby, which sports a functional model of Tehachapi Loop. And so we convinced our son that we would still drive all the way to Barstow as planned, but he'd be allowed to stop and have a look at this model train.

We're driving into Arizona, with San Francisco Mountains on the horizon, and Flagstaff at their foot.

We arrived at our Motel 6 in Barstow within a reasonable time; just right to get to bed. We had promised the kids some pancakes for breakfast, and ventured across a parking lot to a local IHOP restaurant, which is supposed to specialize in sweet morning meals. We were shown to our table there. Our server came to ask what we would like to drink. Then she collected an order at a table whose occupants came a few minutes after us. Then our neighbors received their order. Then, two older women took another table; they ordered. Then they were served -- we still did not even get water to drink. I stood up and went to ask if we could get at least our drinks. The server snapped back that she was busy. Another waiter with initiative ran to the women at the next table with several jugs of coffee and began to explain flavor nuances between individual brews. By this time my Hippo started and caused a bit of uproar. A manager tried to convince us to stay, promising to fix things, but we took our money to the competition -- as we did not want to risk spittle in our food.

Kids had a lot of fun right in Táňa's back yard

After breakfast, Hippo navigated us into a BNSF locomotive maintenance yard. We arrogantly drove past a NO TRESPASSING sign and took a spot in a lot near the engines. Tommy was as happy as can be, seeing tens of snorting diesel locomotives, Sid was taking pictures, Lisa threw rocks into a puddle (engines aren't much of her thing), and I was waiting for someone to throw us out. First, two chaps showed up, who helped shunting one locomotive -- waved merrily at us and went their way. Then an officially looking man emerged from a building, and he was not wearing overalls, but carrying a stack of files instead, with a very gloomy face. Nevertheless he answered in a civilized manner to our greeting and hurried away importantly. Eventually another dude drove up to us in a small electric cart, who was distributing bottled water in locomotive cabins of the drivers. He gave us a six pack of waters (quite a friendly gesture in this desert) and subsequently for about twenty minutes elaborated with Sid about locomotives and about the fact how amazing this place is. Then he told us to be careful and continued on his errand. So much for being kicked out of the yard.

Meteor Crater in Arizona

Over Tommy's protests we, too, got back into our car in the end and drove into the distance -- having some three hundred fifty miles ahead of us, to Flagstaff, Arizona. The journey was comparatively boring; this part of the desert is somewhat monotonous, almost depressive. We got lost a bit in Flagstaff, for its streets bend and curve, and one easily loses bearing. Still, we found our reserved Motel 8, and Tommy got really happy, as its parking lot was being partially blocked by a large pile of plowed snow. Before Sid arranged for our room at the desk, juniors had conquered this local icy Everest and -- as far as I could tell -- freeze throughout. Still they demanded to be left outdoors in this beautiful place, and went to our room only with much groaning. I tried to call my virtual friend Táňa, who lives in Flagstaff, but I could not get through; we ventured to have a dinner in the town on our own. We carefully slithered on icy one way streets in the downtown, until we hit one of about five local Thai restaurant, and subsequently found a parking spot. Gotten back to our motel room, Tom made a scene as he wanted to continue playing in the parking lot, but his impossible parents insisted on him being out of luck with a dark icy parking lot, one hour after he was supposed to be in bed. I finally got in touch with Táňa, for we had mixed up dates; to have a chance to get together, we were invited for breakfast.

Our family + Táňa over Flagstaff

Our tiredness from two days on the road began to show in the morning, and we decided to reserve another night there and spend a relaxed day, visiting friends and taking only a small trip to a nearby Meteor Crater. A problem came up during my morning shower -- the motel was advertising, but lacked, a hair dryer in our room. I really did not feel like walking around with wet hair on a (very) frosty day. Sid was bound to drag the motel owner all the way to our room (while I jumped up and down, naked behind a shower curtain) -- to convince him that indeed a hair dryer was nowhere to be found; the owner began to swear a lot, saying that people will steal everything they can. He loaned us a key to the next room, and I could dry my hair there. The driers are normally permanently attached to a wall, and I really don't know what's the value of removing a motel hair dryer (a similar, new one with a proper plug is about $15). We booked the next night, I dried by hair, and we were ready to go.

Lisa on a petrified log in the Crystal Forest

Poor Táňa awaited us at a perfectly arranged table -- making me embarrassed a little -- for we usually point our visitors to our fridge and electric kettle, leaving them to their own devices. Naturally, the breakfast was excellent (and nutritious -- they had apparently counted on Hippo's appetite). Subsequently, Hippo retreated with Táňa's husband Tomáš into their office to fix a sick computer; the rest of us moved to the back yard to enjoy snow. Táňa loaned our kids some small surfing boards, we found a small knoll and off they went. The snow was over-frosted and their elfish effect showed again. While the kids would elegantly tiptoe on the surface, I was sinking knee-deep.

Kitten Tom must rest. The thing he's laying on is not wood, but rock.

We stayed there so long that we even got a lunch. Then we swayed our hosts to take the trip together to Meteor Crater. Perhaps when you have a great expectation, it's hard to fulfill them, but Meteor Crater was a bit disappointing. Everything locked up behind a fence, barely visible from three vantage points, the crater was forbidden to hike around, much less descend into. Fortunately there is a small but nice museum. Juniors intently watched a twenty minute interpretive film -- Tom tensely, Lisa with a thousand comments. After it was over, they demanded to stay and watch again, how "the rock broke the sky". That's Lizzy's version of a meteor impact. Tom was interested in the dynamite that made such a great explosion. I'm not sure we managed to explain the origins of the crater, but it's true that since our return back from the trip, the whole pre-school builds crates in the sandbox.

Our hosts then took us to a beautiful lookout over Flagstaff. Tommy immediately ran off into a snow-covered slope and demanded to dig, although it was dark and cold. Then we tried to get a dinner table at a local famous brewery, just as the ski resorts closed and disgorged many a eager thirsty skier. Tommy whined that he needed to eat right away, so I had to give up my beer and we tried to move to a recommended Thai place. On the way there, we encountered a minor difficulty -- our bus got stuck in a one-way street. We could not back out of it, for the slope behind us was covered with smooth ice. After a while we gave up trying and somehow pushed through some very narrow alleys between brick walls and garbage containers, hoping to eventually reach a wider and perhaps maintained street. We succeeded, later even found a parking spot, and a place at a table in a Thai restaurant.

Badlands - a landscape like on another planet

Our kids begged us much to let them play in the snow after dinner -- and so we stayed on fresh air another half hour. We, adults, were chatting, and juniors were digging in city snow-banks. The hour was getting late and cold temperatures forced us to part with our friendly hosts (Táňa had been my virtual friend, whom I met in person for the first time) and go to bed. Tom was being obnoxious for most of the evening, saying that he wants to come visit them again; later he disclosed that he had discovered a steam engine model in Táňa's living room, and some matching cars in the last moment -- so much for his social aspirations.

Kids we most captivated by stony walls at lookouts, on which they could march.

In the morning we quickly ate at a local nondescript cafe with mediocre food and a burly server, pumped gas, and we sped off eastwards on highway 40. This interstate was created as a faster alternative to the famous Route 66 - and places along the sixty six served as inspiration to the animated movie Cars (much in favor with our children). There's a motel built of plastic Tee-pees, which closely reminds of Sally's Cozy Cones. You can spot old gas pumps along the way, tiny fire stations -- all this interlaced with red rock cliffs.

Driving about twenty miles through a relative wasteland, we worked our way into the entrance of Petrified Forest NP. Juniors demanded "muselo", apparently still under the impression of Meteor Crater. We granted them the local Visitor Center with a display of local life forms in Trias. Trees, similar to pines, which used to grow here, had been taken by rivers into flood planes and gradually buried under layers of mud. Deprived of oxygen, the rotting process was slowed down and when the wooden structure got soaked with mineral-saturated water, the wood itself mineralized solid.

Indian pueblo called The White House.

Today, you can find many petrified logs on surface -- I was surprised how precisely growth rings and bark were preserved, and how colorful the rocks became. Kids ran up and down paths and stairs to various exhibits, climbed accessible logs. We circled around the visitor center and looped in a Crystal Forest -- the only thing that we had to suffer was a closed trail at Blue Mesa. The landscape there looks like from another planet -- regularly striped heaps (layers of sandstone and clay, colored by various metal ores and minerals); I would have loved to see it up-close. But even so, the kids were getting tired. We drove on to Painted Desert, returning to the highway forty and looking for our northbound turn off.

A tunnel into a different world. Navajos live at the bottom of Canyon de Chelly in their traditional six-sided hogans.

Even Hippo had never seen Canyon de Chelly before, and that's how it became our next destination. At dusk we reached the small town named Chinle. Thanks to a special Navajo tax, this was our most expensive motel stay (one notices 12% extra). I have to say that our motel was nice and roomy, but it was poorly insulated, for giggling of neighboring teenagers was still very well heard by four in the morning (I don't know about later as then I applied ear plugs). Furthermore, we were forced to check out by ten a.m. -- which would not be as bad as such -- except California's time zone is one hour behind, so it was effectively eight for us -- combine it with children sleeping late and us packing all our stuff, and it stops being fun. We pumped gas at a local station. I had to wade through mud (apparently, even extra tax is not enough for something as common as street sweeping, sidewalks, or paved lot in front of the corner gas station), and a pack of well-fed, merry dogs with no collars or obvious owners, to the attached shop for bottled water and some snacks. I left Sid at mercy of local vagrants and beggars, who were swarming around.

Local flowers decorate the bottom of the canyon.

Soon we left this metropolis and drove on to the actual national park. Canyon de Chelly has been lived in by humans for some five thousand years. Its first inhabitants left only wall paintings, later Anasazi marked their presence by rocky pueblos. Navajo (Diné) have been living in the canyon since approximately beginning of eighteenth century. Of the whole complex, there's practically one single spot where one is permitted to descend to the bottom, without a Navajo guide -- and that's a White House trail.

Kids got their snacks in their new backpacks and we were ready to go. Train engines could rejoice -- there was a tunnel right at the beginning. And snow all around us, thus much fun. Later, we reached a muddy section. A fine sticky mess, where you don't know if your boot will slide a little or sink ankle-deep (the mud swallowed Lisa boot in one moment). Sid horribly grumbled, but tourists coming in the opposite direction assured us that the trail would get better later, and so we persisted. Soon, we found ourselves on rock again -- and discovered another tunnel.

Canyon de Chelly. We are returning and our shadows grow longer.

The bottom of the canyon was quite muddy and the path unmarked. Somehow we sorted it out and reached a creek, where our juniors ignored the trail and began throwing rocks. After a brief snack we convinced them to go all the way to the White House -- a pueblo named after a white washed wall. The kids got a bit whiny there and so we turned around and began to return. Reaching the nearest tunnel, Tommy needed to take off his jacket; Lisa took advantage of our being distracted and climbed a wall next to the trail -- which took her up to the top of the tunnel, some ten feet above ground. I won't forget any time soon the moment I saw Lisa easily trot on such a precipice. We tried to convinced her (gently, without startling her) to walk back down, but this our lady immediately refused, on general principle. Sid had to catch up with her and remove her bodily from the edge, while I tried to dispel my urges to shred her into tiny pieces.

After this adrenaline intermezzo, the muddy phase came; kids were dwindling, so I pulled out my ace in the hole -- jelly. The morale of our team got boosted so much that we finished the ascent without further incident, under admiring gazes and comments of a few Navajo geezers who caught up with us towards the end. We knocked some of the mud off our boots. Lisa's trousers were muddy all the way to her waist, but there was nothing we could do about that. Having gotten in our car, we sped off to Moab, where we had an informal rendezvous with Kubackis.

Naturally there's a continuation of this trip's journal, and a gallery of pictures.