4/30/18 On the move. Tonight we are technically in Kansas. Actually on the 3 corner part of the state which touches OK and MO. Again today the winds are the story of the day gusting 24 to 35, so driving was a bit more difficult.

In the morning we stopped at the Washita Battlefield in OK. The monument was to commemorate the battle between the Plains Tribes and the US Calvary. Apparently this battle only served to increase the hostilities between the Settlers and the Indians.  Lt. Colonel Custer led a dawn attack on Nov 27, 1868 on the encampment of sleeping Cheyennes led by Chief Black Kettle killing several hundred Indians. The attack has been dubbed a massacre.  Only 53 women and children survived. The attack led to many more battles between all the Tribes of the Plains and the Settlers/US Calvary. Interesting to note one of the young boys who survived the attack in 1868 took part in the battle Little Bighorn aka "The Last Stand of Custer" on June 25-26, 1876 where Custer and all of his troops were killed in the battle.

                                                                   Buffalo skull

                                                                   Indian artifacts

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 Our camp spot is in Baxter Springs, Kansas. Baxter Springs is a very small town right on the boarder of OK and MO. The town has a small park alongside the Springs River. Our camp spot is $10 a night. Sweet! We had to call the town Sheriff who will be by to collect the money.

4/29/18 Homeward Bound. We have made good progress so far. We crossed the Arizona boarder through New Mexico and Texas and are spending the night in Oklahoma; just barely. Very windy today in Texas with a 25 to 30 mile per hour cross winds. Apparently this is normal here this time of year. Our gas mileage dropped from 12.5 + to 8.1- miles per gal. Ouch!

                                                    Sunset in Oklahoma from our campground.

4/28/18 Heading HOME! Today we left Flagstaff after dropping Matt and Family off at the airport at 5:00 am. So we got an early early start on our journey home. I looked up on Google maps and we have 2,175 miles to home. We decided to take a slight detour to Petrified Forest in AZ. I was last there when I was 9, so didn't remember much. As it turns out the National Park is definitely worthwhile to stop and see if you are out this way.

Okay this picture is not from the National Park, but a town not far away. We just had to snap a picture.

 The Black Forest trees were carried here by a sizable river millions of years ago. The trees grew along the river side, died and ultimately carried hundreds of miles. The logs caused a log jam and were buried in Silica 211 to 218 million years ago. The Silica impregnated the wood over millions of years converting the cells of the wood to silica-quartz (rock). It is interesting that the Silica exactly matched the wood grain and fiber. The trees which are visible today have been uncovered by wind and rain erosion over thousands of years. Some of the exposed logs are hundreds of feet up on top of the uplifts partially sticking out in the Painted Desert. Many of the petrified logs have clean breaks like being sawed. The breaks are caused by erosion moving the exposed log creating the cracks. Silica is very brittle and naturally breaks on a clean angle.

                                  This petrified log is over a 100 feet long and sits atop a hill.

 The NP park also contains many dinosaur fossils still in the process of being discovered. The picture below is a prehistoric gator head. Nope this is not a blown-up picture.

                                                            Cholla Cactus in bloom

                      The views below are part of the Paint Desert that abuts the Petrified Forest NP

 Part of the original Route 66 runs through the NP. The park has preserved a rusty 30's vintage Studebaker alongside of the road. It is bolted to concrete pillars so no one carts it off.

 The park also had a Petroglyph rocks. This similar to the Petroglyph's we saw in New Mexico and is also referred to as Newspaper Rock. There are hundreds of markings.

4/27/18 Flagstaff, AZ - last day with Matt-Sammy and Lucy. We headed out to see the nearby Wupatki National Monument and Sunset Crater. Wupatki is an area that contains Pueblo ruins dating back to the 900's. What is different about these ruins is they are on the plains. The area is miles square so you can get a feel for what was like for these people to live here. Adjacent to this area is Sunset Crater which is a volcano that erupted 1054 with lava flows primarily from the base of the mountain, not the cone. The volcano spewed cinders and lava. Interestingly enough the cinders helped the surrounding area retain water which the Puebloans benefited from with their farming. Ultimately a prolonged drought caused all of the Puebloans to leave the area, never to return.

                                                       Lava flow from Sunset Crater

                       Dead tree picture taken for Sue Lake. These trees are hundreds of years old.

 Cinder mountain. Not sure how deep the cinders are but Ponderosa Pines have found a way to take root

                                                   Spatter Cone at the base of the volcano.

                                                         Walnut Canyon hike. 284 steps!

                                             Back at the campground just fooling around