For 2007, my vacation plans were to visit as many national parks and other sites in Arizona. During the weekend of August 24th, 25th and 26th, I visited my friend, Kirk Klamar, in Northern Arizona and toured as many of the National Monuments and National Parks as possible.
I purchased the Golden Age Passport, which is a lifetime admission permit to visit all National Monuments and Parks, a couple of years back. The pass is issued to any citizen or permanent resident of the United States who is 62 years of age or older. It also admits accompanying passengers in a vehicle. On this trip, I traveled alone. There are other lifetime admissions available. Check them out here.The Grand Canyon and the Petrified Forest National Parks are two of over 380 parks in the National Park System. For more about parks and National Park Service programs in America’s communities visit www.nps.com.
On Friday, I visited Montezuma Castle, Tuzigoot, Sunset Crater and Wupatki National Monuments before arriving at Kirk’s trailer near the Grand Canyon.
Saturday morning, Kirk and I walked around his one-acre property to look at the terrain and to look for wild animals. He has a beautiful view of mountains. We toured his ranch in Four Hills later on in the morning. And in the evening, we went to the Grand Canyon for dinner.On Sunday morning, I headed for Walnut Canyon, the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert. Because it was so late, I stayed at Days Inn in Holbrook.
On Monday morning, I drove back to Phoenix.
Montezuma Castle National Monument: Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot are both located in the Verde Valley. First, I visited Montezuma Castle, which is on the East side of I-17.
The castle is located near Camp Verde, Arizona in the beautiful Verde Valley. It features well-preserved cliff dwellings. They were built and used by the Sinagua Indians around 1400 AD. When European Americans discovered them in the 1850s, they reported native traditions that they had been built by a divine hero named Montezuma — whose name may have been connected with the well-known historical Aztec emperor of Mexico, Moctezuma II, and accounts in Spanish as early as 1694 reference them as the "Casas de Montezuma". Some of these accounts have led to a mistaken belief that the Spanish or Americans themselves had named them after the emperor.The five-story stone and mortar dwellings contain 20 rooms and once housed about 50 people. A natural overhang shades the rooms and shelters them from rain. Another part of the cliff wall bears the marks of an even larger dwelling, which has not survived.
Tuzigoot National Monument: Second, I toured the ruins at Tuzigoot. Tuzigoot, near Cottonwood, Arizona, preserves a 2 to 3 story pueblo ruin on the summit of a limestone and sandstone ridge just east of Clarkdale, Arizona, 120 feet above the Verde River floodplain. The National 
Park Service currently owns 58 acres, within an authorized boundary of 834 acres.Tuzigoot is Apache for "crooked water", from nearby Peck's lake, a cutoff meander of the Verde River. Historically, it was built on a hill by the Sinagua people between 1125 and 1400 A.D. Tuzigoot is the largest and best-preserved of the many Sinagua pueblo ruins in the Verde Valley.
Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument: In the afternoon, I drove to Sunset Crater Volcano and took several pictures. A path around one side of the base of the monument is available for hikers. But since I was short on time, I did not walk the one-mile journey. Over 900 years ago, the volcano, now 1,000 feet high, erupted, spraying high into the air from a crack in the ground. It solidified, then fell to Earth as large bombs of small cinders. As periodic eruptions continued, the heavier debris accumulated around the vent. The lightest, smallest particles were carried the farthest by wind,
dusting 800 square miles of northern Arizona with ash. Perhaps as spectacular as the original eruption were two lava flows: the Kana-a and the Bonito. They destroyed all living things in their path.Today, cinders from the eruption cover the ground and lichens begin breaking down rock into soil. Pink penstemon and scarlet gilia grow in the volcanic cinders. Beautiful wild flowers are everywhere.
Wupatki National Monument: About 22 miles from Sunset Crater is the Wupatki National Monument. The explosion from the volcano caused the lava to flow and debris to rain down on the Wupatki Pueblo area.Homes in Wupatki ranged from one-story single-family structures to Wupatki Pueblo, a multi-level,
high-rise. This largest dwelling in the area had about 100 rooms. The environment provided materials ideal for the construction of freestanding masonry dwellings. Sandstone slabs, limestone blocks, and chunks of basalt set with a clay-based set with a clay-based mortar yielded sturdy buildings that, despite weathering and vandalism, remain partially intact more that 700 years after their owners departed.
Kirk’s Ranch: Kirk's ranch is located on a canyon that is a tributary of the Grand Canyon. It is located about 40 miles south of the Grand Canyon. And is for sale.Kirk’s GPS instrument indicated that an ‘excellent’ time to see wildlife is between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. and a ‘good’ time would be between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. At 11:00 a.m., we toured Four Hills, where his ranch is located and saw very little wildlife—a few birds, one jackrabbit and one prairie dog. Our luck was better in the ‘good’ time, we saw burros and deer.
Grand Canyon National Park: After visiting Kirk’s ranch, we went back to his trailer to take a nap because he had to work the night audit shift at the Grand Canyon’s Bright Angel Lodge. Besides, I was pooped. At 5:00 o’clock, we headed for the Grand Canyon to have dinner but had to drive south to fill-up with gasoline. 
On our way, we saw five wild burros grazing on a hillside near the freeway. And at the Grand Canyon, we spotted several deer roaming throughout the park.The Grand Canyon’s rocks that are exposed in the canyon range from the fairly young to the fairly
old. Kaibab limestone, the caprock on the rims of the canyon, formed 270 million years ago. The oldest rocks within the Inner Gorge at the bottom of Grand Canyon date to 1,840 million years ago. For comparison geologists currently set the age of Earth at 4,550 million years.While the rocks are ancient, the canyon is relatively young. Geologists generally agree that canyon carving occurred over the last 5-6 million years—a geologic blink of the eye.
Walnut Canyon National Monument: I had never heard of Walnut Canyon. I wish I had. This visit was the most treacherous of all. I would have taken water to prevent dehydration. But thank the Lord, the day was cloudy, and by the end of the walk, light rain cooled me down.
As I entered the visitor’s center, a female ranger told me there would be 240 steps down to the ruins. I knew that I could handle it by taking my time and resting several times on the way back up from the depths of the canyon. I was concerned about dehydration. There are two paved foot trails beginning at the visitor center. The Island Trail (hard one), a 0.9 mile loop, passes 25 cliff dwelling rooms and takes you through different plantlife zones.
I took the hard one. Next time it’s the easy one. The 0.7 mile Rim Trail (easy one) overlooks the canyon and passes the ruins of rimtop structures.A word of caution: If you decide to go the hard one, drink plenty of water to prevent dehydration. I was concerned about my visit on the hard one, but I am glad that I conquered it. The cloudy skies and the rain at the end of the climb saved me.
Meteor Crater Natural Landmark: The Meteor Crater is privately operated. My Golden Age Passport was not valid for admission into the crater. So, I had to pay $13 for a senior citizen ticket.Strictly speaking a meteor is a small space object that burns up in the atmosphere; if it actually reaches the surface it is referred to as a meteorite. For this reason the crater is somewhat misnamed.
Meteor Crater lies at an elevation of about 5709 feet above sea level. It is about 4,000 feet in diameter, some 570 feet, and is surrounded by a rim that rises 150 feet above the surrounding plains. 
The center of the crater is filled with 700-800 feet of rubble lying above crater bedrock.
I had seen this site in the early sixties. I did not spend a lot of time because I had the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert to see. As I was getting into my car, I spotted two little creatures that looked like chipmonks.
Petrified Forest National Park: When I approached the town of Holbrook, I followed signs directing traffic to the Petrified Forest. The highway leading to Petrified Forest is a back road through the desert with very few signs of civilization.When I reached the entrance gate to the park, I asked the ranger, “Where is the Painted Desert relative to here?”
“Continue north about 28 miles on this road,” he responded.
After stopping at the visitor’s center to view several specimens of petrified wood, I continued north on the road though the park. In the park are several stopping points to view petrified wood and Indian ruins. For the sake of time, I only stopped at the ones alongside of the main road. The main road through the park provides parking areas for access to hiking trails, picnic areas, and the designated wilderness.There are three visitor facilities in the park. Painted Desert Visitor Center has a 20-minute orientation movie and exhibits. Painted Desert Inn National Historic Landmark is a Pueblo Revival-style structure with cultural history exhibits. Rainbow Forest Museum has exhibits about petrified wood, geology and paleontology.
Over the 225 million years since the trees lived, the continents moved to their present positions, and this region was uplifted. As a result the climate changed, and the tropical environment became today’s grassland. Over time, wind and water wore away the rock layers exposed fossilized ancient plants and animals. The hills will yield more fossils as weathering sculpts the Painted Desert’s soft sedimentary rock.
Petrified wood’s varied colors came from minerals in the silica-saturated waters. Iron, carbon, manganese, and sometimes cobalt and chromium produced patterns and blends of yellow, red, black, blue, brown, white, and pink. Petrified wood is surprisingly heavy weighing nearly 200 pounds per cubic foot, and its hardness is seven on a 10-point scale.Paleontologists have studied fossils in the park since the 1920s. Their important finds include skeletons of crocodile-like phytosaurs; one of North America’s earliest dinosaur fossils, nicknamed “Gertie,” and most recently a skeleton of the aetosaur Stagonolepis, a large, heavily armored plant-eating reptile.
The Painted Desert: The Painted Desert is located inside the Petrified Forest National Park. I passed several colorful hills that I thought was the Painted Desert, but as I continued on the highway through the park, I stopped at one of the points. The sign read, “The Painted Desert”. The 28-mile park road offers overlooks with long-distance vistas of the Painted Desert and parking areas for access to hiking trails.After my day was over the clouds darkened and the rain came and left creating a beautiful rainbow. I captured the picture from my hotel room in Holbrook, Arizona.
God is quite an artist. He paints with a breath-taking stroke.
The picture below was selected for the Super Bowl XVII Countdown:
