Glenn is going to yield to the Princess (aka Sissy, aka Liz) big time today as Geelong beat Port last night. Thanks Holly for the screen shots and updates of the scores. As we leave Gallup today, we have so far done 2073 miles. Trains trains trains, up to 7 engines pulling massive numbers of carriages. For awhile there was continuos trains for 20 minutes. The rail here is a very important transport mechanism. Along the road we pass so many signs advertising the Indian Trading Posts. Some of them are very run down but they are still trading. A visit to the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert Information centre is once again very fruitful but we can not possibly do everything they suggest. But we do make the ranger happy by nodding and appearing like we are hanging on his every word. Before we head into the park we have coffee in the Fred Harvey restaurant. It's pretty good coffee, nice carrot cake and yummy chocolate and peanut butter cookies. We were a bit curious about te ice cream flavours and while we really only wanted to ask we ended up with some bunny trail and chocking chip ice cream to go.! It's going to be a bad food day today! We pay the necessary park fee and proceed into the park. It's like we have just been teleported to a lunar landscape. Hopefully some photos will give a bit of an idea of what we are seeing. There are so many sandstone formations and the colours have to be seen to be believed. They start out as oranges and greys and cream and as we progress through the park they change into purples and blues and creams due to the water reacting with the minerals in the soil over millions of years. The Tepees are layered blues, purples and grays created by iron,carbon, manganese in a cone like shape. The petrified forest is yet another phenonoma. This are was once a floodplain crossed by streams . Tall conifers grew along the banks and crocodile like reptiles inhabited the streams . As the trees fell and were washed onto the floodplains they were buried by silt MUDs and volcanic ash. Without oxygen the wood decayed more slowly and the silica in the ground water seeped into the logs and eventually crystallized into quartz and preserved the logs as petrified wood. We are talking like over 225 million years and with the movement of the earth's surface and the effect of erosion, these petrified logs have become exposed. ( so ends the science lesson). Early human occupation has been recorded back over 10000 years ago. There is evidence of wandering families and settled agricultural villages or Pueblos some of which have been preserved. Newspaper rock has more than 650 petroglyphs etched into the rocks by people who farmed in this area up to 2000 years ago. There are human like figures, animal like figures, spiritual figures, hands and tracks. On the lookout there are binoculars pointing directly at the site. Just makes it so easy. Thankfully in 1906 this area was designated as a National Park so it will be preserved for future generations. The petrified wood was, prior to this, being collected as souvenirs and also taken out and used in many commercial ventures. It's now illegal to remove it from within the park but there are deposits outside of the park so its quite easy to by samples or jewelry or furniture made from it. The story of Fred Harvey is an interesting one and quite significant to this area as there was a Harvey House formerly in this park. The Painted Desert Inn is a National Historic Landmark and has been preserved to showcase some of the features of the Harvey House. Below is part of his story. "In the 1880s West, railroad travel was no joyride. The comfort of passengers was not a high priority. The food served in restaurants near train depots was dreadful. Some restaurant owners ran a scam with train crews. Customers paid up front, but, lo and behold, just as their meals were about to be served, the whistle blew and the diners, their stomachs still empty, had to hot-foot it to the train or be left behind. Then along came Fred Harvey. He had immigrated to the United States from England at age 15 and had worked in high-class restaurants in New York City until the Civil War came along and ruined business. He kicked around in various jobs, including a time as a postal worker, and worked his way west. In 1875, Harvey was working as a freight agent for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, and operating a pair of railroad restaurants in Kansas and Colorado. Those lasted only a year or so, but they taught Harvey that there was a market for good food and good service in railroad eateries. His employers weren't interested, but the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway was. The first Harvey House opened in 1875 in Topeka, Kan. Within 15 years, there were 84 restaurants. The Harvey House featured good, reasonably priced food, served on table linens and fine china. For 50 cents, you could get a breakfast of cereal or fruit, eggs, a steak, hotcakes and a thick slab of apple pie. Dinners were 75 cents and featured some kind of gourmet dish. The dark side of the business was that Harvey's customers and staff tended to be rowdy. Some of his employees packed guns to protect themselves from customers. Brawls were not infrequent. In 1883, in an effort to encourage more civilized behavior, Harvey placed ads in Eastern and Midwestern newspapers seeking clean-cut, well-mannered, attractive women between 18 and 30 to come and be waitresses. The pay was $17.50 a month, plus tips, good money in those days, and those hired received a train ticket west, and room and board The Harvey Girls were an immediate success. They wore starched, black-and-white uniforms, were overseen by a house mother and worked six or seven days a week. They organized softball teams and traveled up and down the train line to play teams from other Harvey Houses. They drew customers like flies to honey. Arizona had Harvey Houses, and Harvey girls, in Ash Fork, Flagstaff, Seligman, Williams, Winslow and on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Today, only the magnificent El Tovar at the Canyon and La Posada in Winslow are still in business. It has been estimated that about 5,000 Harvey girls married and brought their civilizing influence to the West. And it has been estimated that those Harvey wives gave birth to about 4,000 sons named either Fred or Harvey or both." In 1942 Samuel Hopkins Adams wrote a book titled The Harvey Girls and in 1946 MGM released a musical film starring Angela Landsbury and Judy Garland. If you've stopped reading, I don't blame you but I tend to get a bit absorbed in some of this history. Leaving the park we now head to Holbrook.... Not much to see here, another sad example of what once was. There is however the Wigwam Motel. It did close down after the town was bypassed but in 1988 it was reopened. The office was closed but we walked around the tepees. Parked out front of each of them was an old car, looked like pretty basic accommodation but like such a lot of these towns the folks will try any gimmick to stay alive and keep the tourist dollar coming in. While on the lookout for a lunch stop its a bit limited as we are on the open road so we stop at a servo to see whats on offer. As we approach the entrance, a guy filling up with gas called out to us " go into Popeye's, everything is free!" Not exactly sure what he was talking about, we said thanks and went inside. Off to one side is a Popeyes fast food restaurant. All of a sudden we were inundated with people welcoming us and ushering us up to the counter to order food. It's a chicken place, along the lines of KFC but with a Cajun twist. All the food is free as they were training their staff ready for the official opening tomorrow. They are also enthusiastic and keen to help, it's a bit overwhelming really. The idea is that we all place an order to give them practise so that's exactly what we do. It's actually very nice. The chicken is moist and tender and not as fatty as KFC. We get corn on the cob, biscuits (scones), Cajun fries and drinks. All for nix! They have shut the restaurant now to regroup but we are welcome to stay . It's our own private restaurant and everyone is still so attentive. On leaving we give them our feedback and leave with the apple pies I forgot to mention earlier..... There's a few Route 66 must see icons along the next stretch. We all ride the jackrabbit at Jackrabbit and we stop to take photos at the corner in Winslow Arizona made famous by the Eagles song - Take it easy. Another 20 miles or so along the road we come to the big hole in the ground. The meteor crater is the Most Fascinating and Significant Meteor Impact Sites on Earth......of course it is. It's a big hole in the ground cause by a meteor that fell to earth 50000 years go. The crater is nearly a mile wide and 550 ft deep. There is an interactive display in the Discovery Centre plus you can walk out to various viewing platforms on the rim. Once again there are strategically placed telescopes so you can get a better view at the crater floor and edges. Riveting! Popeyes has left us a little parched so Liz and I head back to Harvey to make a cuppa while the boys continue there voyage of space discovery. Our site for the night is going to be in Flagstaff. It's at the highest elevation that we will be staying at and we expect it will be a little cooler. It starts to rain as we pull up at J & H RV Park. Harvey and his wife JoAnn are the owners and they run a very neat and clean park. Today is a day of Harvey's. Of course our lovely home, Harvey, Fred Harvey from the Harvey House and now Harvey at the RV Park. All around the reception office there are funny/ sarcastic sayings and Harvey himself is a bit hard to read but he warms to us when he knows we are Aussies. Our site is near the abilities which is excellent. It's stopped raining but everything is wet so we have our drinks inside while we mull over the days activities. Dinner tonight is going to be a bit pot luck with what we have in the fridge. Not sure if you've noticed but we haven't been to Walmart for a few days now! F course the end result is gourmet and finishing off with the apple pies from Popeyes is just perfect. Thinking ahead to the next days travel, we make decision that we will head through to Vegas and pull up for 4 nights. It will e a good break from traveling and driving for Milton. We book into what sounds like a beautiful RV Resort. How exciting! We are not going to bed until we have heard the netball results from Stacy. Unfortunately it's not good news as they lost by just 1 goal. We will catch up with the rest in the morning. Goodnight Harvey xx