Random Photos from Road Trips

[Rick Quinn]

...on ROOT Sixty-Six! Home of Giganticus Headicus (He's very green...)



Route 66 and it's kitschy attractions feature prominently in Scenic Side Trip #12: Kingman to Flagstaff. A scenic alternative to Interstate 40!

Rick


Read more about Rick's book here and see a map for all of the routes he wrote about.

[Rick Quinn]

As we all know, Zion National Park is in Utah, but I nevertheless managed to squeeze it in to our book about Road Trips in Arizona and New Mexico. (Being an author does have its perks!) Scenic Side Trip #13 actually starts in St. George, Utah, and takes you to Flagstaff by way of Zion, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and Page (Lake Powell, Horseshoe Bend, and Antelope Canyon). I left Zion late in the afternoon, driving east on Route 9, and as we approached the Canyon Junction Bridge over the Virgin River, I saw a big crowd of people clustered in one spot, and they were all pointing cameras in the same direction. There was nowhere to park--every available space alongside the road was taken, so I had to drive a good half mile before I got a chance to stop. The light was already fading, so I parked a bit sloppily and took off running toward the bridge, not entirely sure what the attraction was. A bear, maybe? Or a car wreck, or a Playboy photo shoot in progress? I finally reached the spot, puffing and wheezing like a steam calliope, and elbowed my way through the crowd until I reached the railing. So--what was it? A very nice sunset view, that's what it was. (Most definitely worth the stop!)



Rick


Read more about Rick's book here and see a map for all of the routes he wrote about.

[Rick Quinn]

This photo of the White House Ruin was taken from the White House Overlook on the South Rim Drive at Canyon de Chelly. The Overlook, as well as the hiking trail that begins there, has been closed since 2020, due to a rash of vandalism and vehicle break-ins that impacted park visitors. The COVID pandemic extended the closure, and it was beginning to look like the overlook would be closed permanently.

I check on these things periodically, and I was quite pleased to see the following announcement from the National Park Service:

White House Overlook and Trail to reopen in 2025
The White House Overlook and Trail are closed until next season. The Navajo Parks and Recreation staff will oversee this area seasonally with staff to open gates and answer questions. This area may require a fee in the future.

What I take from that is that the overlook will be staffed, and gated, with an entrance fee. Which is a vast improvement over "permanently closed"!

Canyon de Chelly is just one of several fantastic locations featured in Scenic Side Trip #16, Holbrook to Gallup (another Scenic Alternative to Interstate 40!)


Read more about Rick's book here and see a map for all of the routes he wrote about.

[Rick Quinn]

The Navajo Nation is the largest Native American reservation in the U.S., in terms of both population and land area. Most of it is in Arizona, but it spans into New Mexico and Utah as well, encompassing some 17 million square miles, which makes it larger than ten of the U.S. states that made up the original 13 colonies. It may not be the best land in the world, but it’s truly and uniquely beautiful. Call it Canyon Country, as it includes parts of the Grand Canyon, all of Canyon de Chelly, along with Antelope Canyon, and a whole lot more. While researching Scenic Side Trip #15, Flagstaff to Holbrook (yet another alternative to Interstate 40, by way of the Navajo and Hopi Reservations), I ran across a canyon I’d never heard of. A fellow traveler at a rest stop gave me a tip, told me to “keep an eye out for the windmill” off AZ 264, when driving east between Tuba City (where you won’t see a single Tuba) and Hotevilla. At the time, there were no signs of any kind, but we did spot the windmill, so I turned off the road, bumped along for a bit over a rough dirt track, and we were rewarded with the following totally unexpected view. (We were like, "Whoa!"):



Coal Mine Canyon! Not very big, but very cool, and if you stop, odds are you’ll have it all to yourself. Note that overnight parking, as well as all travel off the main roads in this area requires a permit from the Navajo tribe (available in Cameron), and any hiking inside of Coal Mine Canyon requires a Hopi guide, (which can be arranged though the Moenkopi Inn in Tuba City). The rim and the overlooks are on Navajo land. The canyon itself is Hopi land. None of it is public land, so its best to keep that in mind.

Rick


Read more about Rick's book here and see a map for all of the routes he wrote about.

[Mark Sedenquist]

Yes, that would have been a big "whoa!"

I had heard about the windmill, but I must have missed it on our last trip down the road.

Gorgeous photo.

Mark

[Rick Quinn]

As little as ten years ago, Antelope Canyon, on the Navajo reservation near Page, Arizona, still hadn't been "discovered" by social media. Once the Influencers arrived, and Instagram got inundated by pictures of the place, it got so popular, and so crowded, that it lost a lot of its magic. My first visit, in 2013, my friend and I toured Lower Antelope Canyon entirely on our own, no guide required, taking as much time as we liked. By 2015, that was no longer allowed, but they still offered "photography tours," smaller groups, extra time, with an emphasis on capturing the best possible photos. I wanted pictures of the famous Light Beams that slant down through cracks in the rock, appearing like spotlights on a theater stage. Our guide knew just where to find them, and to make sure they showed up for our cameras, she filled a dixie cup with the fine white sand that covers the canyon floor. Then she tossed the sand into the air, an underhand pitch like in softball--and voila!



Sadly, they no longer offer photography tours, and the only way to see Antelope Canyon these days is to get in line. But even at that, it's a truly remarkable place!

Rick

[Rick Quinn]

I’ve driven Interstate 10 more times than I can remember. Short trips to Tucson from my home in Phoenix, day trips to Los Angeles, cross country all the way to Florida and back. It was on one of those long drives, back in 2014, that the notion of “scenic alternatives to Interstate Highways” first occurred to me. My road trip started in D.C., where I’d been living and working. I made brief stops in Jackson, MS and Austin, TX to visit friends, so by the time I got to New Mexico, I’d been on the road for four days. I made it as far as Lordsburg when fatigue set in, so I crashed in a cheap motel, and got up before sunrise, anxious to be on my way.

On Interstate 10, the drive from Lordsburg to Phoenix takes you through Tucson, veering well to the south to make that connection. It’s 269 miles of freeway that should take about 4 hours. While checking my map in my motel room, I noticed an alternate route through Globe, which took about the same amount of time, but bypassed Tucson, and saved you 29 miles. “A scenic shortcut,” I said to myself.

The new route left Lordsburg on U.S. 70, and as I approached the Arizona border, the whole “scenic” thing became manifest, in the form of a vision, off to my right:



It’s called Steeple Rock, and the view of that thing was glorious! The rest of the drive to Phoenix went very well indeed, and it’s been immortalized in print: Scenic Side Trip #4: Lordsburg to Phoenix[/URL] (a scenic alternative to Interstate 10).

Rick


Read more about Rick's book here and see a map for all of the routes he wrote about.

[Rick Quinn]

Standing four feet tall, with a wingspan of more than six feet, Sandhill Cranes are the avian equivalent of a Boeing 747. They spend their summers up in Wyoming, but come the Fall, 30,000 of them fly 1,000 miles south to spend the winter in Central New Mexico, arriving in mid-November and flying home again in March. When migrating, they can soar 500 miles in a 12 hour day, flying in a V formation at an altitude of 12,000 feet. The Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge near Socorro is an extraordinary place to observe not just the Cranes, but Snow Geese, and many other species of birds. Catch it at just the right time, you even get Fall color along the Rio Grande.



The Bosque del Apache is featured in Scenic Side Trip #19: Grants to Socorro (a scenic alternative to Interstate 40).

Rick


Read more about Rick's book here and see a map for all of the routes he wrote about.

[Rick Quinn]

Driving east on US 60, headed into New Mexico from Arizona, you cross a wide open grassland known as the Plains of San Agustin, which, as it happens, is the home of an extraordinary radio astronomy observatory known as the Very large Array. When you're driving through the area, it's impossible to miss. This is an installation of 27 enormous satellite dishes positioned along three 13 mile long rail lines that meet in a Y shape. Each antenna is 82 feet wide and weighs 230 tons. By moving the antenna, scientists can precisely focus the massive mechanism to point at different segments of the sky.

Radio telescopes don't render a conventional image. They pull in the faint radio waves emitted by distant stars, black holes, quasars, and the clouds of gas that fill interstellar space. By analyzing these signals, astronomers literally travel through time, "witnessing" celestial events that took place billions of years ago, opening a window on the origins of the universe. Contrary to popular belief, the array is NOT being used to search for signs of extrterrestrial intelligence. It's strictly a coincidence that it was built in the exact same spot where a UFO crashed, back in 1947....



The VLA is featured on Scenic Side Trip #19: Grants to Socorro; it's not far from the Avian Oasis at the Bosque del Apache

Rick


Read more about Rick's book here and see a map for all of the routes he wrote about.

[Mark Sedenquist]

It's strictly a coincidence that it was built in the exact same spot where a UFO crashed, back in 1947....

One of the sillier leaps of fantasy that thrive in this environment.