California to Kansas

We left Anaheim with mixed emotions - great seeing family but California changed so much it didn't feel like home anymore. Guess Thomas Wolfe is right - "You can't go home again." Oh well guess we moved on too. We spent several nights near Barstow, California so we could visit Calico - an old mining ghost town. It's grown but it sill brought back great memories.


The bottle house  is a new building but rather cool - made out of bottles. The buildings and mountains are rather fun.









And the sheriff uses modern transportation






We also went rock hunting in the Calico Mountains and I found a couple pieces of Jasper. Wonderful evidence of the Calico Fault upheaval was in the parking lot. That's a prime example of what earthquakes can do.

We stopped at Kingman, Arizona for a night - home of Andy Devine - "Jingles" in the TV series Wild Bill Hickcock and an actor in many other westerns. It's also home of some Turquoise Mines.

From Kingman, we traveled on the Flagstaff, Arizona for a couple of nights. We met friends Amy and Jason for dinner at Cafe Ole and had a wonderful meal. I really miss working with Amy. Jason is a potter who spent some time at Penland and The Exhange near Spruce Pine, NC. Flagstaff is delightful with wonderful temperatures despite it being near 100 degrees everywhere else in Arizona.Flagstaff is almost at the Grand Canyon which we missed this trip. Another reason to return to the area.

And our next area to explore was in the Holbrook, Arizona area. We went to Ganado to the Hubble Trading Post - it's still active. While we were there, a Navajo Native American woman came in to sell a pictoral weaving. I enjoyed watching the exchange - didn't understand the conversation since it was in Navajo - but I ended up buying the piece. I'll show you all when we get home. It's very special. This is a reputable trading post not like the ones on the Interstate. Then we went on to the Painted Desert, the Petroglyphs, and the Petrified Forest. They were fabulous and here are pictures for you to enjoy:




















We spent Memorial Day weekend in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We visited Santa Fe and old town Albuquerque. We saw statues of Coronado - he visited New Mexico on his way to Salina, Kansas. And so are we. That's our next stop and my next blog. I'll see you in a little bit to let you in on all the fun in Kansas.