Albuquerque, NM is famous for its Balloon Festival, held in mid-October. I just missed it for two weeks when I arrived in the city, but saw a huge balloon about 120 feet overhead when I departed to the South. Huge Cottonwood trees in spectacular yellow fall colors made me stop several times along the route to take photos.
.
.
Once turned into Hwy 60 to the West, the landscape changed abruptly into an arid grassland, and the road meandered up to more than 7,000 feet. Several warning signs for Elk dotted the next hundred miles, but at noontime, they certainly wouldn’t show up.
.
.
In some places, colorful rocks showed that the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert were not far, just up Hwy 180 to the South entrance. It takes at least 45 minutes to drive the 28-mile (45-km) road through the park, but to truly experience it allow at least a couple of hours to drive the Blue Mesa Road, go for a backcountry hike, and stop at the spectacular viewpoints along the way and enjoy the beautiful landscape rainbow of colors.
.
.
.
The park contains one of the world's largest and most colorful concentrations of petrified wood, multi-hued badlands, portions of the Painted Desert, historic structures, archeological sites, and displays of 225-million-year-old fossils.
The Petrified Forest is best known for its Triassic fossils. It's like having two parks in one, an ecosystem over 200 million years old with plants and animals now represented in the surreal landscape of the Painted Desert. The Painted Desert derives its name from the multitude of colors ranging from lavenders to shades of gray with vibrant colors of red, orange, and pink. From Holbrook on Hwy 40, the park can also be entered through the North entrance. The Park is open between 8 am MST and 5 pm MST.
.
Pie Town
Checking my road map (no, I don’t use GPS!) I saw the name Pie Town and was wondering about the strange name. But when I arrived there I found a lovely old-fashioned coffee shop with a large section of pies. I ate the best Quiche of my life and had a Peach pie and a Dutch Apple Crumble as take-out for the next days. They were just backed and still warm. A lovely smell wavered through my car for the next hours.
.
.
Pie Town has been a destination for motorists for 100 years. In the 1920s, a man named Clyde Norman made his way to the area, and eventually opened a general store and began serving dried apple pies. At the time, “Norman’s Place” was the only building in the town, but eventually grew into a small high desert community of ranchers and homesteaders. The town’s reputation for pies grew, and soon people were traveling from all over the country to sample their famous desserts, giving the town its official name.
Today, Pie Town is a small, quiet community that is home to fewer than 150 people according to a 2020 census. Despite its remote location, 100 years later, people are still drawn to Pie Town for their food. There were a few backpackers in the area. The Continental Divide Trail runs nearby, making it a popular trail stop.
West of Pie Town the landscape changed slowly into Pine forests (National Forests) and the road reached a lower altitude - but still around 5,000 ft. The Payson area map showed lots of trails. Just from driving here, I could see that the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Eastern U.S. and the Appalachian Trail are paling compared to what came short after Payson:
Breathtaking Views
A four-lane drive started, leading down for miles and miles with breathtaking views. But I could not take a single photo of the amazing landscape: mountain ridges as far as the eye could see. It would have been the perfect time to take photos as the sun was lower at around 4 o’clock in the afternoon to show the mountain ridges perfectly sharp. But there was not a single spot to park and enjoy this spectacular sight. It was something that I really missed on this tour: no photo stops, no parking or rest area even though there is lots of space. The only way to deeply indulge in this amazing landscape is by hiking.
I promised myself to come back to see and experience more
and take some hikes in the marvelous Fall landscape.
.
.
<><><><><>
.
No comments:
Post a Comment