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This Week's Adventure: Flagstaff, Arizona
Where does one go after an exhausting and exhilarating week at the Grand Canyon? Flagstaff! We hopped in the car and headed towards the historic Route 66 and a long-awaited hamburger. Charlys was the setting for our first Flagstaff meal. There would be many more. Two days in Flagstaff to regroup, do laundry, some writing and relaxing turned into five. Three Fratelli pizzas later, we finally left town. It happens. We had a fantastic time in the first town we’ve seen in a while. The National Park areas around Flagstaff didn’t delight as much as the town itself. Luckily, we had friendly people, good food and sunshine to dull our disappointment.
For full reviews, stories and photos of all of the National Park areas we have visited, check out www.usa-c2c.com.
Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument is a recently-created, eruption occurred only about 1,000 years ago, cinder cone volcano that we couldn’t help but compare to the other volcano we have seen so far. Unlike fellow cinder cone volcano at the Capulin Volcano NM in New Mexico, you cannot climb or get anywhere near Sunset Crater Volcano. We did not have much fun here. We don’t care for hiking around lava beds. Climbing up and looking into the dormant volcano would have been much more fun. But we understand.
Sunset Crater unveiled its new Visitor Center Museum on June 7, 2004. The exhibits are snazzy and interactive. They include a flat-screen intro to volcanoes, a Geiger Counter that you affect by jumping up and down and a video reenactment of the eruption whose visual angles you can change with the provided joystick. The Museum is high-tech, the information is there, but we learned a lot less at Sunset Crater than we did watching the outdated “how it happened” video at the Capulin Volcano NM in New Mexico.
At Sunset Crater the fun, superficial and gimmicky exhibits brought up more questions than they answered. Geologic terms were not simply defined, little was put in regional context and the fancy displays’ flash was awful distracting. We have often found that once NPS museums remodel, they cut back on Ranger staffing. Such was the sad case at Sunset Crater.
Wupatki National Monument preserves red limestone and sandstone brick ruins of pueblos believed to have been built some 1,000 years ago by ancestors of present-day Hopi and Zuni Indians. The structures were inhabited for about 100 years until they were abandoned around the year 1225. Archeologists believe the life at Wupatki to have been intrinsically tied to the volcanic eruption at nearby Sunset Crater Volcano NM.
It is troubling when you leave an unknown historical site knowing less and being more confused than you did when you arrived. Such was the case at Wupatki NM. You enter the Visitor Center and either pay $1.00 for or borrow and return a well done but intellectually vexing Wupatki Pueblo Trail Guide. Then you go out to the Pueblo and try to sort things out for yourself.
The brochure is chock full of information but is unclear about where that knowledge comes from. Speculation? Native oral tradition? Archeology? Local rumor? Ranger clarification would have been nice. We cannot emphasize how much we wished that a Ranger could have led us through the ruin. How can you throw tourists into a 1,000-year-old ruin built by an unknown culture, give them a few pieces of paper and tell them to sort it out?
Walnut Canyon National Monument is a collection of unimpressive cliff dwellings built in low ceiling rock ledges on the side of Walnut Canyon. The NPS indicates that the Sinagua Indians first constructed the makeshift brick abodes in the year 1125 and fully abandoned them by 1250.
The Walnut Canyon NM parking lot was full when we arrived. We quickly moved out of the Visitor Center and onto the trail. The room permeated the distinct fragrance of body odor. We soon found out why. The many tourists, mostly old and a bit hefty, had overestimated their physical abilities, decided to hike the 240-step Island Trail and were stuck wheezing atop all the path’s few park benches. Our hike out of the Grand Canyon may have shaped us up a bit, but we wanted to sit and relax too. No luck with that. Our quest for rest took us back to our Flagstaff motel and away from the Canyon’s beauty.
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