US40 today routes in many places alongside old abandoned historic Route 66. Twelve years ago in 2013, I did a long road trip into Arizona where I visited
Petrified Forest National Park while using my Wisner Expedition view camera capturing images on Provia 100F 4x5 film. Was an especially productive trip photographically as I rambled about hiking out into many trail less areas of the park almost no others venture into. That was obvious because walking in those areas readily leave footprints. The below is a crude scan of one transparency from the Blue Mesa zone.
During that week, I stopped at the historic
Painted Desert Inn that is now am national historic site. It is on the edge of cliffs overlooking the Painted Desert on a spur road, a short mile from
Route 66. From NPS webpage:
...Thanks to the concern and support of the public, Painted Desert Inn remains a testament to the historic legacy of Petrified Forest National Park. Although its history is intriguing, the building is difficult to maintain. Cracks form in many of the walls. Window and door frames swell and skew. Water damage and cracks threaten the beautiful Kabotie murals. The seam of bentonite clay beneath the foundation of the inn continues to cause structural problems.
Severe structural damage to the inn forced the Fred Harvey Company to move to the newly completed visitor center complex in 1963. The inn’s doors closed while debate over demolition versus preservation went on for many years. The park set aside funds and scheduled demolition of the building for 1975. Due to a public campaign to save the Painted Desert Inn, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and reopened on a limited basis as the Bicentennial Travel Center. Because of its fine examples of Pueblo Revival Style design by Bennett, historic work by the CCC, touches by Mary Colter, and Kabotie’s murals, the Painted Desert Inn became a National Historic Landmark in 1987.
As I entered this room in the building:
I suddenly had an overwhelming emotional memory experience unlike any other time in my life. My dear father passed away in 1998 and my beloved mother in 2012, or a year before this road trip, and as I, were church going believers in Jesus. Before the road trip, I had no memories of ever being in the region. When I was maybe 3 years old, the family had driven from where we lived in Los Angeles, cross country via
Route 66 to Connecticut where they grew up before WWII.
I remembered being there with my family that at the time was just me and my baby sister Denise. We ordered maybe some breakfast, and were seated at a cafe table, not on one of the unique wooden counter seats. The room has a unique look and is painted corral-pink, like the spectacular desert scenery outside. My feeling was one of being there with my parents I love so deeply, so tears quickly swelled in my eyes. Embarrassed with other tourists about, I went outside and walked down some stairs some to be alone and bawled uncontrollably like a small child, something I never otherwise do. I still love my parents greatly and wonder if it has religious significance?
CalTopo - Backcountry Mapping Evolved
Desert lands just north are Native American territories. I have a hypothesis that advanced entities from elsewhere in our Milky Way Galaxy visited Earth during the ancient period when civilizations arose 8k years ago to help guide we increasingly murderous, warmongering Earth monkeys, and set up a base in the Arabian desert east of Israel for the sake of remaining hidden. The arid desert climate may reflect like conditions they preferred on their home planet, while no humans would be in such areas due to lack of water. Accordingly, they may have set up other desert bases on our planet beyond that which history records to help other human civilizations, especially scenic ones, and this would be a prized location to do so.
Since I recently purchased a used 2023 Trailblazer LS with just 23k miles, I can once again entertain without worry, some longer road trips, as I very much would like to return to both northern Arizona and Utah. In particular, want to revisit Petrified Forest NP and backpack both into the Painted Desert and in some recently opened areas of the park to the south. That is likely to be after Mexican Monsoon storms have greened up that region that occurs every few years.
