I had my usual not-so-good night in the hotel. I just don’t sleep well in strange beds. Ah, well. I’ll get it back tonight. I awoke at 6:00 and could head a whishing from the other side of the room. Maybe it’s the wind. Sure enough, the wind was up to about 20 mph outside when we got up.
We got dressed and joined the rest at the hot buffet breakfast. Ummm: scrambled eggs, country fries, biscuits along with all the other typical foods at hotel breakfasts: bagels, juice, fruit, yogurt, cereal and the ever popular waffles. Pretty good and - why oh why - do we eat so much more on the road? At home a glass of fruit smoothie and a bowl of oatmeal suffices - today, well, I’m not going to list all I had breakfast. I’ll leave it at: I’ll just have a salad for dinner.
There were several TV’s in the room and here’s the program on the one I was facing - Monster Trucks. Oh, boy. I can’t think of any other program I’d rather watch at 8:00 in the morning. This will make the scrambled eggs go down much more easily.
Out on Interstate 8, boy, was the wind whipping up the desert sand. The air had a dusty yellow tint, sand fingers were blowing across the highway like snow blows across roadways in Iowa during the winter.
At one point, we were on Interstate 8 when we were caught in sand-out conditions that lasted only a few seconds but it was scary. Oh, shucks - not going to be an easy trip back to Mesa.
But then, but then, when we got through the pass in the mountains on the east side of Yuma, it cleared considerably and the trip was much easier. We were just cruisin’ along heading towards the Petroglyph site. When we got there, we noticed this huge solar panel field. Maybe I don’t get out much but I’ve never seen parabolic-shaped solar panels. Now I have, rows and rows of them. There was a tower right off the road - a real temptation. No guards, no locks on gates, no fences, no signs saying ‘No Trespassing’ and we were up that tower for the view across the field. Great views but my pictures don’t do the scope of the project justice. (Note the brown sand on the horizon in the first picture. Still blowing in Yuma. But note that there is no brown sand blowing on the left side of the second picture - towards Phoenix.)
And, across the street was a cattle confinement area. Lots of hay, lots of cows and, well, I’ll let you guess about the other prevalent item.
Our road to the Petroglyphs went right between the solar field and the cattle yard up into the hills beyond. The rocks on which the petroglyphs were pecked were pretty obvious although they are a much smaller pile of rocks that I first imagined from pictures I had seen. I thought a pile about the length of a city block but, in truth the rock pile is 20’ tall and about 400’ long. But, my, every one of the rocks was covered - as if they didn’t want to waste a spot. This is the largest known petroglyph site in the area with over 800 images pecked onto weathered basalt boulders and about 40 smaller sites in the general area.
OK, I’m sure you’re expecting a bit of history here. These petroglyphs didn’t just appear - someone had to do them. First the dates: some of the petroglyphs date from 7500 BC while others date from 1400AD. The artists came from the Hohokum civilization which migrated to this area in 300 AD from Mexico. Though they relied on hunting and gathering, they also were farmers and were known for their canals which sometimes were 10 miles long and were built in extensive networks which relied on gravity to move the water around. Pretty clever these ancient farmers were and some of their canals exist today. Luckily, someone had time to leave some exquisite art for the future to marvel at and ponder over.
There were a few panels of explanation - although no one knows why the artists drew these figures - but there were some common designs.
Now, look at the rocks and see if you can tell which group created the art. I like the lizard in the upper left here.
Notice how the artists covered almost every inch of every rock. And, hey, look at the dates on this one. Is this graffiti or is it history?
Very cool petroglyph site. Glad we stopped.
Then we took a big chance that could have turned into a big mistake. Not something that we do often. Remember, yesterday we noticed gas for $1.73 in a small town on our way down to Yuma. Yep, today that was our goal for gas today. We left the Petroglyph site, drove through Gila Bend with its many gas stations and drove on towards our goal: the $1.73 gas. We thought we could make it. We thought we had enough gas in our tank. Your question must be a variation of the following:
Will they make it?
How far will they get before they run out of gas?
How far will they have to walk?
How dumb are these two anyway?
Whew. We made it to the gas station.
Our car can take 19 gallons of gas. Gary pumped 18.97 gallons. WOW.
We won’t do that again. It took 5 years off of both of us. I now have grey hair. Ha, ha.
Saw this car on the highway. Note how small the little green bike is.
Marvelous Christmas trip. Great conversation, delicious food, a fun historical site and - monster trucks.
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