We finally made it home about midnight, exhausted and I asked myself did I really do this trip? Sadly, it was over.

In Arkansas, this RV didn't make it and I certainly hope the passengers were ok. Traffic was backed up for miles.

We stayed in Yukon, home to Garth Brooks, on the way back. We were no longer on Route 66 so after this night we decided to drive the next 700 plus miles straight home. I wanted to be in my own bed after 3 weeks of motels. But after getting home we then had to make the 110 mile round trip to Birmingham to return the rental car. A lot of miles in one day.

Just because.

Had a big o' cheeseburger here.

The old cars were visitors who were traveling Route 66, and not part of the display.

An original piece of old 66 pavement in the museum.

Geese Crossing

Route 66 Museum

As if he's saying, "And just what are you looking at?"

On the way back down with more people coming up.

A hideout cave that we just had to explore.

A reconstructed dugout of one of the first white men to establish a ranch here. Of course this was after all the indians had been run off. I considered using it as Nathan's timeout corner but then I would have to come back for him.

We visited Palo Duro Canyon south of Amarillo. What's another 17 miles?

I had the pecan pie and Nathan had the chocolate. I have to say it was the best pie I have ever had and was well worth the cost. $10 for 2 pieces of pie? Yikes! But oh so good.

This place really is in the middle of nowhere.

The Ford truck with all the writing on it has been moved so Nathan now knows it runs!

The Midpoint Cafe in Adrain, Texas that was closed when we drove through before. We had a great breakfast here.

As was this one.

This was so cool.

This just somewhere on the road back home, I don't remember the town. At this point I just wanted to go home and then again I didn't want the trip to end.

The Painted Desert Inn built in 1937-1940. It closed in 1963 and demolition was scheduled in the 1970's. This was protested and then it was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987. It reopened as a museum in 2006.

The Painted Desert. We weren't there at the right time to capture the light to show the best colors. It was named this because it looks like the colors of a sunset.

The Native Indians lived here for a few hundred years and then vanished.

Face with a feather. I wanted to ignore the warnings to not touch and do it anyway!

Check out the bird with a lizard in it's beak.

More petroglyphs.

Tracks of 66 in the distance. This is the other end of the road that we explored on the Arizona page with the bridge and abandoned cars.

This is when we are entering the Painted Desert. The lingering telephone poles indicate where Route 66 once was.

This is called Newspaper Rock where the Native Americans left their messages. It's much bigger than it looks because I zoomed in on it for the detail. It's about the size of a bus.

I don't know how many pictures we took here (too many to count). I thought is was so fascinating.

See the layers of sedimentation? It rarely rains but when it does it is continuously washing away more sandstone and the harder stone layers are exposed.

It's impossible to show this as it really is. It looks and feels like different colors of polished stone.

A petrified log is slowly uncovered as the sandstone is gradually being washed away. More and more petrified wood will be exposed over the next several thousands/millions of years.

Even now 12 to 14 tons of petrified wood are removed each year by those who disregard the heavy fines. In the early 1900's tons of wood was carried out in trains and wagons by sightseers.

Easy trail going down, not so easy on the return.

The Badlands of Arizona.

Nathan contemplating. About what, I don't know.

A lone tree growing next to a huge petrified log that was a tree millions of years ago. I find all of this amazing that there were such big trees there in desert. But then, it wasn't desert then. It was a forest!

A happy lizard sunning him/herself.

A fallen petrified log. Sometime in the 1930's (I think) they placed a concrete support underneath it to keep it from falling as the softer sandstone washes away. They do not do these things anymore and prefer to let nature do whatever she wishes with no help OR destruction by man.

The entrance to the Petrified Forest in northeast Arizona.

Saguaro cactus throughout the Arizona countryside.