In the High Desert

When last we blogged, we had just arrived in Sante Fe, New Mexico. After so many days of cross-country driving, it was great to just relax for a few days.

Sante Fe is more than 6,000 feet above sea level, so the nights were in the high 30s, and the daytime temperature only made it to the 60s. In addition to relaxing, we got around to see some of the local sights, including Bandalier National Monument, a canyon sculpted from 1,000 feet of volcanic ash laid down a million years ago, and whose caves and rocks were used by ancestral pueblo people hundreds of years ago.

Ancient pueblo ruins - once home to hundreds of people

We then picked up and relocated to eastern Arizona. On the way, we visited El Malpais National Monument, another volcanic site, and also the home of one of the largest natural arches in Arizona.

After setting up camp in the town of Holcomb, Arizona, we spent an entire day visiting Petrified Forest National Park. The northern section of the park showcases the Painted Desert.

Dramatic, but we need to see some technicolor!

That's more like it!

Dramatic vistas continued as we drove south in the park (helped along by storm clouds on the horizon), but the stars of the show are petrified logs, some of which looked like they could have been chopped down yesterday. And many of these were buried and fossilized BEFORE the dinosaurs!

Finally, it was time to leave for Phoenix, which is NOT in the high desert, and where the temperatures reached to the mid-to-high 90s each day we were there. We parked the Ciaowagen in a campground within the city limits, and spent the next three days at the B2B CFO annual Partner meeting. Since Doug is only semi-retired (holding onto a couple of clients), he's kept his membership in the firm. There are B2B CFO Partners all over the country, and this is the only time of year they get to catch up in person.

We also celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary in Phoenix. We spent the day at the amazing Musical Instrument Museum, which showcases instruments from around the world, including this massive mechanical band.

We topped the day off with dinner with some B2B CFO friends who live in Phoenix.

As we've shared with many of you, our travel plans during this year focus on "making it up as we go along." The B2B CFO conference was a last planned activity of the trip. It was time to pull up stakes, and the mood struck us to spend some time (a week or more) in Tucson, Arizona, two hours south of Phoenix. We are there now, and will blog about our Tucson-area experiences in a few days (Preview: the cacti are blooming!)