Day 7 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

We woke up in Albuquerque, NM to a beautiful sunshine day. We packed up the car and headed to Petroglyph National Monument. The visitor center is the anchor for three different locations of petroglyphs in the surrounding residential area. They provide a map to find the parking areas tucked away between houses and gas stations and fence lines.

We visited two of the three Petroglyph canyons: Piedras Marcadas and Boca Negra. The petroglyphs are chiseled into the sides of volcanic rock that is left over from a lava flow 200,000 years ago. The images are thought to be as old as 2-3000 years ago by early native people. Others are younger (4-700 years ago)  and made by newer native people, Hispanic explorers in the 1600's and explorers in the 1800's.

There are some 20,000 images created on the lava flow rocks in these three areas. Some are easy to see while others are harder to find. 

After visiting the Petroglyphs we headed out of Albuquerque. The city sits in a bowl and is visible from

The highway east and west and from the surrounding hillside. It was typical city traffic and I was glad to get back on the highway away from big cities.

New Mexico looks like a blend of Arizona and Utah. Some cliffs and red soil, cactus and scrub trees. As we traveled east the grasses started to take over the rocks and cactus. We crossed the top of Texas and the landscape changed again. It suddenly became very flat and trees started to enter the landscape. Next came crops like wheat and corn and livestock grazing.

Texas turned into Oklahoma and we felt most at home so far. Oklahoma looks like a Midwest state. It could be Illinois or Iowa if you didn't know it.

We stopped at the Oklahoma City Memorial downtown before heading to the hotel for the evening. It is an amazing memorial, dedicated to the victims, survivors and rescuers of the Alfred P. Murrah bombing on April 19, 1995. It is dramatic especially at night. 

A busy driving day, but a fantastic journey. We are at about 3,200 miles for the trip and have seen so much. Sadly the Route 66 gas stations and attractions that dried up when the two lane through town shifted to a four lane road dot the landscape. We wondered what Rt 66 must have been like to travel in  it's heyday. The I-40 eastbound rest stop in Clarendon, TX was not only the cleanest rest stop I have been to, but an amazingly well done tribute to Route 66.