We decided early on to concentrate most of the highway driving in the first two and last two days of the trip (1110+1270 miles), and then have fewer miles to cover on other days. Despite late start, we made it to ☞ Bennett Spring SP campground in Missouri the first day. The size of the spring is impressive – underground river coming to the surface. We checked it out quickly in the morning before driving to ☞ Palo Duro Canyon SP in Texas where we had reservation for two nights (Fortress Cliff and Mesquite Campgrounds). The campgrounds were all booked, but many spots remained unoccupied and the park was not overcrowded. We had one full day for a longer hike to the Lighthouse, returning via Givens, Spicer, Lowry and Paseo del River trails. Next morning we hiked Rock Garden trail meandering on cliff slopes above valley floor. Despite large campgrounds in the middle of the park, there are many good trails to explore with few hikers/bikers. It was good decision to stop there. In the afternoon we drove to Grants NM. On the way from Chicago we saw many relicts of Route 66 times (our motel in Grants including) and finally decided to take a picture with the commemorative sign in Grants. Because of large wild fires in New Mexico and Arizona, we decided not to go to Santa Fe, Bandelier NM (closed) and Sunset Crater Volcano/Wupatki NM (recovering after fire) and visited ☞ El Malpais NM and ☞ El Morro NM instead.
We spent one day in El Malpais visiting Sandstone Bluffs and sandstone arch, observing huge lawa flows of different ages (115000-3900 years ago), lava tubes (unfortunately closed for exploration), and hiking Calderon Cinder Cone with different color cinders from multiple eruptions. We ended the day at a very nice El Morro Campground.
We changed gear a bit at El Morro looking not only at the rocks, but also at whats on them: petroglyphs (and modern inscriptions) and pueblo ruins. We spent most of the day “reading” sandstone walls and then hiking up to the top of the messa to visit ruins of Pueblo Atsinna. We stopped at Boca Negra Canyon section of ☞ Petroglyph NM on the outskirts of Albuquerque for more petroglyphs and late lunch, before heading to Sant Fe NF for good night rest at forested Rio De Las Vacas Campground.
