Hello New Mexico and Arizona just begins

So we left Texas on Sunday, Jun 5 and made our way to Albuquerque, NM. Mom and Dad have been there before so we only stayed one night, but the drive was pretty. Mom said it was 15 deg hotter than last time and we are here earlier in the year! This is some heat wave!

Mom and Dad went to a Mexican Seafood restaurant recommended to them, they said it was delicious...I stayed home, hmph😟. The campground was nice but had some mighty strange campers...

When Mom checked in to the campground she learned the work camper was a seasoned dog trainer and she made arrangements for me to have school.  Hey wait a minute I thought this was vacation!  Puppy class started off kind of bad...I jumped on the lady and she made sure I knew she'd have none of that, then I lost a tooth and got blood all over me. Whew, a rough start but then we became pals and I learned so much.

After class Monday morning, we left for Gallup, NM. Mom picked it because the campground was half way between the Petrified National Forest and Canyon de Chelly. Mom and Dad decided to take me with them touring because it was just too hot to hike...

Mom said that Ancient AZ was a tropical landscape where dinosaurs roamed, about 225M years ago during the Triasic Period. Then the whole area was buried by sediment and the trees became fossils. Boy this is a lot for a little pup to learn!  One of the first stops in the Park was the Painted Desert. It was so pretty Mom made me get out to see it but the pavement was just too hot.

We made lots of stops but one of the neat ones was the petroglyphs as old as 2000 years!

Another cool place was the Blue Mesa with beautiful blue, purple, and gray badlands.

But of course the Petrified wood with quartz crystals were the main event!

This picture from the park really told the lasting story...

It was a little sad when we left the protected park and found all these petrified logs for sale in town, we preferred the beauty of the untouched ones! I thought we were done for the day, afterall, it was hot, hot, hot. But nooo, Mom started singing when she looked at the map and then Dad started singing and they started heading West. Then we had to get out for pictures too.

Well I won't bore you with all the pictures, but after that sign, then we found another sign...you guessed it, more pictures. Well I had just about had enough so when I was posing with Mom I decided to lay down...well okay I DID roll on my back.  Look closely at this "after" pic with Dad...okay I'm a little gray😬. Mom said it is a very significant corner, something about their favorite band???

Hey a boy's got to have a little fun. Mom and Dad laughed so I guess it's okay and I'm officially gray for a while! It was late when we got back to the campsite at Gallup due to the AZ time change...they don't do DST, so dinner was late. Mom says tomorrow is an early start for a Canyon de Chelley, oh boy!