Albuquerque, NM to Las Vegas, NV

This was all we saw (entrance) of Petrified Forest National Park (above) and all that's worth seeing in Winslow, Arizona (below)

Lots of desert driving today, but through parts of New Mexico and Arizona I hadn't been through before.  We opted to drive west out of Albuquerque instead of north to Durango and Utah because we had wanted to drive through Death Valley.  The route today had us first stopped at Petrified National Park, which because of the furlough, was entirely closed and gated off (to prevent theft?).  So we took a picture at the entrance and continued west to Winslow, Arizona.  The only goal here was to take a picture and hum the song.  There really isn't anything else in Winslow, Arizona as it turns out.

However, just outside of Winslow is the giant meteor crater!  It's interesting because the entire site is private.  The museum was interesting, but probably not worth the price of admission on its own.  However, the crater is very impressive; again, not worth the price of admission unless you count the fact that you probably drove a great distance to get here and now that you're here, you really have no choice but to pay the price and bite your tongue.

West of the crater we got to Flagstaff where we had lunch at Beaver Street Brewery which was actually quite nice.  Good food, good beer, and real nice atmosphere.  The town was beautiful too.  After Flagstaff, we kinda dropped down out of the mountains and into Route 66 country.  We first drove through Selligman, Arizona which I chose because it looked like it was supposed to be all about Route 66.  It was too much and tacky and nothing else.  We took a single picture and left.

Farther west, we stopped in Kingman, Arizona for more Route 66 stuff.  The town was a bit more tastefully done here and the late afternoon sunlight made everything look pretty.  Here, we turned north and left the interstate, bound for Nevada.

We got to the Hoover Dam after dark had set in which, as it turned out, was a good time to visit.  There were no lines and only a couple other people.  The dam was open for another couple hours and was entirely lit up, so we walked around, took a few pics and then headed to Las Vegas.  We got to our hotel, Tuscany Suites, which I chose because it had a bar with 365 beer taps that I wanted to try.  It was a bit disappointing since half the taps just turned out to be cans, but we still got some good beer and the hotel was nice and clean and spacious.  We tried getting to bed early because we had a super early morning departure planned.