We're back!

We spent the weekend in Overgaard, and initially, couldn't win for losing. Check this out.

We went up there to go to an annual festival. It used to be an Oktoberfest, but apparently, they decided to stop serving alcohol at it (buh?), and changed it to something else that sounded fun. Yeah. People got pissed about the booze ban, so they canceled it outright. We didn't find out until we got there.

The property where we stay has horses and a bison (it is called Bison Ranch, afterall!). They have pony rides for kids - Natalie loved her pony ride when we were there earlier this summer. Yeah. The pony rides closed for the season the weekend before we were there.

We decided to go to Holbrook on Saturday to check out the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest State Park. I was there 8 years ago, right before I moved to CA, and it was just incredible, and I wanted Jon to see it anyway. It is only an hour from Overgaard. Someone at the front desk told us there was a dinosaur park we should check out, near Holbrook. I looked at it online, and Natalie wanted to go. We got up to Holbrook, saw the sign for the dinosaur park, got onto 40 and saw two of the dinosaurs at a truck stop. We drove for a bit and didn't see the park, turned around and went back to the truck stop. Yeah. The Dinosaur Park closed a year ago due to declining business, and those two dinos at the truck stop were all that were left. So we stopped so Natalie could check them out. The funny part was, as Natalie and I were going back to the car (as an aside, I thought Jon was honking at us. Nope. He had Oliver in the driver's seat with him, and I think O was doing the honking!), another mini-van pulled up and started unloading kids. The father looked at us and said "Please tell me this isn't it". Sorry dude!

Since Holbrook is only about 20 minutes from Winslow, I insisted that Jon take us there so I could stand on the famous "Standin' on a corner, in Winslow, AZ" corner and get a picture by the mural - I think there was supposed to be a park or something dedicated to it. Yup. You guessed it. A year ago, there was a fire. The only thing left was the front facade of the building, but luckily the mural was still intact. There isn't much to do in Winslow, so we got the shot and left. :-)

All in all though, it was a nice weekend! Friday I had the kids out all morning at the playground, throwing rocks in the pond, checking out the shops on the property while Jon got some work done. Then we hung out all afternoon. Saturday was awesome - the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest is just incredible. There are petroglyphs in part of it (see the pictures I'll be posting after this) that are 600-800 years old. When we got back to Overgaard, we had dinner at this awesome Mexican restaurant we discovered on our last trip, Casa Ramos. It was good to get away, and the weather was refreshingly cooler. Could have done without the rain, but hey, that's ok!

And on a sadder note... There was a lizard that lived on our property - liked to hang out on the concrete block fence near our honeysuckle and palms. When Jon's family was visiting the weekend prior, Dude was in the yard, looking a little worse for wear. I kept moving him back to the shade under the palms, and we hoped he'd pull through. He died sometime over the weekend. Fortunately, I don't have to tell Natalie. Right before we left on Thursday, I noticed another Desert Spiny (a friend helped me ID him online) about the same size, hanging out in Dude's old spot. There's also a much smaller Desert Spiny and two geckos that live on our property! So, that brings our lizard total to four.

I'll be posting pictures in a bit - check them out! You'll notice there's a picture of a train station. That's the train station in Holbrook that Geronimo boarded to go to a reservation.