We got up at 8 & had another breakfast buffet--I decided that sticking to Aurora's favorite (biscuits with honey) was the safest, & by 9:30 we were taking our last look at the Grand Canyon from a scenic overlook along Desert View Trail, then through the Kaibab forest & more Navajo desert, with a stop at a different scenic overlook at Little Colorado Gorge.

Before we got as far south as Flagstaff, we stopped at Wupatki National Monument (above), the unrestored ruins of a pueblo people who lived there circa 1125; though the park is not very well marked with signs, you have to drive 20 miles into it to find the visitors' center, & it was over 100degrees with no shade in the desert, we liked the ruins & the little museum very much.

The same poorly-marked park road loops over to Sunset Crater Volcanic Monument (so-called because of its shades of red), the dormant remains of a volcano in the San Francisco Mountain range which erupted in 1065; interestingly, its eruption changed the climate somewhat here & made the land arable. We took about half of a self-guided walk around a lava field, which was very neat--it was shadier (we were in a forest) & much cooler here, + the lava field really looked like everything had erupted & cooled very recently. The walk (Robert has a compass hanging around his neck in case we got disoriented) reminded us of parts of Yellowstone, but without the sulphurous smell.

We stopped briefly in Flagstaff for lunch (more fast food) & continued on just a few miles east of it to Walnut Canyon National Monument, the remains of cliff dwellings of the Sinagua (without water) Indians from about 800 years ago. In New York & Massachusetts, you have lots of history going back to the early colonial period, but not much further, it seems, so these ruins were very exciting to us--two (no, one and a half; okay, okay--just one!) long-time lovers of the American Museum of Natural History's Indian dioramas--to see in person. Walnut Canyon was both of our favorite of the ruins, & was almost entirely deserted even though it was so interesting & so very close (about 7 miles) to downtown Flagstaff. From the visitors' center (pictured, looking up the canyon), you walk outside & down a well-maintained paved or gravel trail nearly 200 feet into the Canyon (of the cooler, shadier, Zion Canyon kind than the Grand Canyon), passing many ruins (some nearly completely whole) of Indian houses built into the Canyon walls & under the rock overhangings. It was peaceful + very beautiful as well as fascinating. The walk up was hotter & clearly more strenuous, but not terrible, & despite the 240 stairs in one direction, it was well worth it. Note that your Golden Eagle pass works at all three National Monuments we just went to.