archeological roadside stop!

driving out from canyon de chelly towards the grand canyon, we followed one of the smaller routes (I was pretty done with interstate 40!). it wound us up and down, into and out of deep canyons. super gorgeous drive! on the higher planes headed into tuba city, we even encountered a small dust storm.

just outside of tuba city, there was a sign leading to "dinosaur footprints", and we couldn't resist. we took the detour, and were met by a nice native American woman indicating there was no charge, and she would show us around. what did we have to loose?

just off the parking lot, there was a petrified mud flat with a bunch of genuine Dino tracks. pretty cool. the nice lady was explaining that she wasn't any kind of a scientist, but enjoyed telling us a lot of "facts" that were a bit dubious. ha. we continued the tour, and she showed us the "up fossils", or exposed fossils. the rocks were interesting looking, and I was happily snapping photos. it was about the time that she presented us with the "human foot prints" that I thought Kate might loose it. ha. I give Kate, who works in a natural history museum working with credible fossils for a living, a lot of credit for nicely expressing that we had to be going, and got us back to the car without laughing.

hell, i'm not sure what the actual science of the place might really be, but Kate bought me a pretty turquoise bracelet from the nice lady before we left. lol. worth the stop!