Day 3, Grand Canyon to Albuquerque, New Mexico

The weather was still frightful at the Grand Canyon this morning, so I headed down the road to seek a better climate.  The weather was very changeable on the drive- snow, rain, and then a very interesting mix of conditions as I drove across Arizona and into New Mexico.  Nothing an average Canadian couldn't handle.

There were places in Arizona where I could have sworn I was already in Canada- lots of snow, mountains and pine forests.  One thing about the landscapes of the American Southwest though, they change every 10 or 20 miles, often dramatically.  So I passed through desert (various types), forest (ditto), bush and grassland, hills, mountains, ridges, flat lands and plateaus.  The weather was changing every half hour (or less) too.  Quite a day.

I went to Meteor Crater along the way, it was great!  I'll post pictures later (I took a pile of them and it will take a while to go through them.).  It was raining as I drove through Petrified Forest National Park so I didn't go in, plus by then I had decided to go all the way to Albuquerque as weather was not cooperating with the outdoor things like hikes and parks that I had planned.

Here are a couple of photos from stops along the road.

This is some interesting weather in eastern Arizona:

 

I think this is called the painted hills, it's on the border of Arizona and New Mexico:

  

This is just across inside New Mexico's border with Arizona:

  

 

Once inside New Mexico I crossed the continental divide.  Guess it's all downhill from here!  :-)  I'm going to stay put in Albuquerque for a day and see some stuff here, no need to get ahead of schedule, especially when they are forecasting more snow for tomorrow.