Brian, If you stop by So Cal, hopefully it will be a week end. As other's that are "negative", the traffic is a joke on week days , but I can say the same for the Bay area (what a disaster for driving)
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I could spend weeks crawling around northern Arizona at places like you described. Another place you may want to check out is the petrified forest (painted desert). It's before Holbrook (from the east) on interstate 40 (191) in AZ.