Colorado River State Historic Park

Culture

Paolo Soleri's experimental 'arcology' rising from the high desert since 1970; tours, bronze-bell foundry, cafe.

Outdoors

Drive-through wildlife park (bears, wolves, bison) in the pines off I-40.

Roadside Americana

Step inside and you can stand with one foot in Arizona and one in New Mexico — the state line runs straight through the floor of a Navajo-family-owned trading post built into the base of the Painted Cliffs, turquoise cases on one side, sandstone bluffs looming outside.

Roadside Americana

Arizona's oldest continuously inhabited mining town, with a visitor center at the Mineshaft Market, the Roy Purcell "Journey" murals (1966) about 1.5 miles out a maintained dirt road, a 1917 jail, and the Jim Fritz museum (open most Saturdays).

Food

The date-shake oasis of I-8, with Medjool groves and the famous shakes.

Outdoors

413-acre Coconino County park 2 miles south of Flagstaff; former WWI/WWII National Guard training camp with National Register-listed buildings, amphitheater, campground, and the county fairgrounds.