Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
It rained overnight but we woke to a sunny mid teens temp day. We had to drive back a ways through the Kaibab Forest which was a nice change. Under the trees we spotted toadstools and wildflowers; at the top of trees the odd large nest, golden eagles perhaps?
We passed several groups of bike riders cruising the road. As one group pulled onto the road one of them dropped his bike in the middle of the road and totally couldn't pick it up. Adding to his humiliation a woman ran to help him lol. In the end it took 3 guys including the original rider to pick it up. We thought it mildly amusing a guy would be riding a bike he clearly couldn't handle until we got along the road and saw his brethren waiting for him to catch up. They were wearing patches for, wait for it, "the soldiers of Jesus" pmsl,
When we put today's destination into Betty this morning I was surprised to see it saying 7 hours to Mesa Verde, months ago when I did my planning I noted it to be a 4.5 hour trip. Deciding I must've gotten it wrong we set off following Betty's instructions. About and hour and a half on the road, fully committed to going the way we were, we realised what had happened. We have the GPS set to pavoid costly tolls, she took it upon herself to nterpret that as meaning to also avid park fees so took us on a long, convoluted trip to avoid a park fee we wouldn't have to pay as we have the annual pass. And so ensued a 3 hour detour! What a again and what a waste of precious time. Sigh.......
We drove through the Navajo Nation past many stalls selling native jewellery etc and stopped in Tuba for lunch, most if not all the staff and patrons were clearly of the nation. The landscape is dramatic and colourful all along this route including the majestic Monument valley. The landscapes brought memories of a childhood watching the Sunday afternoon westerns on TV flooding back :-)
We watched a small dusty twister come across the plains on one side of the road, cross over to the other and disappear behind another massive outcrop.
We came across a small storm, rain lightening the works but it was over as fast as it had begun.
Running to our right for miles was yet another variation on a range, very peculiar formations reminiscent of man made fortresses.
We got into Cortez, checked in, unloaded the car for the night and set off for Mesa Verde National Park. Our entry there brought us up to even on buying the annual pass, from here on in its all a bonus :-)
It's a long haul up to over 8000 feet to the first of the pueblo dwellings, a pit home; a hole in the ground affair which would've had a roof. From there it just got better and better, the cliff dwellings I'd wanted to see are incredible, how they ever built them let alone survived in them is beyond me. It rained most of the way up then cleared for a couple of hours while we explored only to start again as we began our 20plus mile drive to exit the park. It was getting colder as the road wound down, there was a frost layer forming on the windscreen! There was a double rainbow across the valley as we headed down the mountain, both ends clear to see but not pots of gold that I could find lol
All up I loved it, it's not really Pete's thing but he was very patient with me & he should count himself lucky I didn't have him to drag around the Roman ruins in Europe lol
Driving back to our hotel the temps were still well down, around 8C and despite being after 7pm the sun was still up, sunset at Grand Canyon was 7.03 last night. Sunset when it happened was gorgeous, of course Murphy was out and about and we saw it as we left a store, the cameras all at our hotel :-(
- comments