Road trip in the American SouthWest

I left a fairly chilly and wet San Francisco and arrived in a warm and wet Albuquerque - unseasonal weather was following me, at least in the short term.
But it was soooo nice to be met at the airport by Jessie, a friend from home, her gorgeous baby girl Livia who I hadn't met yet (she turned 4 months while we were on the trip), and her mum Lynda.
Lynda was kind enough to put me up at her place in Santa Fe for a few nights before we embarked on our adventure, and what a treat it was to be in someone's home rather than a hostel, just even for a few days.

In Santa Fe it took a little while to get used to the architecture - I'd never really seen anything like it - nearly every building is the same terracotta colour, with lots of adobe style building. And the landscape feels Mexican (this is New Mexico I suppose) with the scrub everywhere.
The first day we had a really good proper American breakfast at a place called Harry's, with a set of Livia's grandparents who hadn't yet met her. French toast, turkey sausage, juice and tea - I was set for the rest of the day. Then we went to check out Madrid (pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable) - a Spanishy/Mexican type town full of art galleries and bikers. Odd combination I know. The first of many bikers we were to see on our trip (wouldn't be a road trip without them).
Jessie and I had a look round Santa Fe too - some lovely shopping. Bought me a cowboy (girl!) hat at the Five and Dime, which was v exciting - and pretty necessary for the trip! Wish I could wear it in Tooting.

So after a few days of comfort at Lynda's, we were off for our adventure in a 28 foot RV. Of course it took time to get away, get supplies etc - so the first RV park we ended up in was only a couple of hours down the road - and not the greatest, located between a main road and a railway line - but we got better at picking them as time went on.

Flagstaff, Arizona was the first main stop - it was a longish drive and we started to familiarize ourselves with country music, which was pretty much the main option whereever we were.
Simon, Jessie's husband and a friend from Coro, had put together some suitable roadtrip music for us too - kicking off with "Born to be wild" and included Coro's rendition of "Chattanooga Choo Choo". Made us laugh! By by day 2 or 3, we were getting pretty comfortable with Winnie (the RV) - I'd found a manual in the door pocket and it became my bible. After doing a dump of the grey and black tanks (nice), I felt like a pro.
Flagstaff was a nice little town, its on old Route 66, so lots of suitable memorabilia and roadsigns. We also popped in on a nearby native dwelling in a national park - however it soon became clear that we shouldn't try to do too much every day, as with a baby, obviously everything takes longer. I didn't begrudge this at all, in fact I preferred not putting pressure on myself and going with the flow. I think I found this easier than i would have at the beginning of the trip. She's changed....

From Flagstaff it was on to the Grand Canyon, up Route 64. This was I think the first experience of the long, endless roads through scrub or desert that you imagine running all across America (or you know from the movies!). There's hardly any traffic - more big trucks and bikers than anything else, and the landscape goes on forever. We even saw tumbleweed - although I think that was later, in Utah.
Arriving in the Grand Canyon National Park, we were surprised about the profusion of trees everywhere - I think we'd both imagined a more desert kind of landscape. We got our first, breath-taking glimpses of the canyon and parked up for our first "boomdocking" experience - RV camping without plugging into anything (so you need a working generator and enough water - which at this point, we thankfully did). Jessie, being an American gal herself, got us into the spirit of things, lighting a campfire and introducing me to the world of "Smores" - Grahams Crackers, a piece of Hersheys chocolate and marshmallow melted in the fire. Thought I wouldn't like 'em, but I did. Hence the name - can I have s'more?

Next morning, another of J's suggestions - up to watch the sun rise over the canyon. Getting up at 4am was a bit painful, but it was definitely worth it - not peaceful exactly as other people did have the same idea, but certainly beautiful with the wonderful changing colours. We then slept for a couple of hours in the carpark - one of the benefits of having an RV!
We spent the rest of the day exploring more of the canyon - not down into it, thats quite hard to do unless you're extremely fit or have booked a guided mule trip months in advance - but some miles along. Its very hard to absorb the size, especially given what we were seeing was only a small chunk of the thing.

The next day brought more adventure. We were heading north to Page, and Lake Powell (on the border with Utah), and by now we were driving occasionally through some Indian Reservation land - you would see roadside stalls where native Navajos would be selling jewellry and trinkets. We stopped at a scenic point and I bought a little pot, made by the vendor's brother, part of the Dine tribe (as they prefer).
A little later on the I 89, little Livia was working herself up into a state - its hard to comfort a baby in a carseat. In her haste to pull over, Jessie hadn't quite noticed what she was pulling over onto. This being Utah, it was sand, which we quickly realised we couldn't do much about - no shovels on board or anything. Called roadside assistance - but in the meantime, one or two helpful folk stopped - including a couple of local Indians and a fella they'd picked up hitch-hiking. I supposed it could have all ended differently, but with their help (and shovel), along with another chap called Mike, we were freed from the sand. Jessie and I definitely felt there was something karmic about it all, which was reinforced as we continued to drive through the beautiful red rock and endless scrub views. So we stopped at another stall soon afterwards...!

The roads were becoming increasingly impressive and we finally pulled up at Lake Powell in Glen Canyon NP - the lake was manmade, formed by a dam, but no less the beautiful for it. Pricey campsite, but we felt like treatinjg ourselves - and indeed, did, to takeaway pizza, delivered to our door. Fantastic.
The highlight while we stayed in Page was the Antelope Canyon - an amazing cave formed of sandstone, with endless beautiful colours and shapes forming as the light changes. I'll let the photos do the talking.

Next it was Monument Valley - a place we were both really excited about, and it didn't disappoint. Unfortunately you can't take RVs into the park, so we had to cough up a bit for a tour, but it was just the 2 of us in the end, and worth doing. Our guide was keen to point out endless rocks which looked like Lincoln or King Kong, but I was happier just enjoying the drive and the landscape. We watched the sunset over the 3 rocks that are probably the most famous formation - what you think of when you think of Monument Valley - and it was certainly beautiful - and very calming, as they played some Navajo flute music over the speakers.

Next - a long drive up through Utah - 70% Mormon apparently. Definitely a land of slightly odd looking people. We got to Moab for the night - not a beautiful town but the campsite was nice. It was in Moab I was accused of shoplifting, which rather irked me!
Arches National Park was the motivation for coming here - more rock formations, very different to what we'd seen - in the shape of arches, funnily enough. There is in fact a Wilson Arch.

And as we witnessed on the way to Colorado, there's also a Mount Wilson. I'm meaning to look this up and investigate.
From Utah to Telluride, Colorado, proved to be about as dramatic a change as you could get. It was like driving in Chamonix or somewhere. Our campsite was at 9500 feet and we were chilly!
Telluride is a lovely small town, and the site of Butch Cassidy's first ever bank robbery. We just visited using their super-efficient cable car, bought things from the bakery and the Sunday papers, and then headed on to our final national park stop - the Mesa Verde.

Mesa Verde is the site of some ancient pueblan dwelluings - very striking and fascinating, but I think by then we were feeling a bit National Parked out. Ironic really as we'd just spent enough to earn ourselves a free annual pass. One memorable highlight of Mesa Verde - it was the location where I was pulled over for speeding...only doing 50, but in a 35 mile/hour limit! My UK passport and accent probably helped get me off with a warning... it did get the heart going, seeing the flashing red and blue in the mirror.

After that it was back to Albuquerque - Jessie going back to her mum's in Santa Fe, and I was catching a flight to Toronto - where I am now and have spent the bulk of the day sorting out finances, updating blogs etc - haven't even had a chance to catch up on my emails yet! I did think of going to see the big waterfall I'd heard was somewhere near here...but after the roadtrip I'm happy to stay in one place for a couple of days.

I'll end this blog entry with a few quotes. One of the major highlights for us both (aside from managing not to encounter any rattle snakes or scorpions) was the entertaining country music I mentioned earlier - and here are some of the choice lyrics I made a note of.

"I gave up smokin', drinkin' and women last night - it was the worst 15 minutes of my life"
"Baby if you'd rather, you can take a ride on my big green tractor"
"All my exes live in Texas - thats why I hang my hat in Tennessee"
and our favourite
"God is great, beer is good - and people are crazy"

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