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Published: October 15th 2010
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Woke up at about 6am to watch the Sunrise over the Grand Canyon for the 2nd day in a row. Must say it was absolute killer to get out of bed as our leg muscles were killing us. We looked like cripples walking around. After watching the sunrise, headed over to get some breakfast. I got vegetable skillet with eggs, veggies, potato and bread, Scott got steak skillet with biscuits, grits, steak, eggs and potato. Mine was really nice and I managed to finish most of it. Scott liked his but didn’t like grits at all! The best thing about breakfast was seeing many other people limping around the restaurant, which we dubbed “the canyon strut”. Finished packing and checked out by 8.30am. Drove out of the grounds and on the way saw some Elk. There were about 3 to the right of the car and 2 to the left. We pulled over to get some photos, and the two on the left crossed over the road behind us to join their friends. It was really cool!! Drove out via Desert View Drive, which is an Eastern view of the Canyon. We stopped off at about 5 view points along the
way and each view seemed to get better than the previous. It is just such a beautiful place that photos can’t capture. At one of the view points there was a BBC crew there filming a documentary about birds called Flight of the Wild or something like that. They had a bald eagle that had been rescued from the wild suffering from West Nile Virus and was blind in one eye. They had it tethered to a wire that ran about 100metres and attached a camera to its back. They filmed the view from its back when it flew. We gathered around for about 10 minutes before hand and watched them let the eagle soar off into the distance. It was pretty cool, except some stupid American woman kept getting in the way and not following any instructions. Even other Americans were getting frustrated with her!! Finally after stopping off at the last view point - Desert View where we climbed the watchtower to look out at the last views of the canyon, we left the Grand Canyon National Park on our way to Monument Valley.
The drive to Monument Valley, Utah was fairly smooth sailing. The views out of
Arizona were beautiful, but at one point on the way in to the right of the car we had white sandstone/rock and to the left we had red rock...so we kinda guessed Utah was to the left! Crossed over into Utah at around 2.50pm, and entered The Monument Valley National Park by 3pm. We took the Monument Valley Drive in our own car, rather than do a guided tour. That way, we could go at our own pace, stop when we wanted to stop and take all the photos we wanted. The road that we went down was unpaved and rocky to say the least. We had read a few things beforehand that said best not to take a car down, but I’d also read enough reviews to say that cars were fine. We braved the road in our Chevy Malibu and off we went.
The track was pretty rocky, but the car went fine - Just had to drive carefully. The mittens were really amazing and so strange to see such amazing formations jumping out of the earth. The path was about 17 miles long and went round in a loop. I drove most of the way and Scott
took over just after half way. We took lots of photos, but again single photos can’t really describe the impact of seeing them all together.
After we travelled the road, we came up and checked into our hotel - The View. The hotel sits right at the top of the mittens, and is at the top of the drive. It is a beautiful hotel, and our room is tidy and spacious. Weird to have TV again after 3 days without, but nice to have our own shower, bigger room and more comfort. The BEST thing about the hotel however, is that we have a balcony that looks out over the mittens and as we speak I am drinking a vodka and coke watching sunset. Hard life isn’t it?? About to go grab dinner after sunset and then catch some free wifi to upload the last few days of blogs. Tomorrow we will watch sunrise, then head out on the road on our way to Houston. We have no plans other than to be at Colin and Shona’s by about 1-2pm on Sunday, other than to see Roswell. So again won’t be blogs for a little while.
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Mum
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Great views from your room
Fantastic views from your room. When you get to Roswell don't forget your mother and bring me back a cool cheap and nasty alien present!!!! Great sunset, will you see the sunrise? Luv ya Mum