Advertisement
Mileage 360 miles
We started the morning with a quick breakfast then we packed up the van and got on the road. As we drove down the road we saw this crooked Jeep. How could you drive it that way? The only time the Jeep was level was when it was going around a sharp curve in the one direction; then we saw it go around a sharp curve in the other direction and it looked like it was going to flip over. Shortly after that we saw, painted in enormous letters on the side of a cliff, “World Famous Hole in the Rock” with an arrow. We never saw this famous hole. Oh well…
We continued heading down the road and see a road sign for Mexican Hat and Bluff. Ok, Mexican Hat??? Our next interesting site was wild donkeys on the side of the road. Shortly after that horses we spotted horse that were eating on the side of the road. Now, these horses were trapped. There was a fence about 20 ft from the road (on both sides) and they were on the inside. Ok, how did they get there???
We saw this rock formation
DSCF6512
An Arch we see today. off the side of the road. Oh my, it is “Mexican Hat”. It kinda looks like one and we were now in Mexican Hat Arizona. Susan and Pam got out of the car and did a dance.
The road coming into Monument Valley at times looked like ruins from ancient Rome or Greece with these big shaped rocks around a mound. But we knew they were not ruins. Shortly after this we entered into Arizona. We all checked our phones and the time didn’t change so we assumed that Arizona was on Mountain Time. Now, you see Arizona doesn’t do Day Light Savings time.
We arrived at Monument Valley and Pam wasn’t going to bring CJJ in for pictures. Claire told her she needed to because the view beautiful. OK. CJJ is a monkey of Katelin’s that she has and Pam has been taking pictures of CJJ during the trip. Claire bought Minnie the Minion for Allie (her granddaughter’s present) and has been taking pictures with her. (View yesterday’s sister pictures and you can see Minnie and CJJ too).
So we all went up to the visitor’s center and we saw 3 of the main buttes. We
DSCF6524
Mexican Hat knew that one set of the buttes is called the 3 sisters and we figured the first set we saw was them. But we were wrong, these are East and West Mitten and Merrick butte. We took lots of cool pics, bought a few items, and then headed out onto the road thru Monument Valley. Well to say the road was rough is an understatement. It really is rough, especially at the beginning and near the middle. On top of rough, the roads are DUSTY. This dust is the same color as that red NC clay and is really fine. People arriving in RVs or group busses or those who choose not to drive themselves get to ride an open air shuttle thru the park. Oh my, we would have all died with that much dust. Even with our air set to recycle, we could still feel the dust when we breathed. We can’t imagine what it must have been like in one of those open air vans. Not only that, the temperature was cool so they got a very cool (cold) dusty breeze as they saw the sights. We got to drive in somewhat comfort.
We ate (in
DSCF6530
Forest Gump??? the car) at one of the stops and then continued on to see the rest of the buttes. Each butte had a sign naming the butte but underneath stating “please obey all signs”. Ok, but the only signs were the signs naming the buttes??? What are we missing?
Then we saw a bunch of green in the road ahead. It truly looked like a mixture of grass clippings and manure. A little latter Claire stated maybe it is where they mowed up the green bushes. So after that Susan and Pam kidded Claire about people mowing in the desert. Over and over and over again.
We finished up the drive and the van is covered with dust. We then headed out of the park. You see the park was in Arizona but we were soon back in Utah, but only for a few minutes, then we were back in Arizona. Again the time hasn’t changed so we figured we were on Mountain Time.
We got on this long flat highway. It was very straight, then we hit some road construction. They’ve paved a new road to the side of where they are doing construction and we were
DSCF6541
The view from the visitors center on it. Now, this area is only about 1 mile long and then rejoins the road. Ok, they are fixing this one mile section by making a slight curve in the road and paving the straight section. What gives? If there was a problem with the road, why not just use this slight curve to cure it?? Waste of tax money we say.
We saw several dust devils and one passed slightly in front of us on the road. The wind was really bad and Pam was getting blown all over the road. Then we saw a windmill on the top of a house. We had never seen one spin so fast. Our next fun fact was Red Lake. Well first there is no lake and we went thru the business district. There is only 1 business a general store. We laugh about the size, then Susan said “yea wait” because she saw more at the top of the hill. More – a Sinclair station – that was all.
A little further down the road we saw a sign for “tree repair”. We are in a very desert landscape with lots of sand, some tumble weeds and well.
DSCF6550
The 3 sisters 1 tree maybe every square mile. We aren’t sure this person has much of a job…
Finally we made it to the Grand Canyon East Gate and we entered the park. Our first stop was at the Historic Watch Tower and Desert View. One of the info signs mentioned the plane crash that happened over the Grand Canyon in 1956 (in air collision between 2 airliners) that resulted in the formation of the FAA.
We had other stops, Navaho Point, Lipan Point, Moron Point and Grand View. Now, Pam tried to lose our van keys at Grand View Point by climbing out on the rocks to get a better view. Twice she had the keys fall out of her pocket. After that, she was no longer responsible for the keys.
After the last stop we were going to get dressed for dinner (we had made 9pm reservations) but suddenly we realized the phones now all said we were on Pacific Time. Oh we are not waiting another hour for dinner (we were tired and starving) so we decided to call ahead to see if there was any way to get in earlier. They told us to come
DSCF6607
Our first view of the Grand Canyon and they would try to fit us in. As we were leaving we drove by a bunch of elk walking on the path. We wanted a picture so Pam did a “slow” U-turn. We got back there and they were no longer there. As we all had our heads turned looking down the path, an elk walked in front of the van and Pam almost hit it. Claire did get a good picture of it.
We got to the lodge and they were able to go ahead and seat us. We had another lovely dinner. Once we left, it was DARK!!! We made it to the car even though the parking lot with no lights. We got into the van and Pam drove out thru a bunch of road construction. It was like driving an obstacle course with all these cones to the right and left. We finally made it to the hotel and checked in. The hotel is The Holiday Inn Express. We did have to pay for this room as there were no more points rooms (if ever any since we made this reservation about 4 months ago). The room wasn’t cheap. Our room number for the
DSCF6601
a panoramic view night was Pi( 314). Pam parked Cassidy (the van) at the end of the parking lot (only available space), but Cassidy did get to spend some quality time next to a cute sports car.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.05s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0281s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Barbara
non-member comment
Crash
I was a kid in Phx when the 2 passenger planes hit each other over the canyon. Very scary. Apparently the two planes were on the approved courses. We needed the FAA!