May 2008

We wake up to a beautiful morning and eat our breakfast with views of Mesa Verde National Park through the window.

Then we pack up and take off for Canyonlands National Park. On the way we stop at Newspaper Rock State Park to have a lunch and look at the petroglyphs.

This park is back in the 'boonies'. The 50 mile road back to the park has sections where cattle roam free; that is, no fences between the cattle and the road.

We drive through the park, stopping frequently and take a few short hikes.

We leave Canyonlands and head to Moab, Utah.

On the way we pass Wilson's Arch. Joe insists that we climb up to the arch, so he and Jere climb to the top while I stop 2/3 of the way up to take pics. I use the 'I need stay down here to take pictures' whenever I feel lazy :-)

We find a campground for the night, but they can only give us one night since they're booked full for tomorrow night. We are surprised to find that the Moab campgrounds are all fairly full. The campground owner says she's also baffled as to why the Moab campgrounds are so full.

Did you ever have one of those mornings when you wake up in a bad mood? Unfortunately that was me today. Not sure if it's all the traveling, my allergies, being with my husband 24/7 for the last 6 weeks, hormones, or whatever, BUT it did not make for an enjoyable morning for our day. Despite my crankiness in the morning, the day did turn out well.

We drive up to the Visitors Center at Mesa Verde National Park and buy tickets for two ranger-led tours of the cliff dwellings. Our first tour is of the Palace Cliff Dwelling, the largest of the cliff dwellings in the park.

We eat our picnic lunch between tours and do our second ranger-led tour, Balcony House. This is more interesting and fun than the first tour. I highly recommend this tour if anyone goes to Mesa Verde NP. Lots of ladders to climb to get to and from the cliff dwelling, narrow paths and a very narrow tunnel to crawl through. The ranger we had for the tour was excellent.

Ladder that everyone climbs up to enter Balcony House:

We drive around and stop to look at several other smaller cliff dwellings along the canyon. The park isn't very pretty except for the cliff dwellings--they had several fires in 2002 and 2003 so most of the trees along the drive have burned. The ranger said it will take 200 years for the trees to grow back.

Our last stop is at Spruce House with it's self-guided tour.

We drive into Cortez for dinner and to pick up some groceries, and head back to the RV park.

We pack up and leave Monument Valley to drive to Mesa Verde, Colorado.

One interesting rock formation that we pass by is Mexican Hat Rock in Utah. I have no idea why this rock doesn't fall off.

On the way we make a detour to visit Four Corners, the point where the four states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado meet.

Of course we take photos of each of us standing in the 4 states at one time.

We watch an artist make a sandpainting but resist the urge to buy any more Navajo or Hopi crafts. I already bought a sandart painting at the Grand Canyon Watchtower gift shop and jewelry at an earlier stop.

Today is a 'chore' day, so we set up our RV at an RV park near Mesa Verde National Park and do wash, etc.

We pack up and take one last drive through Grand Canyon NP.

We stop at several lookouts, the Tusayan Museum and Desert Point Lookout. The tower at Desert Point is over 75 years old and is beautiful architecture, decorated with American Indian artwork.

Painted ceiling inside Watch Tower:

Inside view:

Several of the historic buildings in the park have bible verses incorporated into their structure, Desert Point Watch Tower also has a bible verse. The incredible scenery of the Grand Canyon inspires people. When we walking out to one of the lookouts this morning, a group of Asian visitors was singing "How Great Thou Art" in their own language (I recognized the tune) as they looked at the canyon.

East of the park we stop at the Little Colorado Canyon in Navajo Nation to look at the gorge and crafts the Navajos are selling. I can’t resist the jewelry and buy a necklace.

Much of the drive is through so-so desert scenery, but then we arrive at Monument Valley and the scenery becomes “classic western”, with lots of clay-red buttes.

We set up at the Goulding RV park and take off to drive the 17-mile scenic drive through the buttes. The Navajo Nation charges $5/person to drive the road. I’m not sure what the money is used for, but it definitely is not for road maintenance. The road is unbelievably rough. We pull over and take our bikes off the roof-rack before we break the rack, bikes, etc. The drive does allow us to get a little closer to some of the buttes, but the drive should include warnings about extremely rough road.

We eat a very late dinner and then Jere goes to see the John Wayne movie Stagecoach (which was filmed here at Monument Valley) at the local lodge/museum while Joe and I work on homework, etc.

Last night’s low temperature was 17 degrees F!!! The ranger said yesterday’s and today’s weather is more typical for early March, NOT early May. It was our coldest night camping ever, including Alaska and Yukon. We didn’t think to unhook the water to the trailer last night and our water hose to the trailer froze.

So we get up this morning, unhook our frozen hose (we use the water from our fresh water tank instead) and take our time getting ready. We’re not anxious to go outside – too cold early in the morning.

We finally do leave for the park around 10:30am. We’re going to hike down the canyon today! Actually we’re only hiking 600 feet below the rim. The South Kaibab Trail was highly recommended by the ranger at last night’s evening program.

The hike is great – wonderfully, incredible scenery for every step of the hike.

View from top of trail:

Of course the walk down is easy and we get to Ooo Aah Point in about 40 minutes.

View of rocks on the way down:

View of Ooo Aah Point:

We stop here for at least 30 minutes to enjoy the view and eat our lunch. Our view from Ooo Aah Point:

While we’re sitting there, two different mule trains that are traveling up from the canyon pass us.

We thought about taking a mule to the bottom of the canyon, but changed our minds when we realized how close the mules get to the edge of the canyon. Seeing the mules today, I definitely made the right decision for me. I’d rather have two feet on the ground when I’m on the trail versus sitting on a mule and depending on the mule to keep me safe.

The return walk up the canyon is slower but not as bad as I thought it might be. We make lots of stops to admire the scenery, plus they have switchbacks at the steepest part of this trail.

After our hike we continue walking along the rim for another mile or so before returning to the trailer for a break (and rest for my legs).

View of the South Kaibab Trail from the Rim Trail:

We see a very tame elk beside the trail:

We rest, have dinner, and return to the canyon to take the shuttle to Hopi Point to watch the sunset.

We end our day by attending the evening ranger talk. It’s supposed to be on hiking the canyon but they change the topic to ravens. Very disappointing, but this ranger tells lots of jokes, so we enjoy it more than we expect.