Day Three

Our third day of driving was our first intentionally scenic day.  Our travel plan, as many of you know, was to expeditiously get through the "fruited plain" and then slow down once we arrived in the western states, where Jay and I have never visited.  So we will reduce our driving time, and try to spend more time seeing things over the next several days.  For those of you that know me well, this is a bit challenging.  I'm a very goal oriented person, and it's hard for me to be whimsical on the road, but Jay is helping me slow down and enjoy the sights.

Wednesday morning, we left Albuquerque, heading north on a large US Highway towards a vast area populated by more cattle than anything else (this would be a theme for most of our day).  The road snakes through large mountainous rocks striated with the most gorgeous colors.  It was awkward for me to see mountains that stood alone and not have any trees on them.  We assume the mountains were made of rock, but their years of being worn down gave them the shape of being old piles of sand that the rain had been playing with.  The colors and shapes were impressive.  As we drove along, a new set of colors would replace the old, moving from blacks and grays to reds and oranges.  Some of the mountains had gentle slopes with rolling hills while others had a uniform height and sheer cliffs.  The variation was pretty amazing.

Our destination at that point was Farmington, New Mexico.  We were meeting Allison for lunch.  We arrived a bit early, so we found a Wells Fargo so we could do some banking, filled up with gas, and returned to the restaurant.  Allison and child, McKenna, were right on time.  We visited for a while, and I held the baby for quite a while.  In fact, I developed a new method to rock McKenna, which seemed quite successful at ushering her on her way to sleep.  Figuring this was an important discovery - Allison made a video, and I'll try to get it uploaded soon.  Meanwhile, a photo.

After lunch, Jay and I were back on the road towards Four Corners, the place where four states touch at one point.  Longing to photo document my omnipresence, I was excited about this stop.  We stopped at a local Starbucks to borrow the WiFi (no, Tony, we did not buy any coffee...and the stop was convenient). and we were off.  The hour and a half journey to the Four Corners Monument would take us through a few towns and Native American Reservations.  Earlier that day, I had told Jay, that my life would be complete if we found ourselves in some sort of dust storm complete with tumble weed.  As we passed through Shiprock, NM, my day and perhaps life would be made... A large dust storm had brewed up, and while several cars pulled off the road, my tenacity pushed us forward.  As we approached an intersection, and stopped, Jay pointed out a small piece of brush flying across the road as the dust storm roared.  We both immediately whistled the theme from "The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly..." So excited, we missed our turn and headed in the wrong direction for the next several miles.  After figuring out our mistake (thank you GPS on the iPad), we turned around.  Once on the right road again, we continued in the dust storm and voila - a true tumbleweed flew across the road, oh, how wonderful.  Just a few minutes after that, another one flew across the road, and I hit it with my car, and it exploded... so I think I'm done with the tumbleweeds.    We finally arrived at Four Corners, along with several other tourists, only to find the monument was closed.  We all laughed about it, and took pictures of ourselves in front of the closed sign.

Soon after leaving the entrance of Four Corners, we bid farewell to New Mexico, and hello to Arizona.  The rocks continued to evolved and mountains continued to climb.  The road we were on was smaller than what we had been on, but there was even more traffic.  It appeared that in our attempt to take the "back road" we had found ourselves on one of the most frequented roads for tourists traveling between the sights "out west."  Ever few vehicles was an RV, and most of the license plates were from out of state (I will say, Jay and I have yet to see any other NC plates).  We drove for nearly two hours, still appreciating the sights, but ready to really be somewhere.  Hours of slightly changing landscape, while peaceful, can begin to drive one wild.  We passed by Monument Valley and saw some of the rocks in the distance, but decided at that point to press on.  Our initial plan had been to go to Flagstaff after Four Corners, then return to the Grand Canyon the next day.  However, because Four Corners had been a failure, and day light was still with us for some time, we decided to go on towards the Grand Canyon, since it was practically on the way.  

The Grand Canyon is pretty impressive.  We visited the South Rim, and stopped at nearly every overlook. It seemed like most of the people there were not speaking english, but french or german instead.  I wonder if europeans make better use of our national parks than Americans do?  At some of the overlooks, I jumped the guardrail and slid my way down to a better vantage point.  Crazy, I know, but if someone else did it and lived, why can't I?  :P  Most exciting of all, was seeing trees again.  For the past several hours we had been surrounded by rocks and sand, and now there were pine trees, other trees, and various forms of bushy ground cover.  I do love trees.

After the Grand Canyon, Jay and I were feeling pretty spent.  In spite of doing less driving then we had been doing in previous days, something about the empty dessert really makes the driving seem longer than it is.  As we approached Flagstaff, we were not only excited to be arriving at our hotel, we were also elated to see a pretty little college town filled with trees and surrounded by large mountains.   The towns we had stayed in to this point, haven't been very exciting.  On the morning of Day 4, I hope to explore the town a little bit, before we leave.  After checking in to the hotel, we went to Denny's for a late dinner.  During the trip, we've both been changing various clocks we have to keep up to the time zone we are currently in.  Well, now we have a clock on every time zone, so we never know what time it is.  To complicate it, Arizona, in the Mountain Time Zone, doesn't participate in Daylight Savings time, so at this point, it is on Pacific Time.  How confusing. I actually had to ask the front desk person what time it was, no matter what she said, it was time to go to bed.