The plan today was to drive to Four Corners, then go north to Moab, UT where we’re going to stay the night. As we headed east we entered the town of Kayenta, AZ to gas up and from there saw this huge dark monolith in the distance.
We checked the map and saw that north of Kayenta was Monument Valley, a name that think I’ve heard before. Monument Valley is actually several miles north, but the rocks we could see from Kayenta told us we needed to detour north and check out this action.
Monument Valley is amazing. I loved it. To visit costs a whopping $5 per adult (hear that Skywalk people?). Then you can park and go to the Visitor Center (they’re in the middle of building a new one) or travel the 17-mile dirt road loop through the valley. Oh yes, that’s what the Jeep is for.
Everywhere you look there are incredible rock formations. A bummer is that you’re quite limited in where you can go, secondary roads that might lead from the main loop are forbidden, but that’s ok, the views from the main road are great.
Many of the formations have names. There’s the Elephant, the Camel, Three Sisters, Totem Poles and lots more. There are huge boulders that have fallen off the cliffs, and some of them sit atop much smaller rocks, making for fun and precarious photo opportunites.
I took a lot of pictures, way more than are necessary to make the point, but it is hard not to. Everywhere you look you’re like, “Whoa!” and “Check that out!” and on and on.
Monument Valley is a must-do. I recommend it highly. It is cheap and you don’t actually need a 4×4 vehicle to make the loop. Most people were driving their rental minivans and sedans and they all did fine. We did see three rented RVs on the loop, but I wouldn’t recommend doing that.
Today we left Arizona, the Grand Canyon is now just a memory.
One thing that really struck me about the area surrounding the Grand Canyon was how green it was. The area is hot but it must get a lot of precipitation because the hills and valleys are just covered with greenery. There are some times when driving on the park roads where if I didn’t know I was at the Grand Canyon I could easily believe I was somewhere along the Oregon Coast.
The night we arrived into the park we did see lightning as we drove in, and yesterday we saw clouds dropping rain somewhere, but we never got wet ourselves.
We left early-ish, at 7:20 and started making our way towards a one-night stay in Moab, Utah on our way eventually to Mt. Rushmore.
Much of the drive once we left the National Park was through the Navajo Indian Reservation, and there were some interesting geological features that we didn’t think to photograph. There are these huge mounds, for example, that look like gravel piles, but there’s nothing to suggest they are actually piles of gravel moved from somewhere else. They stand in stark contrast to the pervasive red rock that is just about everywhere else.
Just before Tuba City, AZ we came across signs advertising Dinosaur Tracks. We couldn’t pass it by without stopping.
We were guided by a local Navajo girl who explained the tracks were made by Raptors, Allosaurus, Pteradactyls and a fourth one I can’t remember.
In addition to offering tours of the footprints there were also women selling locally-made jewelry and other trinkets. The place had the kind of grim sadness of a lot of the roadside Indian merchants. The stands are rickety and quite spare, you can sense the desperation of the people. We gave the tourguide a “donation” and also bought some bracelets.
It was a worthwhile stop, very fun to see dinosaur artifacts out in the wild.
BAHHHHH…….The only wild animals I have seen since the Elk in Oregon are what we now joking refer to as “wild cows” free range and and I saw a dead jack rabbit on the side of the road and some REALLY big birds.
I plead with the people who put up the signs that say, watch for deer/Elk, watch for mt. goats or the signs that were all through Yosemite ” speeding kills bears”. Today we saw a sign we had never seen before, cougar next ten miles. Do we ever see any of these animals…NO….so please take these signs down. The are only teasing us and making people like me sad that there are never any animals to see. And who’s to say that they will be in those specified miles? They might actually be roaming outside their boundaries. They are after all wild animals.
We spent today driving around the Grand Canyon park and seeing the sights. It is certainly an impressive sight!
This morning, before we left our RV spot we were relaxing outside when Sarah Michael saw a little groundhog-type animal poking his head out of a hole. We watched as it pushed dirt up from his tunnel out onto a pile. And he didn’t seem the least bit afraid of us. We got closer and closer and he just went about his business.
Then we headed off to see the canyon. We headed off to one of the historic sites in the park and on the way stopped at one of the many roadside view points. I imagine it is hard to find a bad spot to view the canyon, as everywhere you go and the views are spectacular.
Sarah Michael thought the this rock formation looked like WALL•E in his crouched position…
Next we went to the Watchtower, built in 1932. It is three stories high and has great views.
We stopped at a couple of other viewpoints and the view was always great. But it didn’t take me long to get tired and want to get back to the RV. The Grand Canyon is beautiful, but it all kinda looks the same after a while.
So we’re back in camp now, relaxing (this is what vacations are for!). We leave tomorrow for a couple days of long driving so I’m going to luxuriate in nothingness for as long as I can!
Thanks to the movie Cars, even little Sarah Michael is familiar with Route 66. If you remember the song, one of the stops along the highway was Kingman, Arizona. Good thing our path to the Grand Canyon went through Kingman, it meant a photo opportunity. Another good thing, it was dinner time which meant a visit to a roadside diner.
The place was 1950s through and through, and I had to smile at the family from England who walked in with wide eyes and wider smiles. They sat in the booth beside us and they all took pictures of each other using their phones.
My good friend Matt has really good advice for when you go to a fair or carnival: Expect to get ripped off, that way when you do you’re not surprised and upset.
Jessie and I had heard about this thing called the Skywalk, a glass walkway that extends past the edge of the Grand Canyon so we wanted to check it out. We didn’t know where it was, though, and we made no actual plans to see it. We had the thought to see it, then the thought left as easily as it arrived.
We were driving along the freeway towards our camp at the Grand Canyon when out in the middle of nowhere near a town called Dolan Springs Jessie saw a billboard instructing us to turn now for the Grand Canyon Skywalk. “Hey, did we want to see that?” “Yeah!” So we turned around and began the 49 mile drive from US 93 to Grand Canyon West.
We stopped along the way and took pictures of some of the cactus tree things that are all over the place. They are really interesting, you can see from the dead branches on the ground that these plants are kind of hollow, with a honeycomb of holes throughout. The wood is also kind of soft. I wonder if the wood is useful for anything?
Eventually we got to the turnoff for Grand Canyon West (21 miles left to go). The road was dirt so we parked the RV, had a little lunch, then drove on in the Jeep. 14 miles later we got a reprieve from the dust, the road became paved again! Hooray!
Finally we arrived. The area was quite a buzz of activity. There’s a small airport there and planes and helicopters where buzzing in and out to take visitors on sightseeing trips around this west side of the Grand Canyon. We got to the entrance and paid our $20 parking fee and received our first hint of trouble. We can’t drive our own vehicle to the edge, “everything is done with buses”. That’s fine, I can understand that, but then the woman said something about a “tour”.
“Tour?” I asked, “We’re just here to see the Skywalk.”
She explained some more and a little worried I drove in to park.
We went to find the buses, but first one must navigate through the gift shop. The first building before the gift shop was actually where all the helicopter companies had their desks and people were waiting there for their flights. You wouldn’t believe how many people were in this room, it was packed! Eventually I found the Ticketing line and paid up. $29 per person for the tour, $29 a person to enter the Skywalk.
At long last we boarded a coach for the ride to the first stop, the Skywalk (plus other attractions including a little ampitheatre where a couple Native Americans were performing songs to a crowd of about six people).
The tour bus driver gave us some information about the place. The Hualapai Indian Tribe comprises approximately 1500 members, most of whom live in the reservation capital Peach Springs. The reservation has a lot of wildlife, including tarantulas, scorpions, snakes, coyote, bobcat, quail, and lots more that I don’t remember. Of course the reservation sits on the west side of the Grand Canyon and boasts wonderful canyon scenery.
Just before we arrived at the Skywalk complex the bus climbed a rise and suddenly out the window we were able to see the as-yet unseen canyon.
Now you cannot bring any personal belongings onto the Skywalk. What if you dropped your camera and it scratched the glass? What if you dropped your camera over the edge and it littered the canyon floor below? But don’t worry, professional photographers on the Skywalk are available to capture your visit.
So to protect your camera, before you walk on the Skywalk you enter a building with lockers. You exchange your ticket for a wristband and all personal belongings are secured for you. Next through a metal detector to help remind you in case you forgot something that you might drop, like a camera.
Up a ramp, and now the Skywalk is so close! But first put little booties on over your shoes, they don’t explain but obviously the idea is to protect the glass. So much build-up, this had better be good.
Now I got a little scared. Not because I’d be walking on a glass-floored deck, my fear was that Sarah Michael would herself freak out and wouldn’t step foot on it. But she was fine, she even thought it was cool.
And it is cool. The view is great, and looking straight down to see the canyon walls and floor below is a neat gimmick. We checked out the views and took several pictures with the three photographers.
When we were done we walked back to the buildings where we had the opportunity to purchase prints of the photos they snapped, approximately $30 a piece. Or, to help preserve all of your memories, for $99 you get four prints displayed in commemorative folders, a USB key containing all of the photos taken of you plus a commemorative poster or ashtray. Sign me up! The only trick was choosing which four portraits I wanted printed. Oh I nearly forgot, we also each received a certificate signed by an actual Hualapai tribe member, saying something about how we walked on the Skywalk. Then you leave (via a gift shop) to either visit the live music, tour the example teepees and mud huts on display, or catch the bus to stop number two.
We got on the bus but decided not to disembark at the next stop, the charmingly named “Guano Point“. We’d been at this wonderland for two hours and we really wanted to get the RV to bed in its camp spot.
I drove as fast as I could on the way back, the Jeep set in four-wheel-drive to help maneuver the dirt and gravel road. Other vehicles weren’t as desperate to leave so I had a pass them when I could.
We’ve had a running joke this trip about Wild Cows. Back in Oregon we were driving through an area the signs said had elk. “Hooray! Look at the Elk! Oh wait, that’s a cow.” I tried to help so I suggested at least it was a wild cow. Luckily the road to Grand Canyon West is in a free range area, so the cows were not only near the road, they were sometimes on the road.
While is was annoying, and believe me I didn’t even detail all the complex rediculous annoyances, we had a good attitude about it, just going with the flow.
The Skywalk is certainly neat, but it if you go remember that it is like going to the fair and expect your wallet to come out empty. Dusty and empty.
Not too long after crossing into Arizona I started seeing off the highway what would have been the old Highway 93 long ago. What was cool what that there was access to this road and seemingly other tracks that went up into the hills. Some had signs saying the roads were part of a recreational area, so I started thinking, “We should take the Jeep on them there roads.”
At one point I saw a sign saying something about a mine being not far away, and with that I couldn’t take it any more. We pulled over and it became time for Jeepin’.
We drove along a rocky road and across washes that probably get pretty wet from time to time and eventually we came to the mine.
It didn’t look like much as we approached, there weren’t many tailings piled up, least not much to my untrained eye. There was a metal gate preventing access, but it was neat to peer into nonetheless.
Up the hill from the mine entrance was a large boulder with a chain link fence around it. I wondered why that was set up, so curiosity led me to climb the rocky hillside and check it out.
Inside the fence was a kind of carved out bit, which at first glance didn’t seem to do anything special. But I walked around the fence and saw a hole that appeared to go down into a passageway. What intrigued me was I saw light on the wall through the hole, and that light was clearly not coming through the hole I was trying to peer down.
As I started climbing down I happened upon a second entrance to the mine, and it was the source of the light that could be seen from above. In fact, crouching down I could see the hole up above.
This second, higher entrance was only guarded by a small chain link fence, so entering would be easy. I stood there for a few minutes before I was tempted to go in. It was terrifying. What if it caved in? Would it cave in? This hole has been here for how many decades and it is still here, so why would it fall today? And look, there’s a beer can just down a little ways, so other people have obviously explored successfully.
So I decided if I walked with my feet along the edges of the tunnel and stepped on solid surfaces I wouldn’t make any noise and so I would be less likely to trigger a fatal cave-in. I took a step, then another, I could barely breathe I was so nervous.
Look at this picture and also this picture. See that wire rope? It isn’t very long, one end rests against the fence support and the other ends among the rocks on the tunnel floor. Just past the end of that cable is where it happened.
There were enough rocks on the ground that my plan for stepping only on solid ground didn’t work. I stepped on the rocks and I felt them shift and crackle under my weight when suddenly a sound came from the area beneath my feet. I thought it sounded like the hiss of air escaping a pressurized hose. It freaked me out and leaped back to the entrance.
My heart was in my throat. What was that sound? A booby trap? Seriously, I had the thought that it could be a booby trap or warning system of some kind. I’m dumb. Then I realized it was probably a rattlesnake.
Quite exciting! And I realize I’m quite lucky. I climbed back down the hill and the three of us got back in the Jeep and drove back to the waiting RV.
Today we left Las Vegas for the Grand Canyon, which means a built-in trip to the Hoover Dam.
The dam is amazing, but right now the new bridge for Hwy 93 is being built over the gorge and it is something to see as well. The old highway winds up and down the canyon to cross over the top of the dam, and this is a real problem for large vehicles such as trucks. The new highway and bridge will make this trip much faster, easier and safer.
I hope someone is going to make a documentary about the construction of the bridge, it would be fascinating to see.
Security has really tightened since the last time I visited the dam in April of 2001. All vehicles that cross over the bridge and stopped and inspected. We had two security guys look us over, one checked the RV’s storage compartments and the other checked inside the RV.
