Toto, we’re not in Nebraska anymore. That’s right dude, we’re in Colorado racing towards home.

But don’t think for one minute that the sightseeing is done yet. That’s the mighty Colorado River behind us, although, at this juncture in its travels, it’s not all that enormous. By the time it roars through the Grand Canyon, though, it can get out of control, but then further south in Mexico, they are lucky to see a few tablespoons of water a day trickle into their side of the bargain.

Well, the views of mountains, trees, some desert, and a big green river from here just suck. Btw, I am that person who struggles to not beep the horn all the way through the tunnel.

And BLAM! The tunnel teleported us right here to the Colorado National Monument, not really but that sounded a lot more interesting than we left Interstate 70 near Grand Junction, Colorado, to add another notch to the belt of collected National Parks and Monuments.

Into the sandstone as we travel back in geological time.

Here’s a modern-day public works project for America: build standalone bike paths through our national parks that are well away from the streets cars use. And while you’re at it build a transcontinental bike path with solar-warmed paths to automatically clear snow and ice so that on days it’s not freezing cold, people can still ride along. Of course, then we’d have to give people enough vacation time to go out and slowly explore their country, so the chances of this happening are about as great as America electing its first black president.

Is it just me, or does this river look bigger?

If we’re in canyons, we must be back in Utah or Arizona. Hmmm, this looks like Utah to me.

Somewhere between the Colorado/Utah state line and Moab.

Can you guess which nearby river is used to irrigate this lush green field?

Now south of Moab and having just passed the World-Famous Hole N” The Rock (which we have to come back to someday), we are well on our way to Arizona.

But first, we’re going to make another stop because one can never visit enough National Parks and Monuments on one trip, so we’re dropping in on Natural Bridges National Monument.

Like a scene out of Frankenstein, the ravens perched upon the dead tree in front of the gray sky observed us, slowly turning their heads as if to follow us before letting off a squawk warning us there be monsters in these parts. Yeah, this is right there with the teleportation story from earlier.

What’s the worst thing about digital photography? Taking too many photos and having more than one turn out so good that you want to go crazy and post ten views of the same thing.

I know what you are thinking, “Weren’t you nervous that the multi-ton stone bridge over your head might fall right while you were under it?” I wasn’t worried because I went up there and jumped up and down on it about 25 times, and it didn’t break, so I figured if I couldn’t make it fall, why would it happen while we were underneath it? For the record, do not be so gullible as to believe for one moment I would do anything to damage or bring any kind of harm to any feature within 10 miles of one of our natural treasures.

The Mokee Dugway is an exciting dirt road that I can’t wait to drive when it’s wet, and we have bald tires. Seriously, what flipping idiot thought this was a good idea? Truth is, I’m mostly okay with these kinds of roads. Heck, I do drive them as we have today, but my fear that someone else might need me to back up or get close to the outside edge is a butthole-puckering moment I’d prefer to avoid.

This, though, is the payoff for taking some of these out-of-the-way roads.

That’s Monument Valley out there, and on the other side of it is Arizona.

The irony that is lost on these cows is that as they graze on the Burger King grass, they are fattening themselves up to one day end up on the menu. I don’t know of anywhere else in America besides the Navajo reservation where the open range means just that: animals are free to move about anywhere. Here in Kayenta, we have seen donkeys, cows, wild dogs, and horses, just as we’ve seen in many other cities across the reservation. There’s something nice about seeing animals coexisting with us people as we all make way for each other.