Dreams, Moments, Travels
Do you want to see someone stare in disbelief? Tell them you are driving from Phoenix to Los Angeles and back in one day. That is what Sonal Patel and I did this particular day. Our destination was Little India in Artesia, where we stocked up on things difficult to buy or transact over fax or phone. The photo is in the House of Spice warehouse.
The car’s windows were iced over, not just a little, but a good thick coating of ice had to be scraped off of them. We are in the San Juan Mountains, and finally, we are seeing heartfelt emotions from our travel guest. Arturo lights up with enthusiasm feeling like he’s discovering a place he could call home.
Do wild waters also turn the colors of fall?
This mountain range never fails to impress us and begs the question, “Why couldn’t your parents have left you a huge inheritance so you could live here not worrying about making money?” The simple answer would be that most of them are still alive.
The changing of the seasons is certainly appreciated. I don’t know how many times I’ve lamented in my writing how Arizona has two seasons: hot and not so hot, while everything else remains the same.
I can’t tell you which stream Caroline is standing in. We never noted it, nor did I note which roads we were traveling so this is a mystery river for now.
Good thing we take these selfies in front of all these signs, or we never know where we’ve been.
The drive up to the cliff dwellings high in the mountains at Mesa Verde National Park is a spectacular one.
Also spectacular is Cliff Palace. These ancestral Puebloan dwellings are well preserved and worth every effort to get out into another remote corner of America.
Some may marvel at the pyramids of Egypt, but I think these are just as worthy of our admiration. I’d imagine that some of these kivas had to be dug out of rock and that with primitive non-metal tools, it wasn’t the easiest of tasks, yet they persevered so they could bring order to their lives and evolve their cultures.
Out of Mesa Verde, we aimed for the Navajo Nation; it’s almost impossible not to pass through it. In this case, we were looking to take a quick look into Canyon de Chelly National Monument. Turns out that there are Jeep tours down there. I put it on the list of things to do in the future.
This is Mummy Cave and is off-limits to visitors. We can only look from afar. Even down on the canyon floor, you are restricted from getting too close.
The one good photo I was able to take of Mr. Camera-shy Arturo. We had a lot more driving ahead of us today as we were going to be driving down to Tucson to drop the kid after we all stopped at La Parrilla Suiza for some dinner before trekking north again so Caroline and I could go home.
Today’s adventure starts in Moab, Utah, at Arches National Park.
From the moment we first saw Delicate Arch in someone else’s photo, we knew we had to come see it for ourselves. It’s a lot bigger than I thought. I have another photo with Caroline standing below it, where you’d see that she’s tiny in comparison, but this is the better photo. I intended to take a selfie of us out there, but my vertigo got the best of me, and it turned out that Arturo also has a wicked fear of heights, so he was staying even further away from the edge than I was.
Horses among the pictographs tell us that these etchings in the rock are relatively modern as pre-Columbian contact Native Americans didn’t have horses in North America.
Landscape Arch was another big draw as it is razor-thin and feels like it could tumble to earth at any time.
Balanced Rock requires no effort in the world to see it other than getting yourself to the park, as it is right next to the road. How about another park?
Dead Horse Point State Park, which looks a lot like Canyonlands National Park if you ask me, was the next park.
That’s the Colorado River out there; someday, we should raft that thing.
We peeked into Canyonlands National Park rather quickly but will save it for another visit as 10 minutes here won’t do it justice.
Welcome to Bedrock, Colorado, where the Flintstones were filmed back in the early 1960s. Fred once bagged groceries here at the Bedrock Store while he was in high school and a couple of years before he met Wilma.
Arturo Jr. got the travel bug after a couple of day trips with us and was looking for another road adventure, so we obliged him. Let’s go further; into Utah and Colorado, we’ll go.
You should try something like this one day. Jay Patel and I left Phoenix at about 7:30 a.m. and drove north. This field of bright yellow flowers on the last day of summer, a day before fall, was so striking, and in contrast to the rest of the drive, we just had to stop and take a photo.
Wow, it feels like I was just here; oh yeah I was two days ago with Caroline. It’s great to be sharing this stuff with someone else who can appreciate the beauty. We are at the Sunset Crater National Monument.
Of course, our next stop would then take us for a walk at Wupatki National Monument because that’s what’s at the northern end of the road that drives past Sunset Crater. The circle on the right is not the remnants of a kiva but is believed to have been a sports ring of some sort.
We have a destination in mind that requires us to pass through Kayenta, allowing for a stop at the Elephant Feet.
These day trips are not always easy, but they are always worthwhile. We made our way out to Monument Valley here in Utah for a drive under the formations. It’s only about 330 miles from home but as far away from routine as one can get.
This magical place allowed Jay to quantum teleport to superposition himself in five simultaneous locations for this snapshot overlooking Monument Valley.
The horseshoe bend at Goosenecks State Park was about our furthest north location. Truth is, I was hoping beyond hope that I might score a steak in Mexican Hat at the home of the swinging steak, but that dream fulfillment wasn’t in the cards.
We’re on the 191 heading south onto the Navajo Reservation; we have plans.
Those plans work out perfectly as we arrive for sunset at Canyon De Chelly National Monument.
By 9:00 p.m., we were standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, but not for long, as we had to make tracks back down to Phoenix. It would be close to midnight before we got home. Not a bad way to spend 16 hours if you ask me.
Meet the Silvas: On the left is Arturo’s wife Guadalupe, then Arturo, holding Tyson, the little dog, is their son Arturito, while their daughters Sophia and Melissa are too short and stand below Caroline’s chin and so cannot be seen in this photo – just kidding. We don’t get down often enough to visit the Silva Family in Tucson.
And, of course, there was this sunset near Picacho Peak on the way home.