Over the last week, we’ve seen four of America’s claims to fame. The Rockies - Monument Valley - the Grand Canyon - and a Smore (I’ll explain the fourth one later).
The Rockies, Colorado - Here we spent four days in Estes Park, just outside the national park. It’s a beautiful little town ad home to The Stanley Hotel - the inspiration behind Stephen King’s horror, The Shining. Apparently it’ an extremely haunted hotel. We got to do two big walks through the Rockies, one which took us up 11 000 feet. We then drove over the top through the tundra environment (the place where it’s too high for trees to grow) to our next destination.
Monument Valley, Utah - It was a two day trip from The Rockies to Monument Valley. We stayed in two tiny towns on the way; Gunnison - where we met a Texan family getting ready for the famous Gunnison River Festival which was to be held the next day. basically you dress like an idiot, hop on a make shift raft, and float for an hour down a near freezing stream. The second town we stayed in was Bluff. We were a little nervous as we were the only ones in the campsite along with a single, middle aged man who looked like he was out of the movie, Wolf Creek - and our campsite was about 10 metres from his. It was a restless night’s sleep, hoping he wasn’t going to come tap on our window with a hand gun. But it was fine. I had a chat to him in the morning and he turned out to be a primary school teacher who travelled to the area during summer to look at rock paintings.
Monument Valley is by far the coolest place I’ve been. I can’t describe the feeling of slowly driving through the massive rock formations. They’re so formidable, yet the area is so silent. I think this is the place to check out if you come to the States. The Navajo culture and art is very interesting also.
The Grand Canyon, Arizona - We arrived in Williams, Arizona two days ago (45 mins south of the canyon). We consider it our biggest mistake booking for a week here. Arizona is as hot as hell and the campsite has minimal shade. Liz tans well so she now looks like a Navajo woman. Me on the other hand, not so well. I look like one of the red indians on the side of a red skins packet. we checked out the Grand Canyon yesterday - hired bikes and cycled a bit of it. As Grand as it is, the heat, the haze and the exhaustion dampened our experience a little. I think the best time to check it out would be early morning or evening so there’s less heat and more shadowing across the Canyon. We think we’ll book a helicopter ride over it for Thursday evening.
