Pacific To Atlantic - Day 4 - Monument Valley

Dec 26th 2008, Friday 11:59pm
RoadTrip Diary - Day 4 - Monument Valley & Four Corners

Its the end of day 4.. it was indeed a long day.. Sitaram and Meha have already slept..

The day started lil bit late for me..around 7:15am.. both Sitaram and Meha were up and ploughing snow from the car.. I missed the wake-up alarm, must be tired because of stressful drive yesterday night..

Ploughing snow from car wasn't fun this time.. it was all ice and very little snow.. It rained and snowed.. so probably it caused ice to build up on the car and with some snow on top... so while ploughing, snow came off easily, but ice crystals were too hard to take out.. heating the car windows atleast made sure that front and rear windows are good.. but mirrors, side windows, wipers were unusable.. infact windows weren't opening at all..

By 9am, we were out of Blanding and hit the road to monument valley.. indeed early as compared to previous two days.. didn't get any breakfast in Blanding.. restaurants weren't opened.. also GPS didn't track any nearby places for food en route..so stuffed ourselves with usual munchies..

Drive to monument valley was icy.. road was still under snow.. still good enough sun outside.. sort of a indication that in next few hours we will get out of snow completely.. but heavy winds made life lil bit miserable.. temperature wasn't as cold as Bryce or Arches NP, around ~27F, but winds were gushing cold air, so all of us were shivering..

Quick glimpse of Hat-rock near the town of "Mexican Hat"

"Valley of Gods" drive and "Muley point" drive were completely inaccessible because of icy road.. we tried, but wasn't able to go further after a mile..

Drive towards Navajo monument tribal park is fabulous.. Experienced the hollywood shot of "Forrest Gump running on the road with monument hills in background".. I tried it too :).. I wish I can run like him..


We stopped at various places to take pictures from different angles. The whole drive gives almost 180 deg view to these structures.. Monument valley is at the border of AZ-UT, with visitor center in AZ. Again, we were stuck with harsh winds and everybody was shivering.. Tried to shoot thru camcorder & take few pictures, but within few mins my hands were numb..

The monument valley itself is indeed beautiful..Left Mitten, Right Mitten, Merrick Butte, Elephant Butte were visible.. I observed each structure/monument thru bioncs.. geological formation itself seemed interesting.. The top & bottom portion of the monument has multiple layers, probably showing various geological periods.. but 80% of the monument, the middle part, is a monolithic structure.. there are no layers in it.. its like huge solid rock, which must have been formed in same geological period.. i don't understand this geological diversity in one structure.. need to read more..

There was a tour to visit each monument for up-close view.. also a visit to additional monuments from the southern monument valley.. but it was lil bit expensive.. $65 per person and for 2.5hrs.. ..we had already spent enough time in monument valley already, so felt lil bit repetitive.. so we opted out..

At the corner of the (expensive) visitor center, there were 180million year old dinosaur foot marks.. not sure if they are real.. no other description around.. neither being advertised a lot.. so felt fishy !!

Entered AZ border around 12:05pm and drove towards Kayenta AZ.. GPS didn't show any food places nearby so we were lil bit disappointed.. but found a restaurant "Golden Sands", which turned out to be Navajo restaurant.. Interior was indeed native indian style.. food was usual american food.. but they had native indian fried bread.. tasted like bhatura without any salt and lil bit sweet too.. Meha was abt to enjoy "Chili" fries, her vegitarian meal :).. so I ended up eating some of those !!

From Kayenta, we headed NE on US-160.. some interesting small towns and their native indian names marked our attention.. Chilchinbit, Chinile, Dannehotso, Teec Nos Pos...

"Four Corners" is an interesting site.. Four state borders at one point.. NM, UT, CO, AZ.. Colorado view showed heavy snow and mountains, Utah was with red rock flat lands, New Mexico was with grey rocks, while Arizona was also with snow top mountains like Colorado.. Again the border point is govt made.. all artificial.. I felt that "Four Corners" viewpoint is way to make money.. exploit tourists.. $3 per person.. Indeed expensive considering what it offers..

It was just too windy to stay there for more than 15 mins... With US-64, we entered New Mexico around 3pm.. NM land is indeed different from UT and AZ.. Its all made up of grey color mountains rather than red rock mountains in Utah.. Shiprock mountain is prominent and visible from far distance, ~25miles before reaching there..

From Shiprock to Gallup, thru US-491 was usual drive.. nothing special.. just plenty of Bob-Marley songs and chit-chat..

Gallup is indeed bigger town.. Gallup was also "icy" with car skidding lil bit.. Reached there around 5:30pm.. had a nice "white pizza" at local place.. initially planning to halt at Gallup, but considering only 127miles to Albuquerque NM, though it was lil bit snowy, we decided to drive to Albaq.. Sitaram seemed to be lil bit tired so I continued driving..

I-40 drive wasn't bad at all.. Continiously being ploughed.. but i was too tired to drive, so took a quick break again at small town of "Grants", 50miles away from Gallup.. and then it was easy drive to Albq NM.. reached around 8pm..

Best Western on Rio Grande road seemed to be lil bit upscale..but too tired to look for anything else.. Had quick drive thru downtown Route66 and old-town. Had nice Italian dinner at St Clair's Bistro.

All of us are tired today.. overall we drove 430miles.. not that much.. but still stressful.. I am almost dead :).. but still writing this..

Checked the plan for tomorrow.. we want to spend some time in Albq NM.. planning to visit Petroglyph monument, Old-town area and Pubelo indian cultural center... Also drive to Oklahoma is thru Route 66 where we want to spend some time on visiting various small towns.. Total drive is around 9hrs.. so seems like Oklahoma will be in afternoon some time.. Did some re-calculations again.. Everything from 30th night in Smokies to Miami seems okay.. but from here-Albuquerque to Smokies gonna be lil bit stressful.. Halts in Amarillo Tx then to Little Rock, AK and then to Memphis TN seems plausible.. but with atleast 10hrs drive once in next two days..

As of now, Albuquerqe NM is the farthest in East I have ever drove by car from San Diego or Phoenix :)

Today's Drive: 430 miles
States: UT, AZ, CO, NM

Total Miles: 1450 miles in four days
Total States (6) : CA, NV, UT, AZ, CO, NM