Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Driving to Arizona


We drove back home to Grand Junction before heading to our
planned stop in Arizona because we had so much stuff in the car,
we wanted to get rid of it and not haul it around for 10 days. It
made for a bit more driving, but was definitely worth it.

I love driving through this part of the country. Miles and miles of
empty lands, with beautiful rock formations, interesting people
and tons of scenery! About 3 hours south of our house is a formation
called Mexican Hat. Yes...an upside down sombrero. Not exactly
politically correct, but apparently the name has stuck


The northern border of the Navajo Nation is the San Juan River. it
eventually flows into Lake Powell, a few miles to the west, but at this
point, it acts as an oasis in a very dry land.


An iconic view and one I never seem to tire of is on the highway just
north of Monument Valley. It was pretty hazy today so it's not tour
guide photo ready, but pretty nonetheless. We skipped visiting
Monument Valley today (the actual park) because we've been there
many times and had lots of other things to see in a short amount of
time.


Just north of the Utah/Arizona border, we came across these folks from
California that were driving the southwest in their homemade choppers.
Very cool.


The other chopper.


On the southwestern edge of the Navajo Nation is the Cameron
trading post. It's very commercial, but always fun to visit.



Traffic through Flagstaff is always miserable. It seems like it
takes forever to drive through, no matter what time of year it is.
I wish they'd come up with a solution to the problem. We took
advantage of being in Flagstaff to visit one of our favorite
bookstore chains...Bookman's. A great used bookstore, we always
seem to leave there, purchasing something. After 90 minutes or
so there, we needed to continue south to the Phoenix area.
The lights had started to come on in Flagstaff and as the first
International Dark Sky city, it's refreshing to see how little light
pollution there is in the city. We continued the two hour drive
to Phoenix and it definitely is NOT a Dark Sky City! It's glow
can be seen from just south of Flagstaff!

1 comment:

shooskua said...

I've driven that same stretch of road, including past Mexican Hat...it's an awesome drive, I agree. Also have done the Beeline Highway :) I've been to a lot of the places you visited while in AZ.