We passed through Farmington and on to northern Arizona, past Shiprock (anyone heard of that?), a random rock sticking out of the desert almost like Uluru in Australia. Apparently it looks like a big tanker if you imagine one coming at you and slightly to the left, but I have yet to see it from the right angle as the Indians completely restrict access to it. This, however, is what it looks like from the north (sorry for the doggie nose-smudges on the car window).
Next we took a detour up to the only place in the USofA where four states touch each other at one point (exciting, huh??). Everybody takes their picture there, but, well, I like to do things differently:
Once in Arizona, we got more into the country of random rock outcroppings and mesas. It is hard to do them justice in a photo because the experience is entirely different when you look at flat land all around and suddenly there is a big, red rock sticking up. You can definitely see why so many artists love the southwest, though, with its aesthetic color contrasts of blue sky, green shrubs and red earth (which showed a lot better once I remembered my camera has a "vivid" setting).
Next we turned north into Utah through Monument Valley. The first picture was a total accident, but I loved the randomness of a school bus stop in the middle of nowhere:
We stopped for a mid-afternoon snack at a little cafe hanging over a cliff over the San Juan River, where we sampled some local Utah micro-brews (Polygamy Porter "Why have just one!" and St. Provo Girl Pilsner--I recommend looking at that picture closely... awesome bottle labels) as well as some Navajo tacos which surprisingly required a little extra spice.
Passed through the town of Mexican Hat, UT, next. The following image is a result of me putting my dad in charge of taking a picture of the town's namesake while I drove. Can't blame him, though--he only figured out to turn ON the camera on day 3 or 4 of the trip!
Then the Goosenecks of the San Juan... amazing that such a big, powerful river would choose to take the long way around like this, but it is really common in this area. Apparently it is because the river begins to "meander," and the faster water going around the outside of the curves progressively cuts into the banks on alternating sides.
Wow, still going... this was a long day of sight-seeing! Next was the Valley of the Gods, which we got to see by bouncing down a washboard road in the middle of nowhere. Not sure exactly what gods these are supposed to be, but we're pretty sure this place was named by a Mormon!
Then up the crazy road known as the Moqui Dugway (this is spelled many different ways, and was the original name Spaniards used for the vanished pueblo peoples in the area). If you were to look at this road on a map you would see a strange scribble in the middle of an otherwise straight line, as UT-261 takes 7 switchbacks over 3 miles up 1100 feet to the top of Cedar Mesa. (lots of pictures of this one... but it's friggin cool!)
Last stop of the day (finally!!) we went to Natural Bridges National Monument. This is a series of bridges (a rock formation that spans a natural waterway) that were formed in a similar way to the goosenecks, but then two loops join by digging through the rock between them and the water takes the new shortcut.
We hiked down into the very cool canyon as the sun was setting... and I had a bandana that I didn't know what to do with so I decided to take a picture of myself as a thug (in case you couldn't tell).
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