Monument Valley

Monument Valley is a Navajo Monument located in Navajo Country, in Southern Utah / Northern Arizona. It is quite an impressive place, one of those places which have something that makes them special!

This is what you see when you approach it. Suddenly some beautiful buttes appear together in the distance and you now you are getting close :)




And when you get there, well... you can see it by yourself.



There is a scenic route that goes among the buttes. It is pretty beautiful but pretty rough at some times!

Glen Canyon NRA / Lake Powell

After leaving Capitol Reef NP, you get into a place on Earth were civilization is unknown. No towns, gas stations or whatever for around 300km!! So fuel up your car and enjoy. The drive south from Capitol Reef to the SouthEast along Glen Canyon National Recreation Area is probably one of the best drives you will have in your whole live. Not kidding. The scenic beauty of the landscape can't get beaten. If you go there during sunset, you risk getting involved in an accident! ;) You just can't keep your eyes on the road!!!



The landscape is where Western movies happened back in the 60s. I was expecting meeting some John Wayne like character :) or being attacked by Native American arrow shot from the top of some of the uncountable buttes.



In the heart of Glen Canyon lies Lake Powell. A new dam in the 20th century created this artificial lake. The Colorado river creates one of the most beautiful lakes I have ever seen. It is just mesmerizing...




And then, your drive continues and the dim warm light of dusk makes it even better!!




Those long straight line road crossing the desert like arrows... unforgettable!!




PS: "13 stitches" by NOFX and some Bad Religion

Trip in the South West. Day 3. Grand Canyon NP

The Grand Canyon in Arizona is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. No introductions are needed though. The moment you get there and have a look down in the canyon, you notice it is big! It looks like a staircase, with different steps. And down in the bottom, the Colorado river, really far away!



A little bit of the river can be seen in this photo. The canyon is so deep and wide that it is hard to see the river from the top!!



Most tourists just drive around in the rim, but the real experience is going down into the canyon. That is what we did. We followed Angel Trail for 7 miles (7 more to come back), and that brought us to the first step, just above the river.

This is the view at the beginning of the trail:



This is the view when you are going down:



A detail on a typical structure:



If you have the money but lack the energy, you can rent a trip by mule and the mule will do the effort. Ask this cowboy if it is hard to come back up! ;)



At the beginning, you see all the canyon down there... but at some point, you really get down into the canyon and see no large panoramas...



And the way up cannot even be seen in full...



When you finish going down, vegetation starts (cactus, some trees...) and it is full of lizards and squirrels!



It is really nice to get down in the canyon. Next time I will get a back country permit and spend the night down there!! In my opinion, going down the canyon is the most worthy experience in the Grand Canyon.



And back up again!! The way up is kind of hard and it depends very much on your physical condition. Try to do some exercise regularly before coming to the canyon ;)



And I made it!! I went up real fast, even ran at some points, so I was really tired back in the rim...



Three more panoramas I took from different places:





After our hike, I drove around the rim a little bit and started driving back to Pasadena, where we arrived at around 1.30 am.

What a road trip!!!!

Trip in the South West. Day 2. Canyon de Chelly NM and more

After sleeping in the middle of Arizona, it was time to head North. The objective for the day was really ambitious: get to Colorado, to visit Mesa Verde National Park.

While we were packing, it was funny to look around and see where we had slept: next to some geeky souvenir shops selling dinosaur bones, petrified wood and UFO related stuff.



It is nice to start driving at 6.30 in the morning with nobody in sight!



After some hours driving in two-lane roads, we got to Canyon de Chelly National Monument, and I stopped for a brief (2h) visit.



Canyons in this area are really beautiful, looking really reddish. This one was no exception! And there were even wild horses!



One of the highlights was some Native American ruins. It was the first time I saw this kind of construction in the middle of a cliff. So it was a nice introduction to what would come later on the day.



Another view of the canyon...



... and the Spider Rock, the most famous view of Canyon de Chelly.



After that visit, time to drive in really red land with amazing views of far away mesas. Again, it felt really good to drive in here...



And driving like that, on my way to Colorado, I got to New Mexico...



... and the Four Corners Monument, a point where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah meet.



The whole 4-corner monument is quite cheesy and people tend to do ridiculous things to be in the four states at the same time. But it is quite of funny! ;)



These are the flags of the four states:



After that, I continued driving to Mesa Verde in Colorado. That will be the next post! :D

Trip in the South West. Day 1. Petrified Forest NP

May 23th started at 2.30 am, when I woke up with the intention of driving until the Grand Canyon in Arizona to stay there for several days (3 in total). Of course, it was the middle of the night and some people were still partying in Caltech. Anyway, I got to my car and started driving, first towards Las Vegas, and then towards the middle of the Californian/Arizonan desert. The drive was long and the night hours were kind of hard... It was kind of strange when the sun started rising at around 6 and I had already been driving for a long time...

Anyway, I made it to the Grand Canyon in around 7 hours with only one stop (for gas!). As I was arriving there, the sky covered in clouds and the number of cars and people increased: BAD! I entered the park and went straight to the rim for the first view of one of the most impressive natural wonders in the world, but surprise, the canyon was full of clouds and nothing could be seen!! What a deception!! Then I went to the visitor center and they told me the camping sites in the park were fully booked for the next days. And we were also told there were no permits to sleep down in the canyon!! So, we could do nothing there...



But at that moment, I took a crazy decision which turned up to be appropriate: I would continue driving for 2-3 more hours to get to Petrified Forest National Park, where I could spend the night. So there I went, driving through the red lands of Arizona. Going there I went through Navajo and Apache counties!! Cool ;)



Once there, quick visit to the Visitor Center, where I was told I could not sleep in the park, but they kindly suggested to me a place where I could camp for free, just outside the other entrance of the park.

The highlight of that part of the park was the Painted Desert, which I did not know and later on I have seen it is pretty famous. The Painted Desert was pretty beautiful and a great place for photography. As its own name suggests, it is a desert composed of colorful mountains/mesas.





After the Painted Desert and going South, there were some Native American ruins from around the 15th century:

- A town



- Some boulders carved with many drawings



The next part of the Petrified Forest NP was really beautiful and the highlight was a special kind of mesa with colorful stripes! Really surprising!!




These kind of mountains are called Blue Mesas.




And finally, I got to the place the park is named after: the Petrified Forest! The Petrified Forest is surprising. At first sight it looks like logs spread all over, but when you get near them and check them, you find out they are rocks!!



Can you see the minerals inside the wood looking log??



There used to be a forest here and some trees fell down and were covered by the changing ground. The minerals in the ground got inside the wood and petrified it. Later on, that area became a desert and all these log were unearthed. The result is these funny looking rocks.



I continued driving a bit more towards the other end of the park where I would sleep that night.



That night, I was there, in the middle of the desert, surrounded by thunder storms. I also got some rain... and I had driven 750 miles. But it was so nice. It was the taste of freedom!