After staying the night in a hotel in Page, Arizona, Day 6 of our ultimate road trip was a day of lots of driving. Ben's parents originally hadn't planned on spending this day with us, but we were so grateful that they decided to join us...this meant that the kids could spend the two hours in the car to Monument Valley with them (not to mention our time touring the valley together). We really had a blast traveling with Jeff and Diane!
Monument Valley was not one of my favorite places that we visited. To start with, the day was warm, but extremely windy. Any time we got out of the car to take pictures or walk around for a closer look, we were blasted with red sand blowing into our faces. Also, the road to drive through the valley is ridiculously in bad repair; driving on a bad, bumpy, dusty road after already spending over 2 hours in the car to get there, and having another 3 hours in front of us to get to our next destination, wasn't my favorite. We don't regret visiting Monument Valley, but unlike our first three destinations, we probably would never do a return visit.
We crossed back into Utah from Arizona (Monument Valley actually crosses back and forth between the two states).
First glimpses of the valley. It's a crazy place: full of these massive, lonely monuments.
The monument on the left is called the "three brothers" (maybe three sisters? I can't remember). So, we had the boys pose to match the monument.
There is a 17 mile loop drive through the valley. Per my request, we didn't do all of it. Instead, we saw the only the main monuments.
John Ford's point, made famous in some of his Western films.
Ben is such a great daddy. When we got out to see this point, the wind was terrible. Josh was having a meltdown because I couldn't find the cookies that he wanted. At that moment of chaos, Sam saw people taking pictures on a horse for $5 and wanted so badly to do it as well. He had been dying to get on a horse the whole trip; so, while my immediate answer was "no" (based on Josh crying, the wind blowing and my general state of irritability and uncomfortableness), Ben said "sure" and headed out with the camera to get the pictures of the both boys. I'm thankful to have a "yes" husband to balance out my propensity to say "no."
The pictures are pretty great.
Seth decided to get a picture with the horse as well.
Seth
Last one of Seth
A view of the valley from another spot. Ironically, the landscape pictures were the top reason to visit Monument Valley and due to the wind, my camera lens got dust specks on it, so my photos didn't turn out very good.
Behind us are the "two mittens" (that's why we have our hands in this cool pose.) Aren't we cute?
Leaving the valley; as always, it was hard to say goodbye to Jeff and Diane.
More views from the car
Quite the rear view mirror view. Saying goodbye to Monument Valley and onto Colorado.
I had anticipated doing a lot of reading in the car, but honestly all the landscape was so amazing and so different from anything I had ever viewed before, I usually just looked out the window (we also listened to three different audiobooks as a family). If you notice the red rocks in the foreground, they are stacked up on the right into a little monument is called "Mexican Hat," as it looks like a man wearing a sombrero.
After passing hours in the car that day, we were tempted to skip 4 Corners National Monument, but as it was only about 20 minutes out and back, we figured we couldn't miss it. Good thing that we didn't...we would have missed these wonderful awkward family photos. This was totally Ben's idea: to have all the boys put hands and feet in each of the states (Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico). Great idea: incredibly awkward photo.
This photo looks a little less awkward.
We made it to Colorado: a new state for the boys and I!
The boys loved doing the jumping pictures.
In early evening we arrived into Durango, Colorado. It was a beautiful drive and a beautiful setting for a city; it has a really neat old downtown with historic buildings and neat shops and restaurants. We were also thrilled with the amount of allergy friendly eating options. 
We stayed for two nights in this trendy condo. Ben and I's bed was up that black spiral staircase in a loft (there wasn't a bathroom up there, and I was hoping that I wouldn't have to go in the middle of the night). The kids had so much fun with the living room swing and playing all the instruments. Seth and Sam even composed a short song on the piano together. The condo belongs to a couple where the husband is a photographer and the wife an artist, and when they are traveling, they rent their home out. We were amazed and humbled by their willingness to share their primary living space with strangers. It was filled with books, drawings and instruments.
This is some of her artwork. We hope to order a family print from her someday.
Stop everything and read (Seth). All the children's books had beautiful illustrations.
Day 7 we woke up TIRED. In fact, the twins had sore throats and I was convinced that their strep throat came back (thankfully, it hadn't...it was probably just fatigue and elevation changes). We had a slow morning with gluten free treats from Natural Grocers and then headed down the road 35 minutes to Mesa Verde National Park. This was definitely not our strongest day: by the time we arrive at the park's visitor center, all tickets to tour the pueblo houses were sold out. We were so bummed! However, we still were able to view quite a few of the houses from afar and make the best of the day.
This is a great picture of the boys!
This pueblo is called "Spruce Tree House"
Seth checking out the view
Balcony House
A different view of balcony house (you can see the people touring it in the lower right).
This was what the twins felt about this day. They were exhausted and it was hard to pull them out of the car from listening to one of the "How to Train Your Dragon" books (which are fantastic audiobooks, btw. The narrator has a fantastic Irish brogue and they are hilarious).
Cliff Palace
We were back at the condo by late afternoon to rest and get the boys feeling better again. The kids played soccer on the lawn and unfortunately Josh hurt his shoulder pretty badly (maybe sprained it?) and that bugged him for the next week or so. You may spy him in pictures holding it close to his body. We had Thai takeout food for dinner and headed to bed early, as our next day was a long drive to Las, Cruces, NM to see friends.
While I think that we would visit Durango again (there actually is a super cool train ride through the mountains from the town that wasn't operating seasonally open yet), I don't know if we would visit Mesa Verde park again. It had really neat history of the Pueblo Indians and the dwellings were pretty fantastic, we just don't feel like it warrants a second visit.
No comments:
Post a Comment