Heading for the Finish Line
Thursday, June 10 for Thursday - Monday, May 20 - 24, 2021
On the Thursday moring, we left our hotel in Moab, Utah, and headed towards Colorado. We thought we had seen the Arches, but found MORE arches as we left town. The pictures below were NOT in the Park! This one is called Wilson Arch.
Do you see the climber/rappeller in the upper center of the picture below? Randy caught that picture.
Does anyone else see a turtle, or some other creature in the formation below?
After stopping a couple times for the pictures above, we hit the road for Colorado.
We drove a few hours, and in about three hours, found Mesa Verde National Park (opening picture). We had been told by fellow travelers that this was a great Park, but we weren't sure what to expect. After all the desert we had been in, we found greenery!
(As I remember!) We traveled up the mesa, heading for what is called the Mesa Top Loop. As an aside, I have to say looking at old archeological digs is NOT my favorite thing, but Randy enjoys it a lot. Many of the following pictures are therefore hers.
Signs and pictures follow as we traveled the Loop.
Even though we had been in areas supposedly populated by Pueblo Indians, either in the past or even present, we had not seen any homes built into mountains -- until now.
The last man-made structure we saw was the Sun Temple, from around 1250 AD (or CE). Considering the age, it was well-preserved, though according to a volunteer there, some of it was restored.
At this point, we decided we were "Park'd out" and turned towards home in North Carolina. We spent the night in our second-worst motel, in Cortez, CO, near the park.
On Friday, May 21, we headed south first, then east. We wanted to stop at what is called the Four Corners area, "where the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet. It is the only point in the United States shared by four states, leading to the area being named the Four Corners region." (Thank you, Wikipoedia.) It is on Navajo tribal land, and I may have mentioned before, most everything that was tribal in the West/Southwest was closed, because the tribes have been hit harder by COVID than other areas. Since we were heading for New Mexico anyway, we made sure we looked for Ship Rock.
If you have interest in looking into it further, a Google search of Ship Rock yields a lot of information on the Navajo legends and its name. What I remember from childhood is that early travelers to the American west used Ship Rock as a landmark and encouragement to know how far they had traveled (but most still had a long way to go). In one picture below, from a distance, you might see the resemblance to a Clipper ship.
Just as impressive, and much closer to the road, was another formation we came on first, called Chimney Rock.
The dessert was a "deep-fried cherry Sundae," at an ice cream place across from our motel. I know this won't surprise anyone, but I asked that it be over chocolate ice cream. Oh, yeah, it was as good as it looked.
As we headed east on Saturday, May 22, we found Russell's Travel Center. You might remember back in Texas, on Route 66, we ran into two men also traveling the route who were from Mansfield and Ontario, Ohio. They had recommended that we visit here, because they had a classic car museum. Since we were not on a real time schedule, we stopped in.
The balance of Saturday and Sunday was travel and overnight stays. On Saturday, we stayed at a Hampton near the airport in Oklahoma City, and ate at the "famous" Cattleman's Restaurant, which had great steaks. We stayed Sunday night near Memphis, TN. It took us two hours to get over the bridge over the Mississippi River -- as some had warned us, so we were ready for it. After we left home to start the trip, there were structural problems with the bridge on I-40, so a detour was needed, which is where the bottleneck was.
On Monday, May 24, we arrived in Spencer, Tennessee, to spend the remainder of the day and overnight at the home of my sister and brother-in-law, Adele and Brad Seitzinger. Since we had seen so many different areas, parks, and natural wonders, they took us to Fall Creek Falls State Park (that is really the name!).
As we said, it is no Grand Canyon or Yosemite Falls, but it was fun, peaceful and scenic.
On Tuesday, May 25, we arrived home in Bahama, NC, seven weeks completed on the road, about 8,850 miles traveled. Our little Prius did us proud, we had no mechanical problems, and we were completely satisfied, if very tired from the trip.
We have been asked, was it worth it? Definitely, we saw things in our nation which we would not have otherwise, met some great folks along the way, tried to spread a little cheer ourselves, and I am sure we are different people from those who left NC seven weeks before.
And ... we are planning our next trip!
Thanks for coming along with us. It wasn't always fun to do this travel blog due to Internet and computer/phone incompatibilities, but from comments from friends and family, it was worth it!
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