October 9, 2013

• Epic Road Trip Day 10, part 2

  Today’s goal was to get from Dead Horse Point State Park to my parent’s house in Arizona. I enjoyed seeing the landscapes and how different the terrain was compared to home. Coming into Monument Valley was really amazing.

  

  We drove and drove and it took forever for it to get closer, but it did.

  

  Then it was really close!

  

  Then it was gone, behind us, and we had Arizona before us.

  

  One of the roadside attractions was seeing the Elephant Legs. The kids weren’t much interested in anything but getting to Gramma and Bapas, but I swerved to a stop, stuck the camera out the window, got this shot, and got back on the road.

  

  There were things I wanted to see. Indian jewelry stands, dinosaur tracks, and any and all scenery. We stopped at the second jewelry shack and I bought a cheap pair of lapis lazuli earrings, then we went on to the dinosaur tracks.

  

  

  

  

  We opted to not take the toothless old Indian woman’s offer of a tour and instead just wandered the land and kept an eye on the other guides so we’d know approximately where to stop to see the tracks and prints ourselves without having to listen to slurred and accented speech reminding us how big a tip we should leave.

  

  I bought another cheap pair of earrings, these made of pearls. The deaf old woman was charging $4 for them. I had 3 ones and a twenty in my wallet so I handed her the larger bill. She didn’t have change so I offered instead the 3 dollar bills and she smiled in a way that should have showed off every one of her teeth if she’d had any and nodded happily. Sold.

  

  We continued on, happy with our experiences and purchase till we needed to stop again, this time at a virtual cache about this bridge, which I wanted to photograph.

  

  Ribbert joined the fun and sat on the info plaque we needed to claim the find.

  

  There were two Earthcaches in a National Park that I wanted to stop for since I had a National Park Pass and all. I wasn’t really sure what kind of info they wanted or where I should get it, but I got lots of photos and came up with apparently the right answers.

  

  

  

  

  

  It was beautiful but there was a storm brewing outside, and one in the car as the kids were pretty impatient with reaching our destination.

  

  We stayed in the car the rest of the day except for when I had to stop and get gas. Under the overpass, they had carved out deer shapes in an interesting “ancient Indian cave painting” style. On the lead deer, someone had attached a red pompom on it’s nose. That was pretty funny, but unfortunately there was no place to stop for a photo.

  Drove along a freshly graveled road as we neared my folk’s town. People were driving crazy-fast on it and one large pickup kicked up a rock that hit dead center in my line of vision and chipped my windshield. Oh well. Kept on going and eventually made the kids and grandparents extremely happy by finally arriving to where we’ll stay for a week.

  • 3:25 pm
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