We got up Mom and Doug took a shower, we packed up our stuff, ate our complimentary breakfast, a choice of biscuits and gravy, breakfast sandwiches or eggs, hash browns, sausage and toast. We got in the car and headed east on Hwy 160, towards Monument Valley. The terrain got so sparse and barren. We starting nearing the valley because you could see what they called “mittens” spread out all over the horizon.
We got to the town of Kayenta, the scenic byway to Monument Valley. We took the route up to Monument Valley on Hwy 163. We stopped on the side of the road to take some pictures of the “mittens.”
We continued up towards Utah and finally reached the turn off and the Welcome to Utah sign. We got out and took pictures with the signs and then decided to head east towards the visitor’s center.
We drove the two miles only to find out it would cost $15 bucks to get in. We said eff it and turned around. We stopped at the sign for Monument Valley and took some more pictures before getting back in the car and heading back towards Kayenta.
We still had a long way to go. We stopped and used the bathroom at a Chevron Station before heading towards Four Corners. We were amazed on how remote some of the shacks the Navajo people lived in. They were very spread out from one another. We hit road construction about 40 miles from the Corners. We neared the sign that said Four Corners. We turned left and saw a huge fence surrounding the monument and several puzzled people. I was literally crushed. I drove all that way for nothing. I so wanted to be in four states at the same time. I even talked about what I was going to do when we got there. We got out of the car and took a few pictures. I was so upset it was closed because of construction. The year I come down there and they decide to do construction. Ahhh! I just couldn’t get over it. I kept thinking, when will I ever be down here again? Seriously!
About 100 yards down the road was the Welcome to Colorful Colorado sign. We finally made it. Doug had to pee so he ventured off down the trail while we talked to a family from Houston, Texas. Doug came back in a hurry stating that he had seen a rattlesnake.
We got back in the car and continued on to Cortez, Colorado. Mom had a patient come into the dentist office one day and told her about Mesa Verde in Southwest Colorado. She had to go see it. We turned off of 160 and entered the park. We paid our park fee and took a picture of the sign before heading up the mountain, all 20 miles of it.
Construction must have been the lucky word of the day, because we got stuck in it while going into the park. We had to wait for the pilot car because they were re-doing the road. Seems like an hour later we finally got to the cave dwellings. We could only see the Spruce Tree House because all of the other ones required tickets/Ranger tours and they were all sold out. Probably for the better, we had limited time there anyway. We parked the car, went to the bathroom and started down the trail to the cliffs. Parts of the trail were pretty steep, I kinda felt bad for the older people coming back up from the cliffs, huffing and puffing. It was really warm that day, yet the clouds said otherwise. We spent a good half hour at the cliffs taking pictures and listening to the random park rangers.
We walked back up and walked through the visitor’s center and looked at some of the artifacts and displays of the cave dwellers.
We thought we should hit the road because it was going to be a long night. We left the visitor’s center and headed the 20 miles back down to the park entrance. It took a while because of the construction. We finally got back down to the highway and headed towards Durango, Colorado, the next large town. On the way there, we hit our first rain storm of the entire trip. There was even thunder and lightening. We got to Durango and looked for something to eat and an accessible gas station. Mom wanted KFC and when we got to the drive-thru, it poured down rain. I hurried with the order so I could roll the window up. We didn’t quite hear her total, we got up to the window to pay, she had messed up the order, we wanted a 12 piece, not a 3 piece, so she fixed it and we had to wait in the parking lot for our food. She came out about 10 minutes later with our food in the pouring rain. We grabbed it and left to go find gas. We found a Shell station; mom pumped the gas while I used the bathroom. I came out and cleaned the windshield and finished up the gas. We got comfortable in the car and got back onto Hwy 160 towards the Continental Divide. While driving, we ate our KFC, which hit the spot, mom talked to Dad until we lost service and Doug continued to watch Friends on the DVD player. Erika called, wondering where we were. We told her that it was going to be a while until we got to Denver, we were still a good 270 miles away. We hit Pagosa Springs just as it was getting dark and it began to rain quite heavily again.
As we headed up the mountain pass, it got darker and darker. I have never been on that steep of a mountain pass before. I had to put the car into different gears so it wasn’t working as hard as it was. We got up on the top of the Continental Divide (where the rivers flow eastward) and to our left was the sign. I wanted to stop but it was too dark and rainy. You could actually feel the altitude change in the car as you got higher and higher.
On the way down, it got so steep, you had to have the gears set on low. There were even blinking signs telling you how fast you were going; and in the background, your mom yelling at you to slow down every two seconds. We could not wait to get to Walsenburg and I-25, we were so tired of being in the car. We still had a while to go and it was nearing 9:00 p.m. mountain time. Most of our trip up I-25 was 75-80 mph, so we made up lots of time we lost on the slow highway. We finally got to Walsenburg and merged onto I-25. We got to Colorado Springs, the first major city since Las Vegas around 11:00 that night. We saw signs for the Olympic Complex and the Garden of the Gods. Too bad it was dark and nearing midnight.
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