Tuesday 5 September 2006
We were up at about 8.00 am and after a nice warm shower (the water is heated by the engine from the day before), we had a quick breakfast, filled up the Earthroamer with water and cleaned out the toilet. The cleaning out of the toilet is quite simple. There is a cassette that comes out of the side of the vehicle and all good RV (Recreational Vehicle) parks have a dump site where you can just pour the contents in, whack in the chemicals and put the cassette back in again.
It was 70°F as we headed off towards the Natural Bridges National Monument. It is interesting that the cliffs were in shadow as we departed and it reminded us very much of central Australia.
After driving for about 45 minutes we arrived at the park’s headquarters – once again beautifully done as all these American parks are.
It shows how good geographic magazines are. The Natural Bridges were discovered in 1883 by a prospector called Cass Hite when he wandered up White Canyon from his base camp on the Colorado River. In 1904 the National Geographic magazine publicised the bridges and in 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt established the Natural Bridges National Monument – creating Utah’s first National Park in this area. In 1908 it would have been almost impossible for tourists to get to the area.
We learnt that original indigenous people had occupied the area about 9,000 years ago and off and on until 700 years ago. Then the modern Navajo Indians occupied the land.
The creation of the Natural Bridges is interesting. Millions of years ago sandstone was deposited and slowly uplifted as part of the Colorado Plateau. Then water eroded the creeks down, just as we get meandering streams with billabongs in Australia, the cut-off point quite often ends up being a natural bridge – the water erodes underneath as it turns around and back on itself. It is quite simple really, it just needs a few million years to do it.
We drove around the narrow bitumen one-way route, stopping off and looking at these interesting sites. The first bridge we saw was called Sipapu Bridge. However as it was pretty hot we decided not to walk down as we had been told that the final bridge, Owachoma was the best.
We stopped the vehicle there and walked down (it only took about 10 minutes) to underneath the arch and down onto the creek. There was a small amount of running brown water in the creek but the arch was well above this. What a magnificent sight! At one stage Dick decided to walk across the top of the arch, but then we noticed a sign, “Climbing on arch is prohibited.” Of course it would be. Wouldn’t it have been great to be here 40 years ago when none of these signs were around?
Underneath Owachoma Bridge
This was an arid zone and almost desert country at over 6,000 feet in altitude.
We then headed to the south along highway 261. We misunderstood the sign originally – it looked as if it would be gravel the whole way. In fact, most of the 30 miles was good bitumen until we went down the most spectacular zig-zag from the mesa to the valley below.
It was a gravel road, switching back on itself. When you looked at the cliff beside the road you would wonder how anyone could create a road down here. We were glad to be in the Earthroamer because it specifically said that campervans were not allowed on the road!
At the bottom of the valley we could see the dirt road to the Valley of the Gods. We had been told about this trip by Michele and Bill, at the Earthroamer factory. Earthroamer had put on a rally and taken photos there a few years ago. What a magnificent area! The road was rough but OK with the Earthroamer as long as we drove slowly.
As we moved up to the tip of the Valley of the Gods track, Dick almost overturned the Earthroamer. He decided to back it off the road on an existing track so we could take some photographs. This was a narrow track on the ridge but he misguided the position for the offside wheel. Luckily, when the vehicle started to tilt he immediately went forward. When we looked at the location later, if he’d driven back another foot or two the vehicle would have overturned. We have to be incredibly careful.
The Valley of the Gods was an amazing place. It is interesting how the United States has the best of everything – the best of the most magnificent scenery – but it is wonderful how they have left some areas in an almost primitive state. Hopefully the road will never be upgraded, it will be for walkers or for people with a decent four wheel drive only!
We then headed south along Highway 163 to Mexican Hat. We drove past the rock formation called the Mexican Hat because that is what it looked like but no photo because the lighting was very dark.
On the way to Monument Valley we turned off to Gouldings Store. We had landed here in the Caravan on a world flight a few years ago. We had flown over Monument Valley and saw this wonderful little gravel airstrip that headed up towards the cliff – definitely only one way. We landed, got out and had a look around before we flew off again. This time we stopped at Gouldings Store for some groceries and we asked after our friend Tom Warner but no one knew him. Tom’s friend owned the store.
It is amazing that people could live in such a hot and arid environment as Monument Valley. Archaeologists have recorded more than 100 ancient Anasaz sites and ruins dating back before AD1300. There are no perennial streams at all and it appears that the climate today is virtually the same as it was centuries ago. It is amazing that people could survive here. It is like outback Australia – the Gibson Desert area. Even in dry years there is seepage from the sandstone aquifers, which provide some water. In later times after the Anasaz left, the Navajos settled in Monument Valley. No one actually knows when, but for generations the Navajo have herded sheep and other livestock, and grown small quantities of crops. Monument Valley is now part of a nearly 16 million acre Navajo reservation. There are probably 300 or 400 Navajos in the area. There are about 300,000 Navajos in the USA.
Jane and Larry will tell us how this incredible area was formed. We reckoned it was pretty simple – materials that eroded from the early Rocky Mountains were deposited and cemented into sandstone as they were washed out by waters and rains over millions of years. Then natural forces eroded the land. Then an uplift generated by ceaseless pressure from underground caused everything to bulge and crack, then there was a simple wearing down of the soft layers and the hard rock remained – leaving these great Monument Valley monoliths. Of course a real geologist would say that the harder Shinarump formation caps and protects the underlying De Chelly (pronounced “de-shay”) sandstone, which form the prominent cliffs on mesas and buttes.
At this point we thought we were probably the furthest west that we were likely to go from New York. We were at 5,200 feet in altitude. The GPS said it was 2,279 road miles to New York and it would take 39 hours and 56 minutes at our average cruising speed.
We then headed south and drove out to the Monument Valley Visitors Centre. There was an inexpensive $5 each entry and it was run by the indigenous Navajo people and was really well done.
You can go on a drive around the larger monuments but we looked down and saw so much dust on the dirt road, and so many vehicles, we decided to give it a miss. We’ve seen the area before – right up close from the Caravan so we enjoyed the view as we drove along the main road. It is an incredible place and we’d recommend anyone to go there. This was the reason we had headed so far west from Denver – it was to look at the Monument Valley area and it was well worth it.
We left at 4.00pm and now headed on our trip towards New York. Well, not quite because we had to drive down to Kayenta first, and this was slightly more west. Dick wanted to go to Kayenta for one reason only. On his second trip around the world in the Caravan he had landed here to take video and record how the US operates its airspace in a non-controlled environment. What a waste of time that was, Dick says. As we pulled up at the small airport there was a Cessna Grand Caravan with a cargo pod – almost identical to ours. Imagine that! In 2002 Dick had been here on exactly the same apron and here was another Caravan waiting for tourists to be taken over Monument Valley. There couldn’t be a better aeroplane for this. At Kayenta airstrip our GPS told us we had 40 hours and 34 minutes to go to drive to New York so we had gone even more west!
We were then on Highway 160 heading at last to the east – through Mexican Water, Red Mesa and through to Farmington.
As we were heading through the small town of Dennchotso we saw lots of school buses all heading in different directions. The school buses were leaving the Red Mesa Redskins building/school. Obviously these are the indigenous people – mainly Navajos – who live in their allocated lands. We understand that they have been displaced to this location. The schools are magnificent where millions and millions of dollars have been spent on building some of the best high schools you could ever see anywhere in the world.
As we headed towards Farmington, about 70 miles before Shiprock, we saw a huge, incredible mountain named Shiprock Peak, which is 7,178 feet high and we were on the plateau at 5,000 feet.
Sadly it had to happen. In front of us was a terrible car accident. A red coupe (maybe a convertible) had somehow hit something and it looked as if the whole top and front were staved in. Ambulances and police were everywhere with flashing lights and our side of the highway blocked. We managed to drive around it but it really made us think about how careful we had to be in driving.
Modern technology doesn’t always work. Using the “Find” function on the GPS we keyed in the nearest Wal Mart. This promptly took us to a suburban street in Farmington – possibly the manager’s house! We then went to the second nearest Wal Mart and that took us to another location, which wasn’t a Wal Mart. When all else fails ask a local and this time we were fortunate to meet someone who knew where to go – we were told to drive about ½ mile along the main road and we found the Wal Mart where we could park for the night. This was great because Pip could go shopping at 10.30pm to get extra groceries and just browse around the huge warehouse style store.
We should mention on this day whenever we spoke to people and they saw we were Australians – we have small stickers on the vehicle – they mentioned Steve Irwin. He has really had an effect on people all around the world. We turned on the satellite TV and the CNN cable news network was crammed with video on Steve Irwin’s death. Larry King Live was interviewing John Stainton, the late Steve’s producer, and was constantly running old footage of interviews with Steve. Even the CNN news and the news on the ABC were still talking about Steve Irwin’s passing.
476kms Today 8,245kms Total
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