Four Corners

Liz and I got up early this morning ready to get going, but we had a minor setback. There was a new funk in the car that had not been there the day before. We had to pull everything out and dig around to find where the smell was coming from. Finally, we found a bag of trash that we thought we'd already dumped, but instead had festered in the heat of the car for the last several days. After getting rid of the excess, we finally headed out.

The four corners monument was only about 30 miles away so it was a quick first leg of our trip. For those who don't know, the four corners monument is the place where Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado meet at a single point. It is the only place in the US where four states meet.

This is the Four Corners Monument. Its not much to look at, but its still unique. Each corner has the flag from the corresponding state. Right in the middle there's a seal that indicates the actual intersection of all four states. People go and do stupid poses on the intersection so they can be an idiot in 4 states at once.

Here is Liz and I being idiots in 4 states at once. We're playing twister and defiling Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah all at once. Hah!

Monument Valley

This stop was not originally on our itinerary, but Bob and Cynthia thought that we should give it a whirl. So we did! Turns out that it was really good advice. I'm really glad we didn't miss this one. You have to pay a small fee to enter the park, but then you can take the 17 mile driving tour to see all of the rock structures.

We elected to drive ourselves through the course instead of paying for the tour and having to sit with a bunch of other fools in the back of a truck for 2 hours.

On the way to Monument Valley, we saw a wierd depression on a nearby mountain. In the middle of the mountain, there is a circular cavity probably 50 - 60 feet across. From our viewpoint, the circular shape seems almost perfect. I have no idea what would make that kind of mark. Maybe it has something to do with an earlier stop on our trip...

On the way to Monument Valley, we saw a wierd depression on a nearby mountain. In the middle of the mountain, there is a circular cavity probably 50 - 60 feet across. From our viewpoint, the circular shape seems almost perfect. I have no idea what would make that kind of mark. Maybe it has something to do with an earlier stop on our trip...

I'm pretty sure I recognize the mesa from a movie.

Here's Liz and I in Monument Valley. I promise all the rock structures are huge... even though they look smaller than our heads.

These columns are called the Three Sisters.

We caught a picture of a small dust devil. These started popping up more and more as the day progressed. If you have never heard of a dust devil, they are like miniture tornados (but a lot less destructive) that pick up sand and make little funnel clouds. They're really cool to watch.

We really liked the coloring of this mesa. Looks like something has been spilled down the side of the cliff.

Another random mesa.

This is a little hard to see on the reduced picture size...

Look closely at the mesa wall, there is a rather obvious face on the left side etched into the rock. Opposite of the 1st face is a less profound skull-like formation. The arch in the rock is his nose and his eye sockets look empty.

Liz thought that this boulder would look better standing upright, so she had me pick it up so she could take a picture.

I already fixed this one for her.

We were pretty sure this one was going to fall on the car as we drove by.

Remember that dust devil from earlier. Well, this is its big brother. The small blue and red objects in the image are rooftops. This dust devil was about a quarter mile in diameter. It came rushing towards the car as we were heading out of town. When it passed over us, our visibility was about the same as in a thunderstorm.

Grand Canyon

This place is appropriately named. If nothing else, this canyon is grand. It's hard to imagine the scale of this place without seeing it first hand. The canyon runs over 200 miles in length with the width varying from 8 to 16 miles across. The Colorado river runs at a height of just over 2000 feet above sea level. The top of the canyon, on the other hand, can exceed 10,000 feet in places. You can't help but feel small when looking out into the canyon.

This is a shot of the canyon from the Desert View overlook point. The Colorado river can be seen running through the middle of the canyon.

There was a lookout tower in the Desert View area that had several of the pay-style telescopes. This picture was taken by pushing the camera up to the viewfinder. This is a closeup of the Colorado River.

Another shot of the Grand Canyon from a separate vantage point.

Aside from the major Arizona forest fires that you've been hearing about in the news, there is a separate fire here in the Grand Canyon area. This fire is being kept under control, but the smoke from the fire certainly clouds up the view.

This crazy bird landed just a few feet from us... probably waiting for a handout. As Liz baby-talked to the bird and told him how pretty he was, he proceeded to hack up what looked like a walnut sized fur-ball. I have to admit, it took away from his charm a little.

Finally, Liz and I over the edge of the Grand Canyon. This marked the end of our day. We were spent.