Monument Valley

From the first day we started planning this trip there were two places I really wanted to see. Monument Valley in Utah/Arizona and the Rockies in Colorado. On Sunday we finally made the trip down to Monument Valley, on Mothers Day of all days. The kids woke me up with home made mothers day cards, and a DVD about the art of tattooing. That was cool. One kid (who shall remain nameless) woke me up with a moonie of the face drawn on their bottom!!


We only had an hours drive to get to Monument Valley. When I saw the monuments in the distance I got very excited. We stopped at a Navajo Indian stall on the way in, to take some photos of the valley in the distance and to look at the Indian jewelry. Both Jimmie and Annabelle saw something they wanted to buy from the stall. The necklaces were $12 each, but when the owner of the stall heard me tell them they'd have to use their own money he told them they could have them for $10 each. Little Barney was begging to buy something but I kept telling him he'd be better saving his money for a toy in Walmart than an Indian necklace. The stall holder must have felt sorry for him, as he picked him out a blue necklace made with juniper berries and gave it to him for free. He showed him the Juniper Tree and told him about how he made it. Barney was way more impressed with his gift necklace than he would have been if I'd bought it for him.


A few days before Barney had asked me if Indians were bad people. When I explained that they were nice people, he said he thought they were bad because they fought the cow boys. After the Indian man gave him the necklace he said to me "you're right Mummy, Indian people really are nice".


The drive into Monument Valley was as beautiful as I'd expected, although it was quite an overcast (yet hot) day. We stopped countless times to take photos. We saw wild horses wandering around the roads and Dan got a photo of two of them in front of the monuments. We paid $20 to get into the Indian run tourist part of the monument. This was really wasted money as we could see as well from the roads anyway. The visitor centre there was closed, and we couldn't take the RV on the scenic drive as the roads were unpaved. So we basically paid $20 to sit in a car park and eat lunch. We did take a walk down to the little Indian village and have a look in homes there.


It turns out that there isn't an RV park for about 150 miles either side of Monument Valley, which we didn't realise. So we ended up driving till late in the evening to a town in Colorado, just to find somewhere to sleep. The kids though we excellent the whole time. They are really getting used to traveling so much and entertain themselves every time.

The Four Corners

On our long drive from Monument Valley to Colorado, we past the four corners. An area where four states join. We got there just before the site closed and so we didn't have to pay, or queue for our photos. It was a bit of a silly novelty tourist thing, but we had fun standing on the different states at the same time. The four states are Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. We took a few photos, then Dan and Luke lay across the states for some funny photos.

Zion National Park, Utah

Finally, after days and days of no internet connection we are in an RV park that has sporadic connection possibilities. It has taken me no less than 4 hours to upload the photos from the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park onto Facebook. What with getting disconnected every 5 minutes. Ahh, what I wouldn't do for some reliable internet connection right now. Anyway, there are new albums in the sidebar now. One for the Grand Canyon, two for Zion (yes we went a little crazy with the photos there). New photos from Bryce will be loaded into Utah Album 2 at some point. There are a few new photos in the last Arizona album too (which go with the post below this one).

Well, blow me down, I think we went and found paradise! I had been warned about the beauty of Utah, in particular Zion. But the entire family was just blown away as we drove through the east entrance into the park. The scenery here was totally different to anything we'd seen so far. Mountains carved out of ancient sand dunes, the Virgin River coursing through the middle, alpine trees growing out of orange and pink rock. Zion was so beautiful that even the photos I took from the passenger seat of the RV whilst driving look spectacular.

All three kids sat with their noses to the windows as we drove forty minutes into the park. It was like a magical wonderland, like nothing we'd ever seen before. To my horror we discovered we had to drive through a one mile mountain tunnel to get into the centre of the park. A one mile unlit tunnel, that was only just tall enough for our RV. In fact, for RV's to pass through the tunnel, the road has to be closed at either end, so that the RV can drive in the centre of the tunnel without tearing its roof apart. Well, being extremely claustrophobic I don't like tunnels. I particularly don't like one mile long pitch black tunnels where the roof is inches from the top of the vehicle1 We waited at the tunnel entrance for the road to be shut at the other end (we paid $15 for the privilege) and eventually we led the way through. It was at this point that we discovered one of our headlights wasn't working. So the pitch black drive was not easy. Dan was stressed about trying to stay in the middle of the road, so as not to rip the roof off the RV, and I was holding my breath and talking myself out of hysteria. Nevertheless we made it through in one piece (even if I had to lie down for a few hours with an awful headache afterwards).

We couldn't sleep in Zion the first night as it was a Saturday, we'd arrived late and the camp sites were full. But the ranger there told us about a free place to stay just outside the park - land that belongs to the DLM or something. We headed there expecting to find an old car park or wasteland, but instead found a beautiful sandy riverside campsite. At first we got stuck in the sand. Thelma II's wheels got burried deep and I thought we'd never get out. But Dan got us out eventually and we parked up right by the river in a lovely secluded spot. It was great to hear the sound of the rapid river gushing by all night long.

The following morning we headed back to Zion and booked three nights in one of the campgrounds there. The campground itself was surrounded by spectacular orange coloured mountains. Jimmie and Barney spent many happy hours playing outside there. They have a new game where Jimmie digs the tracks of an RV park into the soil and Barney fills it with various cars and trucks. He spends hours playing with those miniature RV parks. The campground had more caterpillars than I ever knew existed on the planet. Every where you stood, you were treading on them. We'd find them crawling up our shoes, up our arms, on our wheels, on our seats. It was quite amazing. Also, because of all the Cottonwood Trees in the campground it seemed as if it was gently snowing all the time. The soft cotton blows in the breeze and you'd swear it looked like snow.

I have to say that one of the most spectacular drives you could ever take is the drive through the east entrance into the park. But many of the visitors to Zion miss that, as they enter through the south entrance and use the park shuttle bus to reach the various hiking areas. Because of the sheer amount of visitors and the congestion caused by their vehicles Zion has started to operate a free shuttle bus service throughout one route of the canyon. Much like the Grand Canyon does. We made a lot of use of the shuttle. The shuttle stops at various points of interesting for views and hiking. As usual the kids completed the parks junior ranger program, so we were always busy at every stop looking up information and answering questions.

Over our four days in Zion we made several stops, had lovely picnics beneath the mountains and went on many hikes. The first hike we took was the trail up to the Emerald Pools, at the Zion Lodge stop. It was an uphill trail, so Barney got tired quickly. I walked with him to the first pool and waterfall, then we headed back to Zion Lodge for an ice cream whilst Dan, Jimmie and Annabelle carried on with the hike up to the upper pools. This is one of the more popular hikes on the shuttle route, but we discovered much nicer hikes later on. The emerald pools weren't that spectacular, but the hike followed the line of the river, up to some small water falls and some amazing rock formations. There is no where in Zion that isn't extremely beautiful, so it's impossible to be disappointed.

We took another hike from The Grotto stop to Zion Lodge. We had intended to take 'The Grotto' trail, but we took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up taking a scenic walk along the river side. We saw lots of evidence of the beavers that lived there. There were trees that the beavers had knocked down, trees that they were in the process of chewing, and beaver dams at the sides of the river banks. The Virgin River is too rough for the beavers to build their dams in, so they build them on the banks instead.

Dan loved Zion so much that he got up early every morning to go on hikes before the rest of us awoke. Some of the hikes are very strenuous and can't be made with a four year old. The third hike we took as a family was up to the Weeping Rock. This was a lovely, paved, easy walk. Uphill on the way there, and down hill on the way back. It was only a half mile walk but the view at the end was worth a ten mile walk! The weeping rock seeps drips of cooling water out, and when you walk under it, it feels like a waterfall. The kids all got drenched by standing with their heads under the drips. I could have sat at the end of that walk for days just looking out at the view.

Perhaps the most memorable hike for the kids was the walk to the 'Temple of Sinawara'. A walk along the river that gets narrower the further you proceed into the canyon. It was strange to be inside a canyon looking up at the extremely tall cliffs and wondering what the view was like up there, when only a few days before we had been at the top of the Grand Canyon, looking down and wondering the same thing. Along our riverside walk we stopped to catch our breath. Dan sat down on a rock there and put the ruck sack on the ground. From out of no where arrived this cheeky little squirrel. He could smell something and was desperate to find it. He ran all over Dan sniffing for food until he discovered our ruck sack. Without hesitation he rummaged right into the ruck sack and helped himself to hand fulls of popcorn! It was such a funny sight that some Japanese tourists started filming the whole thing! But it made a great memory for the kids. This little squirrel wanted popcorn, and took pop corn. It's something the will talk about for years to come.

Later on that same walk we stopped at a little beach side area. The kids and their Dad spent some time throwing stones into the river, while Barney spent some time covering his legs with mud. We all sat around and had a good family chat here about all sorts of things. It was one of the real special family moments on this trip. On our way back to the shuttle, walking past huge rocks, vast canyons and the river, our day was just made perfect as we spotted our first snake! Yes, for three months we have wanted to see a real wild snake, and finally we have seen it! You can see a photo of it by clicking here.

On one of the days we took a trip outside the park to get a few necessities. As we pulled into a gas station a man from the garage next door came over to tell us that one of our wheels was a bit flat. He was a mechanic and as he examined the wheels he was horrified to discover that we needed 6 new wheels. He phoned Cruise America and told them that they'd rented out an RV for two months that had cracked wheels. I thought he might just be touting for business but Dan looked at the tires and they really were cracked. Cruise America agreed for him to replace the wheels, at a cost to them of $1800 ! I was more than a little angry that Cruise America rented us an RV with both a broken headlight and 6 dodgy wheels. I mean, its not as if we are only hiring it for a week, we are here for 5 months!

The highlight of our last night at Zion was having a camp fire and roasting marshmallows. The kids always enjoy that. This morning we said goodbye to paradise and headed eastwards to Bryce National Park. Tonight we are staying just outside that park and will head in there tomorrow. It's much colder here and there are still patches of snow about the place. Tonight we have had rain for the first time since we drove through Houston in Texas.

The Canyonlands National Park, Utah

Our last full day in Moab was spent at the Canyonlands National Park. One of the smaller parks we've visited, but a beautiful place none the less. The weather was still really wet when we got there, but it dried out into a sunny day by the end. We spent about 3 hours driving through the park and stopping at the various lookouts. I am still trying to find a big horn sheep, which apparently live in many of these parks, but they remain a mystery to me, and I'm starting to wonder if they really exist.

Our favourite part of Canyonlands was the stop to see Mesa Arch. The 10 minute walk up steps to see the arch was well worth it. The natural arch exists right at a cliff edge. We couldn't see the cliff as we walked up to it, until we looked through the arch. It was funny to watch every one walk up to the arch and then hear them gasp as they saw the sudden drop they were standing right next to!

We have now left Moab and driven north through Utah. We spent two days relaxing at a KOA RV park in Provo, just south of Salt Lake City. The park seems to be run by three very friendly 15 or 16 year old goth boys, with faces full of piercings and jet black hair! Maybe they work at the weekend. They were lovely helpful lads though, despite their appearance.

Today we are heading north again to Idaho. We plan to take a scenic drive through Idaho and Wyoming, which will last a few days, until we get to Yellowstone National Park. We've been told its a very busy, touristy place (a bit like the Grand Canyon) but we will go and see it while we are here. After Yellowstone we will be on the last leg of our journey westward across Idaho and Oregon, then back down into California.

With regards to the pregnancy, I am now 11 weeks pregnant and Barney is drawing cute pictures of Mummy with a baby in her tummy. I had a two week stint of feeling so tired that I could barely lift my arms let alone get out of bed. I had about one week of morning sickness, where I felt nauseous and just wanted to go home. But that all seems to have passed and I feel like myself again now. I can't tell you how releived I am to feel well again. With all three of my previous pregnancies I suffered almost constant morning sickness for a full nine months. The fact that I'm not this time is a true blessing.

The La Sal Mountain Scenic drive, Moab, Utah

After a day of extreme heat we have had a sudden change in weather to extreme rain and cold. Even snow. Although we haven't left the town of Moab! Three days of rain so far, although we plan to head on to newer pastures tomorrow.

The La Sal Mountain scenic drive that we took yesterday was cloudy, rainy, and at one point extremely snowy! But the scenery was still beautiful, in a dramatic, stormy kind of way. From the top of the mountain we could see what looked like Arches National Park in the distance. It looked very spooky through all the fog. We wondered whether to do the drive in the rain, but eventually we were driving higher than the clouds where the sun was shining. The mountains were covered in frost and snow. They looked like they'd been dusted with icing sugar, which was pretty. We drove through a snow storm which was a bit scary, as at the time we were driving along cliff edges! We are both amazed to discover how many roads in America have sheer drops on one side of them, but don't have any barriers.

The drive took us up into the La Sal Mountains, and then down to the Colorado River, which has burst its banks right now and is gushing past at really high speeds. We saw some water rafters and Barney waved at them. They stopped rowing to wave back at him, and were suddenly spun round, back to front as they'd taken their hands off the oars! We stopped the RV and ate lunch next to a field full of cows. I would like to be able to do the drive again on a bright sunny day, but I really did appreciate the scenery in the rain as well.