Along the valley floor

A South Western style breakfast burrito this morning before we set off towards more of the cowboy country.

We'd slept in a small town (Pop 300) founded by Mormons who’d cut a tough new route through the rocks to open up the southern edge of Utah.

Seeing a picture of the original pioneers lined up in their Sunday best gave little clue to the rugged hardship of the journey they'd all made.

Onward toward the land filmed by John Ford and a part of so many westerns. We stopped at the one time small trading post used as a hotel by John Wayne and many others when filming The Searchers and many other western classics.

Then crossing the border back into Arizona exploring the breathtaking valley floor within the Navajo reservation.

Utah around sunrise

Standing by the Utah roadside just around sun-rise.

You can hear the trucks on this high-desert road from miles away as they approach.

The small roadside foliage hides flying critters just waiting to see what's so different about a European as they wait to pounce.

Me, I may be standing by another stretch of black-top in the middle of a desert, but I realise I'm grinning broadly.

weather check in Durango

It's been a strange kind of day. We started in the sunny hills outside of Durango with a plan to go north to a small mining village. The top picture shows the yard of the place where we slept.

But shortly after we started, the sky ahead turned grey, so we revised our plan and headed south west towards the finer weather (by evening we discovered we'd missed flash floods and 3/4inch hailstones)

Instead we wound up in a sunny and hot native American reservation where we followed some of the trails.

Spectacular with views across four US States from around 9000 feet elevation and deep canyons cutting throughout the landscape.

We spotted various generations of pueblo living, from the early years of AD, when the dwellers lived underground in pits, through AD700-800 when they lived in buildings of brick and wattle, and then into the 1200s, when they moved to an intricate way of building brick structures into the cliff faces of the area.

And then, by evening, we'd crossed the spacey alien and surreal landscape from New Mexico into Utah, and found ourselves sitting outdoors during sunset, whilst enjoying a cowboy-style supper.

coffee break

We're reloading the car for today's route to Durango still buzzing from all the news since meeting our Albuquerque friends yesterday.

Before we hit today's new Route 84 we'll drop back into Santa Fe for a last moment on Route 66 and to refuel for the journey.

It's still early morning right now, with already a strong sunlight and blue skies. I'm operating on coffee alone at the moment and will probably hold eating until we get back into the centre of town.

We've already been looking at maps and decided a route which will take us past many Native American sights along the Rio Grande and Rio Chama on the way north-west to Colorado for the next leg of our journey.

Santa Fe

Santa Fe today, which wasn't quite as I'd expected it. I'd anticipated the middle of town to be high rise, but Santa Fe definitely is not. It's a Pueblo revival style of architecture, with most of the buildings around two stories high.

It works well to make a charming centre to the city, which was still sleepily awakening when we arrived in the centre on Sunday morning. We'd started early with coffees 'to go' so that we could be back by 1pm to meet some nearby friends. Not quite our original plan for how to meet, but close enough.

We'd sent them a mail throughout the post, when we left England, because we didn't have the right electronic means of communication. A few mishaps, but we were now all synchronised to meet. It should have been in Albuquerque, but hey.

mah-waan, mah-waan

We're still heading east and spent part of today on Route 66 spotting many shiny vehicles and a large assortment of Harley motorcycles.

Eventually it was time to head north towards the Rio Grande and the mountains.

All along the route are many signs of the native American Indians and tonight we're staying with the people of the Picuris Pueblo. They settled in the area some 800 years ago as the 'people of a hidden valley'. Nowadays, they are an intrinsic part of the scene around Santa Fe.

day sky black

The storm clouds that had blackened the sky also cracked with that lightning that goes across the sky instead of up and down.

We could hear gods arguing but no sign of tears. Then suddenly, a silence and minutes later a fierce drumming as the rain kicked for fifteen minutes before a new blue appeared and the sun returned.

Later we saw a weather report with splashes of red heat across most of America. The all-time New York record of 104 was lower than most of the temperatures we'd experienced since being here right up to the thunderstorms.

Getting my kicks

The idea of many of the Main Streets in USA being joined together by the old Route 66 was an interesting one, even if the Superhighways criss- crossing America brought an inevitable end to the old route with the crowded rise of the automobile.

I've travelled part of Route 66 before, but this time am further East, currently in New Mexico, where the road gets its own special signage and every so often there's a strip of it that's been refurbished.

What better place to stop at a brilliant diner and eat a blue plate special from the counter, sitting on one of those spinning stools? And don't forget the milkshake.

Mine's a strawberry.

Taking it easy in Winslow, Arizona

Today's picture is for a 'do-it-yourself' Eagles song lyric creation.

There's a lot of Eagles and Eagle-esque music on the radio here so what better place to stop on Route 66, than Winslow Arizona. I'm taking it easy here, standing on a corner and there's a girl in a red flatbed Ford over on the other side of the road. As if she's slowed to take a look at me.

The roadsigns show that Winslow is going through a makeover at the moment. Further through the town is La Posada, a railway hotel brilliantly designed by Mary Anne Colter and run by Fred Harvey who started the Harvey Girls movement. It had a shortish original history as a hotel until it was re-opened as a magical place a few years ago.

As a song lyric might go..."Such a fine sight to see".

petroglyphs

The sunrise had gone from zero to maximum in a few minutes and I was now contemplating the best route through some spiky terrain.

Today we needed to cover quite some ground to stay on track although inevitably we'd get sidetracked at some point or other.

I can't easily list today's extensive diversions in a five minute post, so here's picture of some of the petroglyphs we spotted on a big rock before we crossed the border into New Mexico.


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flora

The desert around Sedona is actually quite abundant with flora. There's supposed to be around 11 inches of water a year, mainly in the monsoon season - which is right about now.

The baby cactus we've acquired is supposed to only need one teaspoon of water a month, so I guess plants around here are pretty tough.

In the sky I can see five raptors soaring on the hot air, a little too high and distant for me to make out exactly what they are. Earlier there was an eagle, golden plumage alone, taking a short look at us before sliding away in a slow circular flight.

check boots for scorpions

The iPhone picture of our current base will have to do for the moment. We're around Sedona, which is the scene of many American Western movies as well as (slightly surprisingly) Mad Men and (more surprisingly) Brideshead Revisited.

We're surrounded by the red stacked rocks, with the nearest to us being the chimney stack, but a pretty good view across to the many others. Its also one of the mystical spiritual vortexes around here. so we'll be soaking in the vibe along with the sunshine

Last night I was eating the fried cactus with (yep) cactus sauce, admittedly with a little chillie added for that extra spike.

I've found it fairly easy to remember to do the looking around the ground at night for scorpions. They are attracted to water and even the little ones can pack a pretty hefty sting. There's rattlesnakes too, but I suppose we are in cowboy country.