Our Great Southwest Adventure: Day 5

Spring Break Vacation Day 5: March 20, 2014

Page, AZ – Farmington, NM

We packed up and said goodbye to Page, and continued our journey East! The first leg of the journey, from Page to Monument Valley, was just a long drive through Navajo land – but I did get a few more pictures of “cool rocks”

Below, we are nearing Monument Valley – kind of in the middle of Utah and Arizona. You can see quite a bit from the highway driving by, but we decided it was worth it to drive through and really experience it.

Cost to get in is $5 per person…after experiencing it all, we think it’s a bit overpriced, and that the Navajo’s are not using any of that money to improve the area for tourists. You’ll see what I mean in a bit!

There is no denying that this place is beautiful though. What an amazing and creative God we have!

We opted to just drive around the whole park and not take a tour. We enjoyed getting to drive through and stopping to take pictures whenever we wanted. But I’m going to warn anyone who plans to visit – the dirt roads that go through are terrible! Steep, bumpy, deep ruts, rocks – all things to look out for. Our truck did fine for the most part, but the very end is the worst. We suspect they don’t do anything about their roads so that you’ll pay for a tour. But we survived!

Pictures from our drive through Monument Valley:

Here’s an example of the road…and this is a “good” section! If the road was too rough, I was holding on for my life rather than taking a picture :p

Pictured above: “The Cube”

Hey goats!

Ahh, finally – on paved road again! Goodbye Monument Valley!

One last look back

After this we continued East, entering into Utah again. We stopped to see the rock that gave Mexican Hat, Utah its name.

Hey Grant!

After this, we stopped at Goosenecks State Park in Utah. Gotta love that it’s free – it was a great place to stop, stretch our legs, and enjoy more hidden beauty in God’s creation!

Above: Curtis & I being cute

Below: Grant solving a difficult maze

There are so many of these “goosenecks”! So cool!

Yes I have so many pictures of these…I didn’t even post them all. They’re all starting to look the same. But I can’t choose which ones I like the most! haha

Ah finally, on the road again. Trying to get to 4 Corners monument by 5…

More beauty along a Utah Highway

Snow capped mountains in the distance! We’re looking into Colorado!

Above: Those are called “Two Navajo on a Hill” but I like to call them Salt & Pepper shakers.

Saying goodbye to red rocks and hello to snow capped mountains…

Welcome to Colorado! We had a lovely 20 minutes there.

We made it to 4 corners by 4:45, but the Navajo’s had already closed the gate All we wanted was to stand in the center and take pictures of our feet! After some debating, we decided to go back tomorrow. We did go back to Colorado to get a letterbox before going back to New Mexico and driving 40 minutes East to Farmington.

Below: the Shiprock of Shiprock, NM.

We ended the day with a walk to Village Inn for pie.

Day 5 wrap up: Hiked 5.7 miles, drove 300 miles (Page, AZ to Farmington, NM), found 1 letterbox, visited Monument Valley, Goosenecks State Park, and Mexican Hat Monument.