Farmington Villager Lodge

Today, we went to Mesa Verde National Park. There were alot of Pueblo Indian Cliff Dwellings. I got another Junior Ranger Badge. It was my 16th! We took a long hike up and down the mountain to get to go inside some cliff dwellings. We saw a big cloud of smoke from a fire on our way home. We drove to Aztec, New Mexico

... and took her to the Animal Shelter - it wasn't easy to leave to sweet little thing there.<br><br>We hiked through the morning and got to see the Globular Cluster and the Sombrero Galaxy through the Chaco Observatory a night. All-in-all, a wonderful leg.<br>

... again driving on a road where I barely saw anyone for over an hour. But this time, I was up in the mountains, snow and all, and I was a little worried about my car. The problem with taking non-highway roads is you have no idea what you will encounter, when the next town is, and if there is a better route. My car did just fine, but I was very atuned to ...

... sites uncovered over the last 100 years. Back to the information centre to check out the Petroglyphs up on the rock face behind the Centre. The walk up to these ancient works of art was steep and through further ruins, but defiantly worth the climb to view these works up high done so long ago. As we descended we noticed a fossil in a small rock of a spider, it was wonderful and complete as well as in a stone that would fit into your hand. VERY tempting to take it as a ...

Day 172 Tucumcari - Bloomfield - New Mexico Today was set as a drive day with pick up groceries, our aim was to the North West corner of New Mexico. This being a place near the centre of the four corners (Four States meeting in a corner(New Mexico/Utah/Colorado/Arizona) this particular area has some magnificent natural wonders as well as contains some of the oldest Native cultures and ruins around the 800th century to 1500. The road through the ...

... gusts. Then as I walked back to the dam, I almost couldn't stand up without hanging on! Thankfully, the bridge had high chain link fences, with small openings for photos, and for safety. That night we were rocked to sleep (or awake), in the parking lot of a small shopping center in Kayenta, AZ. The winds didn't let up at all. Then, as we got to the Four Corners Monument, the only place in the USA where four ...

... to the four corners and Utah which is where we actually have some plans. There were pieces of bagel on Evan's pillow when we got into the motel room, accompanied by the some fresh cigarette burns or mouse holes in the sheets; priceless. Im gonna snuggle close to my BBQ shirt from 3 days ago and try to remember the good old days of Southern cuisine......

It was nice to wake up outside in the tent again this morning. We packed up and were on our way in record time. (mostly because the tent wasn't wet so we didn't have to wait for it to dry before we packed it up) <br>Our first stop was at the Route 66 museum in Clinton, OK. It was pretty interesting, it followed the road by the decade, from when it was still being planned up through the 70's or so. After that ...

... never heard about the Colorado Plateau. Larry, our tour director, told us the plateau in one of the largest in the world, second only to one in Tibet. It encompasses 130,000 square miles. The Grand Canyon which eroded out of this plateau is 277 miles long and averages 1.2 miles wide with some places as wide as 10 miles. As amazing as it seems, we were able to get to within ...

... to the Grand Canyon? So....seeing the Grand Canyon is a great experience. The fantastic scenery evokes a sense of the tremendous power of random natural forces operating through eons. The "layer cake" geology of the canyon traces earth's history back nearly two billion years. The range of colors in the layers reflect the myriad sources from which the layers were formed. Sediment from eroded sandstone, topsoil ...