Wednesday 21 August 2013

Northwards towards Monument Valley

This is a fairly short blog because it has one important message to McDonalds – “we have heard of your name, we know how to recognise a McDonalds, you do not have to stick large McDonalds billboards everywhere”. Dear reader, the reason for this rant will become clear in a short while.

The plan for our last two weeks is to head north to Monument Valley, then further north to the Arches National Park at Moab, a long loop westwards to Bryce Canyon National Park, then south to Zion National Park Park and finally further south west to Las Vegas for our last few days in the USA this trip before we head to LA to fly home.

There are two possible routes to Monument Valley from Winslow, one is to drive to Flagstaff, the other is to head north through Navajo country and the Hopi Tribal Lands – this latter choice is the one we have made because the area is known as Arizona’s High Country, it is isolated and empty but for a few small villages and towns.

And so we set off north on a quiet country back road. Typical of the views we see is

Mountain in Hopi Land

Mesa of amazing size standing in isolation

Abandoned House

abandoned houses from an earlier age

View

empty countryside

Route View

craggy countryside

And Then

and then,peeping over the horizon in an area where no one lives, at a crossroads

Shame on McDonalds

is a large McDonalds sign telling us that the nearest McDonalds is about 90 miles away and the next one after that is about 120 miles away.

Do they really need to warn us this far in advance?

Shme on Cellular One

To be fair to McDonalds, on the other side of the crossroads is an advert for Cellular One but at least their shop is in the next town.

First View Monument Valley

Three hours later, having passed both McDonalds advertised on the billboard, we get our first view of Monument Valley.

Apart from the odd section of road (and certain billboards), it was a lovely drive through some wonderful countryside.

No comments:

Post a Comment